How do you optimise a website? What's involved?

[web marketing]

Search Engines exist to help the searcher find the most relevant sites for the information they seek. They do this by reading the text of all the websites they index and using complex algorithms to decide their relative importance.

As a result the use of language is crucial. You must ensure you use in your site those keywords and phrases that your customers will put into the search engines. Each page should be considered separately as they are indexed separately by the search engines. Each page should only be optimised for one or two phrases. Here are the main requirements:

Page Title: up to 10 words beginning with the main phrase

Meta Description: up to 24 words describing the page content in a way that will interest a visitor to click through

Meta Keywords: up to 12 pf the main keywords used on the page

Headers: use H1,H2 etc tags to show the importance of each phrase and break up the page accordingly

Content: use the phrase in the content, preferably near the beginning
Keyword density: use variations and repetitions of the phrase to reinforce its importance without making the text unreadable.

Images: ensure their is a relevant 'ALT' tag with text to show content

This process will ensure your pages are indexed for the right content. It is a necessary starting point for achieving good rankings but it must also be combined with an active promotion program as explained on the link popularity page. However there is no point in spending extra money on promoting until you have tested that the site itself does the job you need.