We all want control over our websites these days and we all want our website to get noticed. So how do you go about it? Well, Search Engine Optimisation is the answer; abbreviated SEO.

So what is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search Engine Optimisation is the process of increasing traffic to your website by improving your organic search result on search engines including Google, Yahoo! and Live Search.

How can I improve my organic search result?

Firstly, you'll need to pick some key phrases and keywords that you think people will type into search engines to find your content; then you need to place those key phrases and keywords into certain HTML tags and your webpage content to get results.

Go on...

• Page title (<title></title>) - Be specific. Having a title 'My Website' is useless to search engines. Especially if your website is about 4x4 off-roading.
• Meta tags (keywords and description) - Match your keywords and key phrases to that of your page title. Make sure the key phrases in the description meta tag matches keywords in the keywords meta tag.
• Page Name (4x4_spare_parts.html) - Even though search engines use meta tags and page titles to determine what the webpage is about, it's been proven that having a descriptive page name can also benefit organic search results. If your page is about 4x4 spare parts, why not name it 4x4_spare_parts.html? (it's also easier to remember)
• Header tags (<h1></h1> & <h2></h2>) - Be specific. Make your header tags contain the most important keywords and key phrases that describe the webpage content. The H1 tag is the most important tag of them all. Including this tag into your website will given search engines the ability to instantly understand what the webpage content is about. The second most important tag is H2. In total they're six header tags all which you can use. The least important is the H6 tag.
• Inbound Links - Having inbound links to your website does not only help search engines find your website but it also helps the organic search result of your website climbing it to the number 1 spot. The more people that link to webpages on your website the higher it's ranking in the search engine will be.

There are many other advanced ways in which you can optimise your website and Google has published an article with more advanced techniques about Search Engine Optimisation which you can download as a PDF called the SEO Starter Guide.