We find that there are a lot of misconceptions about search engine optimisation and we occasionally get our clients querying us about somewhat trivial pieces which an "SEO expert" has mentioned are crucial to their search engine rankings.This just adds to clients confusion, who can be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of SEO information out there in the first place. The key is to keep the client informed, and we often find that a lot of our work as web developers is one of client education.

 

I thought it would be a good idea to briefly mention what we feel are the key factors to search optimisation, with a Google flavour ;-)

•  Good relevent content including keywords that are related to your site
•  Inbound links from site that are well ranked and are relevent or complimentary to your site
• Outbound links to relevent & complimentary websites i.e. industry bodies
• Content that is fresh and changes on a regular basis. Blogs, forums and any user generated content
• Speed of the site (this is also a usability factor)
• Keyword friendly URL's
• Good title tags and meta descriptions (also usability factors)
• Age of the site

 Yes, there are others, but in a nutshell these should be a focus. Matt Cutts is a Google engineer focusing on search engine optimisation & he's got some great videos on the web. Here he discusses how Google indexing works. If you have the time take look at the Matt Cutts blog.