Website Optimisation

Not all websites are created equal in the eyes of the search engines. Some web site technologies can present unique indexing challenges, and others can make it difficult for search engine 'spiders' or robots to crawl them to find content. The first stage of web site optimisation is to ensure that the site is search engine friendly - making it as easy as possible for the engines to crawl, index and categorise the content. Search engines are only interested in text and links, and so sites which rely heavily on images or Flash may present particular problems, while dynamic database driven sites can cause issues of their own. This may involve modifying the site structure or navigation, or making use of tools such as site maps to provide alternative ways for the search engine spiders to access different pages.

The next issue to address is to make sure the site adequately reflects the keywords and phrases identified in the keyword analysis phase. This might include ensuring that the most important phrases occur prominently in page titles, navigation links, file and folder names, image 'alt' text, headings and meta-data. Keyword optimisation combines art and science, in the sense that it involves trying to acheive an appropriate density of keywords and phrases on the page, while still presenting content which reads naturally to a personn visiting the site.