The first stage of any search engine optimisation work is On-Page Optimisation.

This is the process of ensuring the content of the website and the various Meta Tags contain the information that is important to rank for.

Although there are various sources that suggest some of the common factors are no longer counted by Google, with between 30-50 ranking factors having the weighting changed and tested on a daily basis, it makes sense to ensure that they are all optimised to ‘best practice’ standards.

The more visible parts of on page optimisation include;

• Title Tags – the text in the blue bar at the top of your browser
• Description Tag – Widely used as the snippet in the search results
• Keyword Density – Ensuring the terms that you want to rank for are included in the content of the page
• Internal Linking – Using keywords within internal pages to link to other internal pages

Some of the less visible factors, but equally important, include;

• Alt and Title Tags – Used to label images so the search engines understand the content
• Keywords Tag – Widely disregarded by search engines, but that may change
• URL Canonicalisation – Multiple instances of the same page creating duplicate content
• Sitemap / Robots – Useful for letting search engines know what pages your site has and where they can go

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but gives you an idea of what we will do as part of our SEO packages to improve the position of your website.

It is possible to see good ranking improvements for keywords that are well optimised on the pages.

On-Page Optimisation forms the first part of all our SEO Packages.

The basic principle here is increasing the number of links that point to your website. It is important to remember, however, that it is not simply a quantity issue. The quality of these links also needs to be considered.

There are many different ways to build the number of links your website has. Some of the more popular ways include;

• Article Marketing – Publishing useful, unique articles that contain links through to your main website.
• Directories – Manual submission of your website to quality internet directories
• Blogs / Forums – Writing on relevant industry related blogs or forums with links in your signature
• Social Bookmarking – Using Web 2.0 sites to ‘bookmark’ pages of your site

By increasing the quantity, and quality, of the link that point to your website, you can increase the Authority of your website for the keywords that link to you.

The words that form the link to your website are called ‘Anchor Text’ and it is important that you try to vary the anchor text used and avoid terms such as “Click here” or “Our Website”. Remember that each link is like a ‘vote’ for your website for that anchor text, so be sure to use your Keywords in the link.