How do I get my website higher in search engine lists (like Google)?

Your Website will be like a shop on a dead end road, people will never find it on their own - unless it is listed in a directory.

Search engines like Google and Yahoo are the directories of the internet, and your website MUST be listed in the leading search engines to be easily accessible. The HIGHER the position of your website within the search engines list - the MORE people you will get to your website. It’s that simple.

So, how do you improve the position of your webpage on search engine lists?

In truth, different search engines use different methods to rank websites, and all search engines keep their exact methods a closely guarded secret.

However, a good Web Design company will at the very least consider the following areas of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) when building your website:

Obtaining Inbound Links

When people list your website on their own site, your search engine position will improve. If their site already has a good ranking, then yours will improve even more. The more people you get to link to your website the higher your page will be listed. This is the best way to improve your rankings in leading search engines.

The actual text within the link to your website is also important- if this text contains relevant keyword/s, your page will rank higher in search engine results for those keywords. For example it is better to have the link text eg.‘Dragon Chinese Resturant, West End, Brisbane’ than ‘Click Here’.

Your Website’s Title, Headings, bold and italicized text

Search engines assume that the words inside these elements are suggestive of the page content, generally it is a good idea to ensure these elements contain keywords users will type into search engines to find your website.

Try to avoid words like ‘welcome’ and ‘ the’ and other common words which will not improve your search engine ranking. Wherever appropriate, you should use bold or italics to highlight important keywords

Keyword Density

‘Keywords’ are words that users type when performing a search in search engines (eg. ‘Chinese Restaurant). Keyword density is the ratio of the keyword/s compared to the total number of words appearing on a web page. The more a keyword occurs in a page of a given size, the higher it’s keyword density is on that page (and the higher the page will rank for those words in a search engine).

Eg. If the words ‘Chinese Restaurant’ appears 20 times on a page of 1000 words, it has a higher keyword density for those words than a page with ‘Chinese Restaurant’ appearing only once.

ALT tags on Images

All images on your website should have meaningful ‘ALT Tags’ (the yellow description box that appears on an image when you hover over it). The Alt Tags should contain keywords that people would use to find your website. Search engines take notice of these tags and they can improve your website’s ranking.

META Tags

‘Meta Tags’ are information including ‘keywords’ and a ‘website description’ stored in your website’s code for use by the search engines. Google ignores the ‘Meta Keywords’ tag, but other search engines do use them so they should still be included in your website.

Flash Animation

Currently, search engines only read text, and when they come across ‘Flash programming’ in your website, they may halt their page ranking process. Correct use of any Flash Programming in your Website construction is important to ensure this is minimised.

This has only been a brief look at the broad and complex field of Search Engine Optimisation. A good Web Design company will at the very least consider these areas of Search Engine Optimisation when designing and building your website. This will ensure it has the best possible ranking in the popular search engines, which in turn, will direct the greatest volume of traffic to your website.

If you wish to know the page rank of pages you are visiting, you can download a ‘Google toolbar’ from http://toolbar.google.com/ (for Internet Explorer only).