What is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and how to do it Part 1

We all get told that content is key when it comes to SEO, this is very true and by content we mean keyword density (not too much, only around 4% of your entire content should be keywords), internal links, outbound links and meta tags.

Lets start off with the "keyword Game"

Keyword density falls in the category of site relevancy, relevancy tells Google what your site offers. Lets say you were a double glazing company, your most dense words in your content should be windows and double-glazing (the hyphen tells google that these are connecting words), if these were not your words then i would be worried. However this does not mean that you can just type out the same word 100 times, Google is not stupid! To help you with knowing what Google sees as relevancy, sign up to webmaster tools. Webmaster tools is a free tool made by Google which allows you to not only see your site to how they do but to also adjust certain settings and get advise. Below is a picture of the webmaster tools relevancy module:

The image above is a caption from Webmaster tools. It has been taken from a double glazing company. What it shows is that the most dense keywords are relevant to the industry. This is very good.

A common mistake that many SEO companies make is advising their customers to buy a domain name that contains a keyword relevant to their industry. WRONG! Ebay.co.uk, Google.co.uk, Amazon.co.uk, what keywords do these domain names mean to their industry...nothing! Google and other serach engines do not care what your domain name is however they do care about several things linked to your domain name:

1. The age of your domain name makes a difference, many spam websites only last a few months, as a result search engines consider domains that have been around for a considerable length of time as "experienced in their industry".

2. Registration length is another factor. When we buy (correct term is rent) domain names, the period that you have registered for that domain is also a contributing factor. If you opt in for a ten year contract for your domain name then this tells search engines that your here to stay. A 6 month contract tells search engines that you are a possible spam site or a complete newb with no experience!

3. Who its registered to according to WHOIS. Register it to the company name and address not a bogus name.

4. Last but not least, the website!

Many people try to factor in spelling mistakes into your keywords, this would be good if we were still living in 2002. Google and other search engines now recognise when people mispell words and find what they were actually looking for. Spelling mistakes are bad and contribute negatively to the usability of your site.

Dont hide words, in the 90^s people tried to rackup their keyword count by hiding there words into the background, i.e. if your background was white then they would colour the font to match. Google and other search engines can read the css and know what colour the font is in relation to the other aspects of your site. This may get you banned from google so don't do it!

Part 2 will dwell into the realm of internal links and how to correctly present them.