An introduction to Search Engine Optimisation

An introduction to Search Engine Optimisation

Thursday 31st January 2013

SEO is always one of the first things that we get asked about by new clients. It's such an important aspect of web design - there is no point in building the perfect website if nobody can find it. For this reason, we've decided to list some ideas you should and should not be doing to make your website rank higher in search engines.

This list looks at more than just meta tags and the basics of SEO, so even if you're doing some of the points listed, there still may be more that you can do. It also covers some things that you should never do!

Things to do...

• Write great content that includes your keywords
• Write unique content
• Add new content all the time
• Create a great keyword phrase that is popular, but not too popular and focus one page on this phrase
• Develop an accessible site
• If possible, get a domain with your keyword phrase
• If you cannot get this domain, try and use the keyword phrase in your URL
• Ask other people for links to your page
• Create a sitemap
• Format your keyword phrases to stand out
• Write a descriptive meta description
• Use hyphens to separate words in domains

Things to avoid...

• Don't use Flash and Frames (Only use Flash for non-critical pieces of a page)
• Don't link a lot to external sites
• Don't use images instead of text links
• Don't have more than 10 words in your URL
• Don't use session IDs or Dynamic URLs
• Don't link to link farms
• Don't link to and from the same site repeatedly
• Don't get into link circles
• Don't have broken links on your site
• Don't duplicate content on your site
• Don't hide text - your site will be banned
• Never redirect to another domain
• Never link invisible images

by Steve Gray, Studio-83

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