Search Engineering

Matthew Cartright, from the crew of genius geeks known as Koded, has offered us some tips on getting your website seen by the right people.

In days of old, the web was a wild and anarchic place. By simply inserting 1001 keywords into the code of a webpage and doing a little homework you could find your website listed high in the search engines. You could then sit back and watch the hits pile up like Stock Aitken and Waterman.

But now the web has come of age. The major search engines use sophisticated algorithms to determine the relevancy of a site. Thousands of people compete for positions making it increasingly difficult for webmasters to create good results. More and more companies are commissioning the services of SEO companies (Search engine optimisation specialists, who have the proven expertise and technology to ensure results.)

That said, if you have the time and motivation and prefer the DIY approach there are some practical tips which could enhance your visibility.

For instance, optimising the HTML title tag on each page of your site is easy and should not be overlooked as search engines take great notice of this tag.
A few pointers for optimising your page's title tags for the search engines:

• The title of your page counts for a lot
  
• Keep the content of your title tags concise (about 60 characters including spaces)
  
• Use words which accurately depict the content of the page and when randomly juxtaposed can make short phrases.
  
• Don't use lots of generic words! They don't really help and waste that precious 60 character limit.
  
• Use your key words only once! Repeated words can be looked upon as spam by the search engines.
  

Visit Koded's site to find out more or commission the experts to do what they do best.
Koded