Get more from Search Engines.

You don't have to pay for expensive search engine optimisation companies!

You can do the work yourself. By following the tips here, you will perform better with search engines. Even following one of the tips will make a difference.

1. Optimise your Title tags The <title> tag of your website is the best place to put your keywords. Most CMS systems will let you change the title tag, or you can do it manually in your HTML. Most search engines such as google will determine your web sites relevence based on words and phrases used within it.
   
   When you set your title tag, make sure that you don't repeat keywords too often as you could be seen as trying to trick the robot or spam and that can result in your site being black listed.
   
   As a rule, you should aim for 10 to 15 words or 60 characters, and place your most relevant keywords first. For example, if you wanted to use 'Nottingham Web Design', then that should be the start of your title tags.
   
   Naturally repeating keywords is fine, so 'Nottingham Web Design – [company name here] are the top leading Web Design company in Nottingham' is a good way to start.
2. Search Engine Friendly URLs
   A search engine friendly URL will also use keywords, as search engines will take into account the relevancy of your web site based on the namings of files and folders.
   
   For example, an un-optimised website will show a url such as www.yoursite.com/about_us.html, whereas an optimised site might show www.yoursite.com/web-design/aboutus/index.html
   
   This isn't vitally important, but if your CMS or programmer allows it then you should make use of it.
3. Regularly updated content
   This is important.  Search engines, and in particular google, prefer websites that are regularly updated.  To keep your website updated, it is best to maintain a blog, or on regularly updated content have a 'last edited date' entry.  Most blogs and article software will allow you to do this.  Google in particular takes note of these dates for their search results.
4. Relevant Back Links
   Links from other websites are always good, and will help your ranking.  This is even more important if the linking websites are relevent.  However, be aware of any company offering linking to you that are simply link farms - these are often black listed.  Make sure you know the company you are linking to, and that is linking to you!
5. Heading Tags
   Make good use of heading tags.  A well structured website will use <h1> for main headings, followed by <h2> for sub headings, etc... Try to insert targeted keywords in these tags, so that your <h1> tags have the most important keywords, <h2> less importants, etc..  But, you should also make sure that your header tags are relevent to the content.
   
   An example would be:
   
   <h1>Nottingham Web Design Services<h1>

   <p>Text about your company here….</p>

6. Meta Tags
   Meta tags are increasingly less important.  During several experiments with our own websites, we have found that the 'keyword' meta tag makes no difference to search engine rankings - indicating that they are redundant.  The same can be said for the 'description' tag, however we are currently recomending that it is still used.
7. Make content readable!
   Some web pages have been over optimised to the point where the page content is unreadable!  Ensure you have keywords in your content, but more importantly ensure that a general user can read and be engaged by the content. Your website is more likely to be linked to this way, and your users will be kept engaged and therefore more likely to view other pages.