anglaisaparis.com

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

What is a search engine?

A program designed to help find information on the web. The main search engines are Google, Yahoo and Live Search (MSN), though many others exist. Search engines use “robots” to crawl the web for the latest sites and pages. These pages are added to a search engine’s database. When you search for a specific search term the search engine searches its database to find sites that are relevant to your search. The relevance of a site for a specific search term (set of key words) is determined by the search engine’s algorythym. Specialist SEO companies (see below) try and determine how a particular search engine’s algorythm works in order that they can optimise a site so that it appear higher in the list of results (more relevant).

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a generic term for changes to a web site that make it more “search engine friendly” and hence visible for certain key words. Broadly speaking these changes can be classified as technical, structural, content related and link related.

Some examples for each area:

1. Technical

• Directly accessible Home page (code 200).
• A principal domain name. If you have several registered domain names, choose one as the main domain name  and arrange for all other domains to be permanently redirected (Redirection 301) towards the official domain name.
• If you have a choice of domain name then opt for something that contains your company name (and if possible what you do e.g. www.parisbiketour.net ) and the most appropriate country extension for your business e.g. .fr would be better than .net for Paris Bike Tours.
• Encode the pages using the appropriate alphabet. The language’s own Charset code or if not in utf 8.
• Include a Site Map page, preferably in the XML format.
• Ensure there is an indexed 404 Page with links to some of the major sections on the site.
• Create a file robots.txt. This authorizes search engine robots to crawl and index the site.
• See which links are really visible by the robots by looking at your site through a text only browser such as Lynx or by using a simulator such as http://seebot.org/
• Read Google’s guidelines

2. Structural

• Most important content should be at the top of the sites structure and not buried at the third or fourth level
• Complete the path names for your pages using key words for these pages eg. http://www.fattirebiketoursparis.com/bikes/bike-tour/versailles-bike-tour.shtml
• Give pages logical names containing key words eg. “Personalised Bike Tours” NOT “Meeting Your Needs”

3. Content

• Add good quality content that contains your key words.
• Don’t go through your content and add additional key words - they should naturally be there. If they are not then ask yourself  “Why?”
• Be careful when using Flash animations and Videos. Search engines cannot read the content of these files. As such you should always make sure that the page containing the Flash file or Video also includes some text explaining the content of the animation/video.
• Don’t forget to complete the “alt tags” for images. These should contain your key words. For example, if you have a picture of your product then don’t just use the product name but also include the product description e.g. “Antitach - Red Wine Stain Remover.”
• Add unique metatags for every single page of the site. The Title and Description metatags are the most important.

4. Links

One of the most important elements of SEO today is the creation of links from relevant web sites to your site. In calculating the relevance of a site for a certain key word or phrase the search engines factor in which other sites link to it and the ranking of these other sites for the key word or phrase.

You have the potential to get links added to suppliers’ web sites, partners’ web sites, sister companies’ sites, industry blogs and forums, trade show sites, etc. As long as it is related to your business then it is useful. Other options are to encourage your visitors to bookmark pages of your site using tools such as delicious, digg, etc. The easiest way to do this is to embed a little bookmarking tool into your pages.

RSS feeds are another way of spreading the word. This is still a relatively techy domain but it’s starting to become more mainstream. Certainly with the inclusion of RSS in Internet Explorer 7 (although badly done!) and Firefox (very well done!!) 

Who does the optimisation work?

Optimisation of a web site can take place at two levels:

1. DIY (Do It Yourself)
There are many changes that can and should be handled by the web master.

2. Specialist
Various SEO companies exist. These companies have an indepth knowledge of how search engines function and will work with you on the optimisation of your site for a predefined group of key words. Such companies must have technical access to a web site in order to add real value.