How do Search Engines Work?
Search Engines crawl and index web pages. They then respond to your search query by ranking relevant web pages which refer to the query you have searched for. The Search Engine will pull information from the title and content of the site and present these to you within the search results page.
Search engines use software known as a robot or spider to compile an index which collates the content of every page as well as the URL. The robots or spiders will return to the site every few months to see if any new content has appeared.
The relevance of a page is determined by:
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The occurrences of words, phrases and synonyms on your page.
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The occurrence of keyphrases within the meta-data.
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The number of links from other pages and the quality of the pages which refer to your page.
Any website you build should be developed with this in mind. If you want the search engines to list your site when people search for terms relating to your site’s content, you need to make sure the search robots can find and index that content first..
What needs to be considered?
You may think you know what people will search for when looking for your site. However, often you will find that people are searching in a different way than you expect. Before writing copy for your site do the following.
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Research what people are actually searching for
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Consider who your competition is and how many other sites have already optimised themselves for the search terms you’re thinking of.
This research will lead you to a detailed list of words and phrases that you should be using across your site.
Once a list of keywords and phrases have been drawn together a review of the following things need to be considered and optimisation friendly versions developed.
File and Directory Names
Directory Trees
Meta-Data - Titles, Description and Keywords
Body Text
ALT Tags
Search Engine Friendly Navigation
Sitemap.xml
Directory Submissions
Secondary directories
Links – Internal and External
Line Industries can undertake a review of an existing site or help you to ensure your new site is built to be search engine friendly.