Last week we looked at search engine optimisation and I made a start by touching on a few basic principles, choosing your keywords carefully, making sure your keywords appear significantly and consistently in the text of your page and once or twice in bold or italics. Make sure you have used 'headings' (h1 or h2 etc.) and do not use graphics for titles or section headings, which the search engines cannot read. Very important too make sure there is a keyword in all of the headings you do use.

Ok, so lets get to something fresh! If you have used the techniques I have listed here you are well on the way to optimising your site. The next thing to look at is your content, that is the main bulk of written information that your visitors will see presumably somewhere near the top of the page (at least it should be as you want that read first!!). Search engines do love good content so make sure you give it to them. The problem we have as webmasters is trying to balance what the search engines want with the aesthetic values of our presentation. It can be done however and just requires a little thought. Take as step back and try not to get too involved with your creation to the point where you are unable evaluate things objectively.

Focus on the main purpose of your site, lets say our site sells light bulbs, not very interesting perhaps but it serves the purpose. What we need to do is create informative text about our subject matter and include our keywords as much as possible without distorting the natural flow of the text. Design from your visitors point of view do not design for the search engines, you optimise for the search engines. You do not just include your keywords but use as many associated or contextual keywords as possible.

Our site sells light bulbs. Our keyword is 'light bulb' but we can also use 'Light bulbs, Lighting, Halogen Light Bulbs, Fluorescent Bulbs, Lamps, Incandescent Light Bulbs, Watts' just to give a few. There are websites and software that will help you generate keywords try visiting www.wordtracker.com. What we can do now is write our text incorporating as many of these contextual keywords as possible, this is not difficult and might read something like this:

Light bulbs are vital. We sell them all from fluorescent bulbs to halogen lamps, incandescent to simple 60 watt clear bulbs.

Its not Shakespeare but you get the point and the fact is that is only the first sentence containing 21 words out of which 9 of them are keywords. We can also research key phrases for our product and incorporate them to. We give the customer what they need but we optimise it for the search engines, it just needs thinking about.

We should also make sure that we use 'Alt image text' the pop up text or tool tip that is displayed in the browser when you hover over an active element. It describes what the element is or does and is meant to help the customer or viewer. But again a little thought will allow us to optimise this too. Whatever your image might be give it an accurate description but keep in mind your keyword optimisation. So your first light bulb picture might be a '60 watt light bulb' therefore we will use alt text '60 watt light bulb graphic (or jpeg or gif etc.)' and label every image on the page in this way. The simple example I have given is five words long and uses three keywords. The over all effect of these techniques is to optimise your page to produce keyword density but never get too zealous and pack your page with keywords. If you turn your page into 'a guide to nonsenseville' the search engine will decide you are spamming them and you will be penalised. It is generally accepted that keyword density should not exceed 10%. Also make sure you include some principle keywords in your 'page title', this is not your website address but the details that appear in the tab of the browser when the page loads. This comes from the html 'title tag' in the head section of your pages code and for the purpose of our example may read something like this: title Light Bulbs | Fluorescent To Halogen Lamps At Lightbulb.com /title.

Next week we will move on to off page optimisation which is easily 90% of the battle but you need to make sure you have done your on page optimisation first.

And do not forget if you have got a website and just discovered that you are invisible and now you are desperate to do something quick, firstly be assured there are thousands of others in the same boat and secondly know that there are people who can help you. The Internet is still an information community and plenty of people share information.

So if you cannot wait several weeks to read all my articles have a look at a brilliant FREE ebook that has the whole thing neatly laid out in understandable English. Visit one of the links below and download the FREE .pdf it is packed solid with must know gems by SEO wizard Brad Callen. Everything you need to know is right there and if you put it into practise you will win! My email is there too and if you're struggling or would like advice feel free to drop me a line, if I cannot help you I will point you in the right direction. Alternatively have a Look at one of my new sites willow wood at the optimisation used there and you will see it can still look attractive.