Five Tips for On-Page Search Engine Optimisation

Broadly speaking, any serviceable search engine optimisation (SEO) campaign should be comprised of two parts: on-page and off-page. Off-page SEO requires a significant and consistent investment of time and effort to produce results, but a little time and understanding can greatly boost your on-page SEO.

Things that make your web site easier for search engine crawlers to navigate will improve your on-page SEO. If crawlers can easily navigate and understand the structure and content of your web site, your relevance and value scores will benefit - and more importantly, so will your readers. Here are some useful tips that can produce rapid results with minimum fuss.

1. Use Header Tags
Using header tags will make your web site easier for search engine crawlers to navigate. Essentially a header tag will tell the crawlers (just as it will tell your readers) that the text contained within it places the rest of the article in context. If you are targeting specific keywords or phrases, getting these or variants thereof into your header tags will improve the chances of your page ranking for those terms.

2. Look Out For Dead Links
There is nothing search engine crawlers despise more than dead links: dead links are virtual dead ends. Readers and search engines alike find them a frustrating waste of time. Regularly checking the links on your web site is important - make it your job to perform a monthly check on any outbound links to ensure the content still exists and be careful to check your internal links after any site maintenance.

3. Use Words in URLs
Using words in the URLs of your web site will make it easier for search engine crawlers to get around your site and for your readers to remember your pages. Treat your URLs much like your header tags: they should be focused on or around your targeted key terms wherever appropriate, but above all, relevant to the content associated with that URL.

4. Use a Reliable Host
Make sure that your web site is hosting with a reliable provider. Search engine crawlers do not like downtime so it is important to ensure that your hosting provider has more than 97-98% uptime. In most cases this will not be a problem but remember that extremely cheap providers may prove to be a false economy if your web site ranking suffers.

5. Avoid Flash Home Pages Like the Plague
Once upon a time, flash home pages were in vogue. Thankfully they seem to crop up less and less frequently now as they are a nightmare from an SEO standpoint. If you must feature extensive flash sections on your web site, be sure to offer an HTML alternative or you will be committing one of SEO's cardinal sins. Search engine crawlers do not respond well to flash and some studies suggest that readers don't either.

Above all, remember the golden rule: changes to your site that are good for your readers are usually good for your search engine rankings.

Kingpin-SEO is an ethical UK search engine optimisation company with high-profile clients across a diverse range of industries. Combining on-page SEO with white hat backlink services, Kingpin-SEO could put its years of expertise to work for your business.

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Five Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) FAQ

Search engine optimisation (SEO) can be difficult to understand for those without an inside knowledge of the discipline. Here we have attempted to answer a short list of questions about SEO that are frequently asked by people who work outside of the SEO industry.

1. What is search engine optimisation?

Many people know little about what search engine optimisation actually means or entails. Essentially search engine optimisation is an umbrella term for a number of different processes that can help a web site rank higher in the results pages delivered by search engines.

2. What is the point?

It has been estimated that as much as 90% of all web traffic that passes through search engines clicks through to a result delivered on the first page. Other estimates are not quite so high but it is certainly true that a great deal of traffic ends up at a site that is featured on the first page - ranking in the very first position will earn your web site the highest number of visitors. As anyone with a working knowledge of marketing will know, visitors = potential customers = sales.

3. Is it possible to rank well for everything?

In a word, no (unless you are Wikipedia!). The results pages delivered by search engines are different for every search query and the processes that improve rankings are connected to specific queries. In other words, ranking well for one thing will not ensure you rank well for another.

4. How long does it take?

How long is a piece of string? The answer will depend on a number of factors, including the level of competition for the key terms (or search queries) you are fighting for. In some cases, results may be noticeable after little more than a month - but in others, it may take a sustained campaign spanning a year or even longer. Once a web site achieves a good ranking, regular maintenance work is often required to keep it in a prime position.

5. How much does it cost?

See above. Prices will vary greatly depending on the amount and quality of work required. For a locally focused web site in an uncompetitive industry, aiming to rank for a few long tail terms (but no head terms) - unconcerned with the ethical standpoint of their chosen SEO company - costs could be extremely low. On the other hand, for an international web site in a competitive industry, aiming to rank for lots of head terms in a short space of time and who insists on ethical, sustainable practice, costs could be extremely high.

Although this short article cannot provide a definitive FAQ (that document would be much, much longer), it should provide some quick answers to the most fundamental questions facing someone who has encountered the term "search engine optimisation" for the very first time. Further resources can be found at comprehensive web sites such as SEOmoz (where there is an excellent 'Beginner's Guide to SEO' for readers with more than a passing interest).

Kingpin-SEO is an industry-leading UK provider of search engine optimisation services. Click here to find out more about their competitive, ethical link services and what Kingpin-SEO can achieve for your business.

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What Is Search Engine Optimisation? An Introduction to Onsite and Offsite SEO

Any business who's serious about establishing a strong web presence have to maximise the traffic and exposure from search engines because they are capable of driving millions of potential customers to a business. Search engine optimisation (SEO) refers to the methods and techniques that can improve a website's ranking (or visibility) on search results. There is a whole industry devoted to SEO.

To understand SEO, one must first understand how their results are compiled.

How are search results generated
Search companies have created computer programs that robotically scan the internet and gather information on all the websites they find. These computer programs or 'bots' are called spiders because their job is to 'crawl' the 'web'. These 'crawlers' download information from each website, which are then stored in their database.

When someone carries out a search, the search engines compare the search keyword(s) against the information in their database. In a fraction of a second, the powerful super computers search through billions of websites in their database and pick out a list that match the user's criteria. Websites that are deemed most relevant are displayed at the top of the search results.

Each search engine has its own unique proprietary formula to determine relevance and the exact formulas are usually closely guarded trade secrets. It is said Google's formula contains over 200 variables. Although the exact formulas are unknown, there are a number of variables that are known to influence a website's search results ranking.

Common SEO methods
SEO companies like to divide different techniques into two broad categories: onsite SEO and offsite SEO.
Onsite SEO refers to modifications a webmaster can do to their own website to improve its search results ranking such as search engine friendly URL, effective meta tags, internal links and sitemap.

The most talked about and widely emphasised offsite SEO variable is link popularity. Virtually all SEO companies provide some form of link popularity service. Link popularity refers to the quantity and quality of a website's back links. Quality can be affected by a number of factors: whether the originating website is in the same sector, whether the link has relevant anchor text, the page rank score (PR) or link popularity of the originating website and the link's visibility.

Webmaster should always try to get the best quality links and get as many of them as possible. Quantity is key but sometimes quality can be more important. For example a link coming from a highly relevant website with PR5 score could be worth more than ten PR0 links.

Dawson Gao is a member of the administrative team at lacartes.com - an online business platform designed to help businesses gain direct exposure to high quality search engine traffic and reach new customers.

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