SEO - Chapter 1: The Basics

Hi. My name is James Marriott and I am the owner of NBM Web Designs.

This article will form the first part of a series of articles I intend to write with the aim of trying to pass on all my knowledge of SEO and provide answers to the many questions that are asked about SEO, as well as dispelling some of the many myths that surround SEO. I intend to keep this article up to date meaning that it may change slightly from time to time. If this does become the case then I will create a changelog to make it easier to track those changes.

This particular article will concentrate on what I consider to be the very basics of SEO intended for those that have either never heard of SEO or have only just now started to research it. This will be reflected in the language used through-out the article but even if you are more familiar with the subject, please do spend the time to read it as you might just learn something new (or you may spot an error!). After this, I will create other articles that will explain SEO in much more detail.

What is SEO?
SEO (pronounced "ess ee oh") is an acronym for Search Engine Optimisation.
We can split that up into two parts (ok, we could split it into 3 parts, one for each of 'Search', 'Engine' and 'Optimisation' but in this instance, the first two form a single expression) giving us 'Search Engine' and 'Optimisation'. We can now explain each as:

Search Engine
In it's simplest form, a search engine is a database containg details of websites. The front end of a search engine, the page you visit to search the internet is designed to search that database for websites, and in a lot of cases individual pages, that contain terms defined by someone browsing the internet who has entered words, names, phrases etc. into the search box* and displaying the results of that search. The two most well known examples of this are Google and Yahoo.
* Technically this isn't strictly how a search engine works but for the sake of the subject and keeping things simple, this definition will surfice and won't distort the content of this topic.

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Optimisation
This represents what we are trying to achieve when we create websites with an interest in improving the position our website is placed in a list of results provided by a search engine. We want our website to appear as high up the results as possible aiming for at least the first page with the Holy Grail being the number 1 spot.

I just know that anyone reading this that does already know SEO will be cringing at these 'definitions'. I know this because I am too! Rest assured, these will be covered in much more detail in the next chapter.

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Should you concern yourself with SEO?
That depends on many things including why you want a website, what you want from it and who you are designing it for but again, I'll simplify it to "Does the position of your website in the results page of a search engine matter to you?" If so then yes, you should definately concern yourself with it. If not then no, probably not and infact, there may be reasons why you would NOT want your website, or pages of your website, appearing in any results page.

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What do you mean "probably" not?
Because you should never say never. An examples of a situation where you might want to at least give it thought could be where you're designing a personal website for yourself or you only design personal websites. Whilst at the start you may not be interested in other people finding the website, as those that you want to know of it's existance can be told individually, you may at a later date decide that you want to share something with the world and it is so much easier to think of this from the start than trying to 'optimise' your website later on. Additionally, a very important factor in SEO is content writing. Understanding this could dramatically improve the written content of your website (which will be covered in more detail later) but as with any personal website, this is a choice only you should make.

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Terminology
The following are list of terms that you will probably come across when you get involved with SEO (again, at this point, definitions are simplified and may well be mentioned again in the next chapter with more advanced / technical definitions).
Keywords:
You may well be familiar with keywords as it is almost impossible to not come across the mention of them in any website article. These are words and phrases that describe the theme of your company, your website and the individual pages of your website. Keywords will probably be mentioned more than any other word or phrase thoughout any SEO article.
Page Rank:
If "Keywords" is the term you will see, hear and speak of the most then "PageRank" will be the second.
NB: The term "PageRank" is a registered trademark belonging to Google and will be referred to a lot in this guide but where it is mentioned I mean to refer to PageRank and any other similar system employed by search engines.
PageRank is NOT the position within those results that a website is placed. Page rank is how much more or less important a search engine believes your website to be relative to other websites with similar content for the search terms used and will use it as part of the decision in determining website positioning in a list of search results.
SERP('s):
This is an acronym for "Search Engine Results Page".
The page showing the list of websites returned from a search.
Index / Indexed / Indexing:
This does NOT refer to a websites index page (normally the 'home' page).
This will be explained in more detail in the next chapter but in short this referes to whether or not a website's page(s) have been saved by a search engine.
* Although you can't do anything to guarantee that a search engine will index pages from your website, you can control which pages are NOT indexed.
Spiders aka Robots, Web Bots:
These are the programs that scour the internet looking for web pages to index.

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Dispelling the myths
We'll end this chapter by dispelling some common myths about SEO and SEO strategies (and there'll be the odd fact thrown in just for good measure):

• Google is the chosen search engine for approximately 70% of searches.


• Keywords are not as important to your Google PageRank or SERP's positions as some will have you believe although Yahoo does view them with a closer eye.


• Subscribing to 'Link farms' is not a good idea and often results in a website being blacklisted from search engine results!


• Good, solid content will show better results than any other single factor.


• A high PageRank does NOT guarantee top positions in the SERP's.


• PageRank can go down as well as up and is subject to change on a monthly basis (often referred to as the "Google Dance").


• You MUST NOT get too hung up on PageRank. People will keep referring to it as some kind of Holy Grail but please try and not get drawn into the hype.


