There are two factors needed to get your web site to the top of the major search engines i.e. Google, Yahoo and Bing. The first is “On Page Factors” the second is “Link Popularity” this being the most important factor as far as Google is concerned however both factors are essential. In this post we are going to address some basic “On Page Factors” and in particular what Google see’s when it looks at your web site. For the readers who are new to search engine optimisation Google (and all search engines) use software (spiders or robots) to read web pages. They treat each web page within your web site as separate and stand alone and so it is important to optimise all your web pages and not simply your home page. The best way to imagine the spiders judging your web site is like a credit score when you go for a loan from your bank. You get so many points for having a mortgage, so many points for being a house owner for three and half years or more, so many points for having a credit card, so many points for paying it on time etc. If you get enough points to hit the banks criteria you get your loan if you don’t its off to the loan shark!!
Search engines work in the same way, the spiders are programmed to look for certain criteria on your web page and if you get enough points you feature in the search engines results. If you can imagine that there are 100 points available when the spider visits your web page the more competitive your industry the points you need to feature higher in the listings. Therefore if you are in Finance, Travel, Insurance, Cars etc you need to get 90 plus to feature well however if you sell “Used Road Sweepers” you might only need 40 out of 100.
The same goes for key phrases so you could be in a competitive industry i.e. cars and if you want to be at the top of the search engines for “New Cars” you will need to get 90 out of 100 however if you were to pick the phrase “New Car for Sale in Birmingham” you might only need 60 out of 100. This is a trick used by many “Entry Level Search Engine Optimisation Companies” and we will address this more in the section marked “Selecting your Keywords”.
First we need to see what the search engine spiders see. If you go to Google and type your exact web site address in the search bar you will see that your home page and other pages relating to your web site should appear in the listings.
You will notice next to you home page listing it will say “cached” at the side of the description. If you click on this you will see the snap shot of the page Google has stored in its index (you will see in the box at the top of the page it also tells you the last time Google looked at your page).
To the right and side of this box (at the top of the page) you will say it says “text only version” if you click on this you will see what google’s spiders see. This page appears completely different than the actual home page for many web site owners because search engine spiders struggle to read graphics or images, flash, java script etc.
Once you have clicked on “Text only Version” take a good luck at what is left. The spiders pay attention to what you start the page off with, what you end the page with and how many times you mention relevant keywords in between. If the spiders cannot make sense of the page you will struggle to feature in their search results. Common mistakes are not mentioning relevant keywords at all i.e. too much talk about your business and history and too little about what you do. Other mistakes include mentioning to many keywords i.e. confusing the spider by stuffing your page with everything you do.
You should try and optimise each page within your web site with three to four targeted and relevant key phrases or words and ensure the content on the page is relevant to the keywords you are using. Visit my instructional video Beginners SEO Guide
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