Making your website work

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of making your site open to different search engines. This allows the search engines to index your site more efficiently. Naturally, this translates into better ranking for your site when someone surfs the Internet in search of specific results. Basically, better search ranking means more traffic to your site.

Why is SEO so important? Even when you use a search engine like Funnel.co.za, which only searches South African web site results, there are thousands of web sites which can come up as a result to one query. It is important to note that when consumers use search engines, they want results quickly. Many users will stop at the first page of results, possibly even on the first couple of links that come up.

To optimise your site remember:

Meta tags

Meta tags in the header of your Web pages will improve your ranking on most search engines. Even though users won't see these keywords, Funnel's software recognizes them and adds them to the index. It is very important that you choose the correct heading, keywords and description in these tags.

Content and key phrases

Adding keywords to your site's content is one of the best ways to improve your ranking. By strategically placing keywords throughout your content, search engines will recognize these words and index a site appropriately.

Additional links

Try to get other sites to link back to your site. If links to your site appear on numerous other sites, Funnel's software recognizes this and ranks your site higher than sites that lack links leading back to them. In addition, it's wise to note that it's also the quality of the links that play an important role. Links from high-traffic sites have more weight than links from sites with little or no traffic. Advertising on various sites will also increase your link popularity.

File names or page titles

Another way to increase your ranking is by using keyword or keyword phrases in your page titles and file names. Page titles are the words that appear in the topmost bar of a user's browser, and file names are the URLs themselves.

User friendly

Importantly, do not underestimate or neglect the user experience. If a prospective customer does happen to view your site and it's just a jumble of keywords and garbage, they will likely exit your site and never return. Keep in minds that search engine optimisation is a means to an end — not an end in itself.

Submit your site

First make a hundred percent sure your site is optimised before submitting it to search engines. Submit your site manually, don't use software that promises to submit your site to 3 000 search engines at once, because you will be penalised for fields not entered correctly.

Updates & further information

Refining its search technology is what every search engine does, so it stands to reason that optimisation techniques that work today may be useless tomorrow so stay well versed with trends in technology. If you have changed the focus of your business, launched new products or even had a brand identity change, make sure your keywords reflect these changes.