Why It's Important You Optimise Your Website


by Vincent Rogers - Date: 2010-08-13 - Word Count: 578 Share This!

There are some website owners who believe that it is enough to simply have an online presence. But if you've paid for the design and hosting of a site, why not go the extra distance and market it properly? The results can be quite surprising.

It doesn't matter what your business is. Whether you're actively involved in selling products online or just promoting your own brand and services, there's plenty of scope for improvement. Whilst some might think that SEO is a waste of time and money, the truth is actually very different.

Search Engine Optimisation isn't just important, it should be essential. A website is created to attract traffic, preferably receiving hits from those who are likely to be interested in what you have to offer. This is exactly what the search engines provide.

Google, Yahoo and Bing command huge audience bases. People automatically turn to their search facilities to find anything and everything. With online access diversifying across numerous platforms, including mobile phones, the number of people engaging with these engines is increasing by the day.

Their results are based around complex algorithms. Sites are indexed by a spider, which crawls through the various pages finding information and determining authority. They then list all sites and attach them to to any particular search phrase, ranked in terms of their relevance. But they are looking for particular information, which is where SEO comes in.

For example, a site's strength is largely determined by its incoming link structure. Each link passes on authority; therefore the more you have, the more authoritative you appear. But all links weren't created equal unfortunately. Stronger ones will have a greater benefit, which is when you might start being selective and searching out sites with a higher PageRank (just one factor in determining a site's strength).

Relevance too can be important. You want to source links that are from people within your industry, from your surrounding area or who share some common bond. These will also be seen as a more respected source.

Others too can have a greater effect. Often if you get a trackback from a site with a .Gov or .Edu domain, these too will have a more noticeable impact than dozens of low PR equivalents.

Then there's content. Not just your on-page copy (which is hugely important) but your Meta too. Just getting the small things right can make a huge difference. For example, how hard is it to write a unique piece of content for each page? It doesn't have to be too lengthy either. In the most part on-page copy should be around 200 words; however if you don't have time, less can still work.

Again, this is your opportunity to prove relevance. Whilst the links provide strength, content will give the search engine spiders a clear indication of what terms you're targeting. So make sure that each page is optimised for your keywords by including them a few times throughout, preferably within the H1 tag too.

Then of course there's internal link structure, site speed and everything else that you should be doing for your visitor's benefit first and foremost. Search engines like websites that are visitor friendly, so if you are optimising for Google you will also be helping your human guests too.

Ignoring this potential could be a major mistake and will certainly cost you a good stream of targeted traffic. Creating a website is only half the battle, so make sure you complete the job and get it optimised for visitors and search engines.


Vincent Rogers works as freelance Copywriter. For professional SEO services he recommends leading Hampshire-based SEO Agency Impact Media. They offer a full range of search engine marketing packages including SEO and PPC.n
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