Extra 9000+ visitors per month
1 December 2007
Quick Links: Search Engine Optimisation
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Search Engine Optimisation |
Search engine optimisation is the process of enhancing a web sites ability to achieve top positions on search engines, therefore increasing the exposure of the web site to Internet users. There are thousands of search engines used today. Three clearly dominate the world accounting for more than 90% of usage. These engines (in order of size) are Google, Yahoo and MSN. For a web site to succeed, it must be found easily on these major search engines.
A search engine is a database of web site pages on the Internet. The larger engines have billions of pages in their databases. When a user enters a search request, a very complex program then quickly calculates which pages, from the billions in their database, they will display for their search results. Needless to say, web sites appearing at the top of these results are deemed to be the most important and will therefore receive a greater number of visitors.
There are 2 areas that are considered by a search engine when they are compiling their results: Web Page Content and Web Page Link Support.
Web Page Content refers to the raw code of a web page. Each search engine has its own algorithm that is used to sort through web page code and arrive at a 'Content' score for the page. Most algorithms will assess the same areas of a web page, so it is important to ensure that each web page on a web site can be clearly understood. Search engine optimisation will focus a web page on a group of words determined to be the most important in regards to the audience being targeted. The important sections of a web page are then checked and content is adjusted to ensure that the best possible 'Content' score is achieved.
Web Page Link Support refers to the other web pages that link to the web page being assessed. The linking web pages can either be from the same web site or from other sites on the Internet. As with Web Page Content, an algorithm is used to generate a 'Web Page Link Support' score. This algorithm will consider several factors, including relevancy, strength and the formatting used for the link. The most important and time consuming job within search engine optimisation is building a strong network of related links to a specific web page. Building this network properly is very difficult, which is why search engines like Google now consider this score to be the most important when determining results.
Once the 2 scores have been generated, they are then used to create a final score for the web page being assessed. This final score will determine the position of the web page in the search result list.
