A review of correct and incorrect Search Engine Optimisation techniques

October 31, 2009

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) should constantly be done in an ethical way so that the Search Engine Placement of the client website will be on the 1st page of a set of organic search engine results. These results will typically follow a list of sponsored sites that are significant to the search keyword(s) used.

The method by which a search engine, e.g. Google, decides which web sites are appropriate to the keyword(s) submitted for search, is by having formerly indexed the pages and stored the results in a database. Thus by searching the index for the keyword(s) a fast action is assured, typically in the order of under a second.
The search engines use a program to do the indexing, known as a robot or spider, and these robots have been produced and refined to identify unethical practices that they find on web pages, which they may well then exclude from the index. In some cases the web site may be excluded in it’s entirety.

The robot values the web pages by several methods: The amount of times a keyword is listed on a page, and the amount of times other sites link to the page.

For oprganisations operating Online Marketing services, it is important that their web sites have longevity as they may well support a lot of other clients.

Keywords:
Unethical Practice:
Keyword Stuffing is an unethical practice of using a keyword many times in a web page, in general by using text that is the same colour as the background so that it will not be viewed by a searcher but will be seen by the robot.
This can also be done for keywords in Meta tags in the html head of the web page code.
Ethical Practice:
Ethical techniques focus on what the user experience will be, so the page text should be pertinent to the page title and the page title should mirror the link that was used to reach it, as well as the actual content. Content should be cautiously written in good English with no spelling or grammatical errors, and should stress the goods or service that the page is concerning. Keywords should be part of the usual flow of text and repeated only as often as reasonable reading allows. For keywords in Meta tags a exclusive list of keywords should be used.

Links to the page:
Unethical Practice:
An unethical business may create what are known as Doorway Pages, where the content is probably just keyword stuffing and a link to the promoted web site.
Ethical Practice:
The ethical approach is to create meaningful pages that can be made sense of by a user and have links to the client site.

If looking for a Search Engine Optimization Company, ascertain which methods they use before committing yourself to their services.