• When researching SEO on the internet, always take note of the date that the articles were written!


• In order for an SEO strategy to work effectively and continue to do so, you can't just spend a week optimising a website and then leave it. SEO is something that requires constant work although the majority of this work, assuming the strategy was completed correctly and compentently will be checking statistics with perhaps the odd modification.


• It is not a good idea to create the website content for search engines. Design your website and it's content for your customers.

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Conclusion: Now we've reached the end of this first chapter, let's take a quick look back at what we know so far. We know that SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimisation" and we know that SEO is about improving our websites so that they appear higher up in the list of search results, known as the SERPs or "Search Engine Results Page". We know that search engines (such as Google) order these results based on the "Page Rank" of each website's pages. The inclusion into the results pages relies on the page being "indexed" by "robots" or "spiders".

This first chapter has given us a very brief (and 'loose') insight into SEO. In the next chapter we will take a closer look at indexing, the behaviour of those robots/spiders (including how we can tell these robots what to do and what NOT to do) and we will take the first step in making changes to our websites to improve the SEO.

Please feel free to comment about this article, ask for more information or if you feel that something should be amended.

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About the author
James Marriott is the sole owner of NBM Web Designs and is a full-time freelance website developer.

SEO - Chapter 2: Optimisation pt.1

In this article, the second chapter of "SEO - A beginners guide", we'll be taking a closer look at indexing, the importance of a good link structure, the behaviour of those robots/spiders (including how we can tell these robots what to do and what NOT to do), a closer look at PageRank, some more do's and don'ts and we will take the first step in making changes to our websites to improve the SEO.

Terminology [Skip]
Since this chapter is going to be quite a big step forward from the previous chapter, I thought it best to start with some more terms that you will need to familiarise yourself with:
AdWords
(Although "AdWords" belongs to google, other search engines have something similar.)
Have you ever noticed the small adds on the right hand side of a SERP? They are AdWords. These are small adverts set up by commercial websites to advertise their business. For a basic ad they are free to have displayed but the owners of the ad are charged an amount every time someone clicks on their ad. The order they are shown is random to a point and subject to how much someone is willing to pay per click but even then the search engines will still introduce a randoming effect in an effort to give everyone a fair chance.
This will be discussed further in Chapter 3.
Web Crawler (Crawling)
A Web Crawler is another term for robot or spider. Crawling is the term given to the activity of a robot/spider. When we say that a robot/spider "crawls" the internet we are referring to a program that searches the internet looking for websites / pages to add to the search engine's database (index).
Sitemaps
Not to be confused with a sitemap that you create as a page on your website so that your users can find their way around your website. When you see the term "sitemap" in this blog and in other articles regarding SEO and/or PageRank it is referring to a document or file that contains a list of links found in your website along with other information such as importance (ranked from 0 to 1) and how often the content of a page is likely to change (daily, weekly, monthly). You can see an example of an .xml sitemap HERE
Copy / Copywriting
This refers to the text based content and particularly how well written a piece of text is. As it can't be stressed enough... Good content will do more for your PR (literally in all sences of the term "PR") and postion on the SERP's than ANY OTHER SINGLE THING. You can spend 100's of hours trying to optimise your website but if the content is poor you really are wasting your time.

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OPTIMISING YOUR WEBSITE
In an ideal world, optimisation will be part of the original draft specifications for your website and will be adhered to through-out the design and development stage.
If you're looking to optimise an already existing website then fear not; It is never too late, although the earlier you can make a start the better.
Which ever stage you're at, the advice, guidelines, hints and tips that follow will hold true with the only difference being if you're existing website already conforms in which case, I recommend taking a quick glance over it to ensure that the strategies (and the site) are still performing at their best.

The success of your SEO strategy depends on the following:
1. Good, solid, well written, relevant content.
2. Getting your website indexed.
3. Good, solid, well written, relevant content.
4. Getting your website noticed.
5. Good, solid, well written, relevant content.
6. Getting links to your website.
7. You guessed it; Good, solid, well written, relevant content.

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Good, solid, well written, relevant content
Let's take a look at the most important step in any SEO strategy, content.
I cannot over emphasise just how important good content is to SEO. It's not just good for SEO either, it's good, period. Good content will do more for you website, it's PageRank and it's position in the SERP's (remembering that there is a difference) than any other single modification. In fact, I will go as far to say that good content will do more than EVERYTHING ELSE PUT TOGETHER!!
It's simple, if the content of your website is poorly written and not particularly relevant then you may as well forget SEO.

