OUGD504 - Study Task 09 - Search engine optimisation SEO

SEO Optimisation


What is Search engine optimisation?

"SEO is the practice of improving and promoting a website in order to increase the number of visitors the site receives from search engines. There are many aspects to SEO, from the words on your page to the way other sites link to you on the web. Sometimes SEO is simply a matter of making sure your site is structured in a way that search engines understand.

Search Engine Optimization isn't just about building search-engine friendly websites. It's about making your site better for people too." - http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

" Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search,[1] news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

The plural of the abbreviation SEO can also refer to "search engine optimizers", those who provide SEO services." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

Presentation notes:

Search engines use algorithms to assess the suitability and ranking of websites based on search terms. 

Algorithm - 

In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm ( i/ˈælɡərɪðəm/ AL-gə-ri-dhəm) is a step-by-step procedure for calculations. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning.

Algorithms differ for each engine and are constantly updated as the web develops and grows.

Search Engine Optimisation is a way of making alterations to websites according to the criteria that search engines use when ‘crawling’ web content.

Crawling (aka web spiders or automatic indexers) - 

For instance, Google is constantly sending out "spiders" and "bots" to discover which websites contain the most relevant information related to certain keywords.
As an example, let's say you have registered a domain name and have established a website. You could use the crawling of these spiders and bots to your advantage by having many links on websites with good reputations and related content to that of your own website. Google could then crawl these sites and find the links pointing to your website, and it would associate the content and reputation of that bigger website with your own.

‘Page Authority’ refers to how likely a web page will be ranked in a search based on SEO optimisation, internal linking and content relevance.

‘Domain Authority’ refers to how likely a domain will be ranked in a search based on age, popularity and size.

Notes from:

http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.co.uk/en/uk/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

 Personal SEO:

Categorise content with labels to create "unique, accurate page titles", make the website "Easier to navigate" and  such as time period, institute and country of origin. 

Use descriptive keywords and headings to create "Better anchor text" and to "Use heading tags appropriately".

Use rel="nofollow" for links to designers portfolios and further information: