Web Design SEO - What is it?

16 October 2008
Basic description of SEO - article 1 of a series

So we know that SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimisation”, but what does it really mean and why is it useful?

Well lets consider you want to open a shop. In order for your shop to be successful you need to ensure you get as many visitors, thus possible customers, in your shop as possible. To achieve this you need to ensure your shop is in the middle of the busiest part of town so there are plenty of shoppers passing by. If your shop isn’t in a place where people go shopping, then you won’t be found. Lets not have you going bankrupt down some lonely side-street!

Secondarily you want entice would be passers-by into your shop. You achieve this by making sure your shop is clean and tidy and looks professional. Next on the list is that your shopfront clearly advertises what you sell / do. If people have to come inside your shop before they know what you sell / do, then you’re sure to miss out on lots of possible customers who can’t be bothered to venture in to find out.

Finally, you need to get yourself known and recommended by others, especially others with a good reputation. Ever been to a shop because someone else recommended it? Of course you have, we all have. The more people know about you, the more people will visit.

Lets now change the shop to a website…

You want your website to be in the middle of the busiest part of town where all the shoppers go? Well, where do all the shoppers go on the web? The search engine is where, and in particular Google, which has over 70% of the market share. When you want to find something on the web the first thing you do is go onto a search engine and type in what you’re looking for. In order to be found on the search engine you need to be on their list of sites. If you’re not on that search engines’ list of sites, thus not in the town centre, then you won’t be found, even if someone typed in your exact web site name.

To be on the search engines list you need to submit your site to them, or more efficiently, to the top few search engines out there; Ask, MSN, Yahoo, Google.

Now you are in the town center, albeit down a dirty side street no one goes to! Or in web terms you’re on Googles’ list, but on page 1006. No one is ever going to find you down there. To move closer to the busiest part, or up the search engine ranking list to the top 3 pages (over 90% of people do not go past page 3 on search engine listings), you need to show how important your website is to the search engine so they place you up in the busiest part.

To show a search engine how important you are depends on a few factors:

Your website is well coded with no validation errors (Shop looking professional).

Please note the ‘visual’ look of the website isn’t taken into consideration, only the code.

Your website clearly states what it is about and its content has a clear message (Shop front clearly advertising what you sell / do).

Your website is considered good enough by other well ranking websites by virtue of them having a link to your website from theirs (Someone recommended your shop).

So if you submit a professionally coded, well constructed, with appropriate content website that is recommended by other websites, then you will have SEO’ed your site.

Now for the important, albeit slightly negative bit…

If you have a look on Google for SEO then you’ll find plenty to read about the subject, with lots of advice on sure-fire ways to boost your search engine ranking. You may even find claims that by following, said authors, advice you will surely be in Googles’ top 10!

But if 11 web site owners followed the same advice, how could they all be in the top 10? Obviously they can’t and that’s the main point I would like to make about SEO. The methods I use are well known, nothing special and won’t nescessaryly make your site jump to the top over other sites which also implement SEO methods. Especially those which have been around for a long time with lots of recommendations from other sites. Just think, a small newsagent isn’t going to be more famous than WHSmith overnight.

You may think “Then why bother?”, well the main thing is that lots of sites don’t think about SEO and therefore if you do then you should at least make your site more ‘findable’ than those. And with SEO techniques used you will ensure that as your site and reputation grows, so your search engine listing is maximised.


Regards,
Nicholas Farmer