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Getting Indexed
What is indexing?
Going back to our definition of a search engine we see that a search engine is simply(?) a huge database containing millions (billions in the case of Google) of websites. When our website has been accepted into a search engine's database we say that it has been indexed. Think of indexing in the literal sense; We have been included in the search engines index of websites.
How do I get indexed?
With the big search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Windows Live, getting indexed can be as simple as (although not quickly) having your website published on the internet website. These search engine's robots/spiders crawl the internet regularly and given enough time will eventually find your site and add it to their index.
If there are websites that link to yours and those websites have been indexed then the crawlers may very well find and index your website via those websites. However, there is no guarantee how long this would take. Thankfully, Google, Yahoo etc. provide a way to add your website to it's database manually. Again, this isn't instant but should take no more than a few days.
It is very important to remember that there is no guarantee that your website will be indexed. If you and your website are legitimate and providing you don't break any of the rules then there should be no reason why your website eouldn't get indexed.
Will my entire website get indexed?
Not normally no. Hopefully your index (home) page will be accpeted and indexed and assuming you have a good link structure then more and more pages will be indexed with each pass of the crawlers.
What can I do to help ensure my website gets indexed?
The two best methods to get your new website indexed are:
1. Create a sitemap, preferably as an .xml file format and submit that to the search engines.
2. Ensure that the websites internal link structure is well layed out and doesn't hinder the progress of the crawlers.
Why are internal links and their structure important?
I've mentioned link structure twice now so lets have a proper look at that.
"Link Structure" refers to the internal links in your website. That is, the links that enable a vistor to navigate through your website. Web crawlers use those same links to find pages to add to their list of indexed pages. If visitors to your website find it difficult then so will the crawlers. If there are pages on your website that can not be reached by links from those pages that are indexed then, again, the crawler will not find them and they won't get indexed.
What if I don't want a page indexed?
There are two methods of preventing a page from being indexed. Which method you choose is entirely personal preference and they both work equally well.
The easiest method is to use the "<META ROBOTS>" tag. To do this, create a new line in the head of your page code above or below any other META TAG and insert the following (you can copy and paste):
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
This is an instruction to all robots to not index the page and not to follow any of the links on that page. If you don't mind the links being followed simple use:
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX">.
The second method is to use a robots.txt file. This will be discussed in chapter 3.

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Good, solid, well written, relevant content
Looking behind the scenes, to help promote a theme to your website and it's pages and also with keyword optimisation, make good use of the <h1>, <h2> and <b> tags to emphises important aspects of your website. Don't go mad though as too many highlighted keywords could be interpreted as keyword spamming!

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Getting Noticed
This is really the ultimate goal of any SEO strategy. We optimise our websites to give them the best chance we can of being found and we do this by getting our website as far up the SERP's as possible FOR OUR RELEVANT KEY WORDS / PHRASES.
Depending on what your business sells, the first step in getting noticed would either be to get indexed in search engines or by offline methods.
Looking at more online methods, one possibly quick and easy way to achieve an online presence is to use (or something similar to) AdWords. These are small keyword based adverts displayed in the SERP. They are not for everyone and can prove costly (you pay everytime someone clicks on your ad) but if you have the budget for it can prove fruitful.
Another method is to submit your website to directories. There are thousands of directories out there and diligence is required when choosing which ones to add your website to. Three quick pieces of advice are don't pay to be included, stay away from "Link-to-you-link-to-us" type directories and make sure that either the directory or the subdirectory is relevant to your website / company.
Have a look at social networks as well. These are probably your safest bet and there are some excellent ones out there. Make LinkedIn your first stop.
Now when it comes to offline advertising, a good starting place is Yellow Pages (who will also give you a free ad on their website). Have a look around for other media. An advert in a local / national paper is effective but can be costly.
Very often, the best method to advertise your business (website) is by word of mouth. Start by telling everyone. It couldn't be simpler and it will cost absolutely nothing. Tell your friends, tell members of your family and tell them to tell their friends.

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Getting Links to your website
So our website has been indexed, we have a great ad in some local papers and we have submitted our website to a few directories. Now we can return to our website SEO strategy. So far there is something we haven't mentioned and that is PageRank. We have a basic definition of what PageRank is but what's our first step in trying to improve our website's PageRank? Links!
Before we go any further, PageRank and links will be our hot topic for Chapter three of this SEO Guide but it wouldn't be right to carry on without making a couple of things absolutely clear:
1. PageRank is not just about links.
2. PageRank is not the be-all and end-all of SEO. It is just one SMALL (*gasp*) part in the very big business that is SEO.
Ok, back to script: Why would someone want to put a link to your website on their's? Excluding link farms and such like, it's because they found the content of your website relevant to their's and/or they believe that other visitors to their website would also find your website interesting. It should be noted that there is great importance on links being relevant but that is more to do with PageRank which as we'll be covering in more detail in Chapter 3.
Be warned though. It often takes a long time to get links to your website and will depend greatly on the business model. This is another reason why you shouldn't get too hung up about links and PageRank. Concentrate
NB: Bookmarks do not count as links*.
*This is a subject that will be put as a discussion at the end of this blog.

Conclusion: Now we've reached the end of this second chapter, let's take a quick look back at what we have learnt:

This second chapter has ... In the next chapter we will learn the in's and out's of PageRank and will be looking at more advanced SEO techniques.

As always, please feel free to comment about this article, ask for more information or if you feel that something should be amended.

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About the author
James Marriott is the sole owner of NBM Web Designs and is a full-time freelance website developer.