SEO (search engine optimisation) is the process of onpage and offpage optimisation made in order to increase traffic and ranking in listings of search engines, such as Google, which is the most popular of all engines. The first step, right after choosing the right keywords, should be the on-page optimisation and that is what I am going to focus on in this article. At the end I will also write briefly about other factors, whereas off-page optimisation will be the subject of the next article.

  • choose the right domain name for your website - in this case you must decide whether to put there the name of your company, or maybe only the most important keywords. Usually the second option is better. The domain name should be short and easy to remember;
  • choose a short and appropriate title - in case of very competitive phrases, the less keywords in the title you put the better, since the strength of the title breaks down into the number of words it incorporates. Shari Thurow, the author of “Search Engine Visibility”, suggests that it is best to put the most important three keywords in such an order so that all their connections could make different phrases;
  • include keywords in metatags - while description is displayed in search engines under the page title in order to be encouraging for visitors, keywords are thought to be useless; however, you can include there a few keywords. Remember to put the most important keywords in the same beginning of your metatags. The title, description and keywords in metatags should be different on every webpage and should be adequate to its content. Do not overuse keywords either in description or in keywords metatag, as it may be considered as spam and penalised. You may analyze the metatags thanks to SEO tools such as:
  • provide interesting and often updated content - remember that you write for visitors, not for crawlers, so use keywords in optimal quantity (approximately 5 % of the content), in different places (both in the very beginning and at the end, as well as within the whole webpage);
  • use headers h1 - h6 and put there the most important keywords;
  • add alt tag to images - put there an alternative description of the image;
  • add title tag to links - you can put there the same text as in the anchor text but you can also enrich it with more keywords;
  • one of the most important factors in web positioning is what you write in the anchor text. What you should put there are the main keywords for which you are trying to be ranked high in search engines;
  • use tags such as b, strong, i, em to emphasise keywords;
  • other places where you can use keywords are the names of files and folders. But remember not to overuse keywords and put them as their names only when necessary;
  • create a sitemap so that crawlers would have easier access to all webpages and therefore index them;
  • add links to your websites on other sites which concern the same theme; add them also to the biggest directories such as DMOZ; exchange links or buy them. Take note not only on the PR of those websites, but mostly on the quantity of external links they have. Remember also to use diverse anchor texts instead of focusing on only one. Otherwise, your website can get filtred and hard to find after entering that phrase in the search engine;
  • take care of right internal linking, as well as use appropriate anchor texts in links;
  • do not put too many external links on your website;
  • the more webpages the better; optimise every webpage for a few different keywords;
  • old domains are ranked better;
  • although Google Page Rank is loosing its significance, it is still one of the factors that influence on your ranking so try to get links on webpages that have high PR;
  • change links to your websites into friendly ones. Read about how to make your URL’s friendly;
  • analise websites which compete with yours. Check what methods they use to get better ranking and think about what you can improve;

This brief article concerns the basics of SEO, and because some of the issues connected with it are mentioned generally, I will try to focus on them in the future. Should you see anything that you disagree with, comment on it and I will modify this article if necessary.