Search engine optimisation (SEO), also known as search engine positioning, is the practice of making a website more visible by getting it as high up in search engine listings as possible. This guide explains the fundamental HTML elements and on-page techniques that help search engines index and rank your website.
Basics
The most common mistake people make when creating a website is omitting the fundamental HTML elements such as title, keywords, and proper handling of text and links. These elements are important because they provide the basis on which search engines find and index your website.
Search engines use robots (also known as spiders or crawlers) that visit websites and collect information about their content. This process is called indexing, and it is usually performed about once a month. With the statistics service we offer, you can see when this happens for your website and from which search engine.
A new website needs to be manually added to the search engine’s queue. How to do this is described here.
Title
Choosing a title for your website is a very important part of getting it to appear in search engines. It is a good idea to include words or phrases that describe the content of the website. Entering only your company name is not enough to achieve a good placement. The title will also be shown as the title in search engine results.
<title>Describing title for your website.</title>
Keywords
Keywords are the words that visitors might use to find your website. Everything written on your website is effectively a keyword for search engines. To make indexing easier, you can add specific keywords that only search engines see. It is important to use only words or phrases related to the content of the website. Otherwise, search engines may not bother to index your site.
<meta name="keywords" content="enter, words, or, phrases">
Description
Defining an accurate description of the content of the website is also important for visibility on search engines. Briefly summarise the content and purpose of the website. This description will be displayed in search results when someone finds your website.
<meta name="description" content="A brief description of the content.">
Links and images
When you add images and links, it is important to include a description. Search engines use robots and spiders that can only read text, not images. For link exchanges, it is particularly important to provide a description for each link to your website.
<img src="image.jpg" alt="image description"></img> <a href="www.mylink.com" alt="link description">mylink</a>
General rules of conduct
Follow these general guidelines to keep your website easy to crawl and update:
- Divide your website into several smaller sub-pages and link them together. It is also good practice to include a Sitemap describing the pages on the website.
- When splitting your website into smaller files, name files and directories correctly. Avoid spaces and special characters. It also helps if filenames or directory names relate to the content.
- Use stylesheets (CSS files) to style text, headings and links across the website. This makes the website easier to update and easier for search engines to index.
Summary
Here is a summary of the sample code above.
<html> <head> <title>Describing title for your website.</title> <meta name="keywords" content="enter, words, or, phrases"> <meta name="description" content="A brief description of the content."> <link href="stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> </head> <body> <h3>A describing headline</h3> Here you write the content you want on your website. <img src="image.jpg" alt="image description"></img> <a href="www.mylink.com" alt="link description">mylink</a> </body> </html>