If you want your website prominently listed on the World Wide Web you have to get your ‘Search Engine Optimization’ or SEO right.

The first, and probably most important, area of SEO is keywords. Keywords are words that best describe your website. For example my web site keywords include ‘design, graphics, magazine, web, print’ and so on. However getting to the top of a search engine ranking for common search terms could prove difficult. Someone typing in ‘design’ into Google isn’t going to find my website anywhere near the top because there are literally millions of higher ranking websites will have that keyword. So using keywords such as ‘web, design, Lincolnshire’, or including things specific to you or your business in your keywords will help a great deal. I have a much higher chance of someone finding my website if they type ‘Chapman design Lincolnshire’ because I have used these words within my keywords.

Another big tip is to use your keywords as many times as you can within your web pages layout, without overdoing it. Try and use the keywords in header tags, page titles and within the body text of your site – especially on the homepage. Making these words bold, or in striking colours can also help with the way a search engine sees your site.

A simple example:

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<title>Lea Chapman | Graphic Design</title>

<LINK REV=”made” href=”mailto:design@leachapman.co.uk“>

<META NAME=”keywords” CONTENT=”graphics, design, graphic, spalding, junior, designer, magazine, freelance, tractor, news, identity, save, designer, lincolnshire, east midlands, marmalade, texture, advertising”>

<META NAME=”description” CONTENT=”Lea Chapman is a recent first class graduate from Hull School of Art & Design with a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design based in Lincolnshire. His influences include Marmalade magazine and Rodchenko. Website, magazine, identity and advertising.”>

<META NAME=”author” CONTENT=”Lea Chapman”>

<META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”ALL”>

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Above is a simplified example of SEO. The TITLE tag contains all the information about what the website is, in a short and concise sentence/list, each page should have a different title tag.

This contains a great deal of the keywords. These are listed in the META NAME=”keywords” section. Just list the keywords one after the other separated with commas.

Finally include a description which will appear under your website when it is shown within a search engine, this is included under the META NAME=”description” tag.

The “author” tag is used to list the author of the page, this is useful when discovering who actually owns/created the website. “ROBOTS” is referring to search engines, you are able to specify if you want NO robots (search engines) to find your site, or ALL search engines to find it.

This is intended to be a start to using SEO. More and more complex solutions are being increasingly used to maximise a website’s Google, Yahoo, or MSN potential. Take time to research your keywords and pay attention to internet trends at the time, keep trying different combinations until you find one that works for your site.

This article was created by Lea Chapman, a UK Web Design and Graphics Design Proffessional. If you’d like to discover more about professional design services, web design or print services, please contact Lea on 07746 539 854, or www.leachapman.co.uk