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Search Engine Submission Service: Free SEO tips

As well as using our search engine submission and optimisation service to help increase the exposure of your website, implementing search engine optimisation (SEO) methods can significantly increase your website's position in search engine results.

This guide will give you an overview of some of the search engine optimisation strategies you can implement as part of your search engine submission service investment. In addition, after ordering a search engine submission and optimisation service from us, we will send you a custom and personalised written search engine optimisation report for your website.

Why optimise your site for search engines?

Search engines are often the first place people go when they look for information on the Web. It is therefore vital to make your website search engine friendly.

Most people using search engines will usually not read any further than the first three pages of search results. In fact, most will end up choosing one of the first three listings on the first page. If your site does not have a high position in search results, you are likely to be missing out on visitors.

Search engines calculate the relevance of websites, and therefore their position in search results, using complex algorithms. These algorithms use a large number of variables to determine your site's relevance for a search query. The term search engine optimisation (SEO) refers to the process of analysing a website and enhancing it to ensure it receives the highest search engine position possible.

How search engines determine rankings

Before we look at the approaches you can use to improve your site's ranking on search engines, it is a good idea to have a general understanding of how search engines determine your website's position in search results.

Most search engines obtain their information by "crawling" the Web on a regular basis, following hyperlink after hyperlink and creating a virtual map as they go. The information obtained on these crawls is applied to complex algorithms when searches are undertaken to determine your website's relevance and position in search results.

There are a many methods that you can apply to your site to help improve its rank. Some of the most important are listed below.

Use relevant key words

Key words are fundamental to a search. It is important that you include a broad range of words on your site that are relevant to your website's topic. Remember that the more relevant key words your site uses, the greater the chance your site will be displayed in search results. When selecting keywords for your site, consider what words or phrases people searching for your website are likely to enter into search engines and make sure those words appear somewhere on your site. In order to include more keywords, in some cases you might need to add new pages to your site to expand the information it contains.

Frequency of key words

The number of times that keywords appear on webpages also plays a role in determining a page's relevance - the more frequently a word appears on a webpage, the higher its position in search results may be. However, you should never repeat words more than necessary since search engines will consider excessive use of the same word an attempt to achieve a higher ranking without your site being entitled to one and your site may be penalised by receiving a lower position. As a general rule, if you include keywords at a "normal" frequency and write content with the primary intention of informing visitors rather than attempting to include as many keywords as possible, search engines are likely to give you a better position in search results.

Use descriptive webpage titles

The title of your webpage is often used by search engines to name individual webpages throughout your site. Although the title should retain some consistency throughout all your webpages (such as indicating the name of your site), make sure that each webpage's title also describes the page's content.

Titles have two important functions - they play an important role when search engine's analyse the content of a webpage and will also be displayed as the heading for search results. Titles are specified between the <title> and </title> HTML elements towards the top of webpages.

Update your content regularly

Regularly updated websites are looked upon favourably by most search engines since Web users will have access to the latest information available.

Introductory text

Home pages often place heavy emphasis on the use of images. Images can not be interpreted by search engines under most circumstances. Because your website's home page may often be the first entry point to your site by search engine crawlers, you might like to add a brief introduction about your site to the top of your home page to make the work of search engines that little bit easier.

Number of links pointing to your site

One of the most important factors in determining your website's rank in search results is the number of links from other websites that point to your site. Search engines place particular importance on links to your site that contain the keyword being searched for. The greater the number of websites that link to yours, the higher your website is likely to be listed on search results.

Use meta tags

Meta tags are usually placed directly below the <title> ... </title> elements and provide further information to search engines as to the website's content. The most important meta tags are for providing a website description and suggestion keywords relevant to the webpage. They are defined as follows:

<meta name="description" content="Description goes here.">
<meta name="keywords" content="keyword1, keyword2">

Keywords are defined as a list separated by commas (,) ranging in order from most to least important. To determine which keywords are most suited for your website, think about words that describe the information contained in your website, and that people looking for your site are most likely to search for. The keywords you enter should always appear at least once on the applicable webpage. Keywords may be specified as either individual words or phrases. Try limit the number of keywords to around ten as some search engines penalise websites with too many keywords by decreasing their page rank.

Hyperlinks and headings

Search engines usually consider text rendered as a hyperlink or a heading to have more importance than plain text. Try to include important relevant key words as hyperlinks at least once in a webpage and include them in headings.

Considerations when using images and multimedia

Remember that search engines can only interpret plain text. Multimedia files such as images, Flash animations and video can not be analysed. This includes text residing in images. If your website does rely heavily on images, try to supply at least some text. When images are used, you can provide alternative text using the alt= attribute, which most search engines will be able to interpret.

Where to from here?

Having implemented some of the above tips, you're now ready to submit your site and receive your optimisation report!