NOTE: If you do not understand the different search information systems (indexes, directories, sites) you may wish to read about them first. This article offers a brief overview of SEO (should more accurately be called Search Information System Optimisation - Ed). It's true that vast tomes have been published on the subject but most are overblown. Some highly technical books deal with the subject of optimising dynamic web sites, and this is an important subject that deserves diligence. We'll deal with basic good common sense SEO practice for HTML/CSS sites here. You'll find plenty more in-depth stuff elsewhere on the web and in print.

What is SEO?

When someone enters phrases and keywords into a search box at a search site, an algorithm (computer program) finds related web pages in its index (or directory) and displays a list of them in what it thinks is the correct order of relevance on its search results page. Google calls this process page (or site) ranking (or weighting). Ranking is a measure of relevance, so higher ranked pages appear above lower ranked pages.

Approximately (depending on which statistics you read) 50% of first time visitors to a site, find it by using a search site, the other 50% know the URL (from recommendation or advertising or good guesswork etc) and type it straight into their browser address bar. Therefore, if a site builder/owner wants to generate the maximum traffic, they need their site to be ranked as high as possible by the Google's, Yahoos and MSN's of this world.

Search engine optimisation is the process whereby a web site builder will try to ensure that the web spiders, sent out by search index sites, feed information to their search site algorithm in such a way as to give the site builder's site a high ranking in search results for a given search phrase or collection of keywords.

It is the job of a site builder to try and understand what search terms potential visitors may use, how the search site algorithm works, what criteria it uses to rank sites, and to exploit this knowledge when planning and building the site. In addition they may also control a budget for buying a higher ranking in the "Pay Per Click" ads that accompany the search results at a Search Site.

It should be said that even the best SEO strategy will not always guarantee high rankings, so you should be wary of telling your clients it will.

Which Search Information Systems must be considered?

There are many Search Sites on the web but most use one of the following Search Information System (indexes or directories) ...

Google (index)
Yahoo (index)
MSN (index)
Ask / AskJeeves (index)
Open Directory Project (directory)

Ensuring your site is indexed and understanding how these technologies rank pages for relevance to a given search phrase or keyword is a primary skill of the site builder and must be considered at the design stage of a new site. Search sites need their results to be relevant to users. If they are not, the users will search elsewhere. But search sites also need to keep the details of their ranking algorithms secret from the competition and to some extent site builders too. They want sites to be ranked on the quality of their content and relevance, not because of the skills of the SEO expert.

Can you out smart the search site experts?

Some of these search sites are multi-million/billion dollar businesses. Their core business is returning relevant results fast. There are some very clever people working at them. Its probably fair to say that any idea you can come up with to out-smart them, they've already thought of and accounted for in their algorithms.

Therefore, the real skill is to understand how they work and build sites that will help the spiders and algorithms to do their jobs. Much of SEO is concerned with avoiding facets of site design that will hinder spiders and maximising facets that help them. But be in no doubt, the quality of your content and the esteem users and other sites hold you in are paramount to good ranking.

How a site is ranked

A search index uses a number of criteria to rank a page or sites relevance to a given search, such as ...

An exact match for a search phrase
Pages with words from the phrase close together
The context of the phrase in the text
Page titles with the phrase in them
The importance of the phrase in the context of a pages content
Quality and usefulness of content
The number and relevance of other sites that link to the site/page
How long the site/page has existed
etc

They look for these phrases in the visible text and html code of a sites pages. SEO is, of course, concerned with the exact technical methods you use to ensure your pages meet these criteria.

SEO good practices

This is the practical part of this article, giving you good advice on which web technologies are SEO friendly, which you should avoid, and how to improve your site ranking.

Submitting your site

Indexes

To find out what pages are already in an index (this works for Google, MSN and Yahoo), type "site:domain.com" (eg "site:planetoftunes.com") into the search box. If your pages aren't there you can manually submit them. Remember, these are the only indexes that matter. Use these links ...

www.google.com/addurl.html

siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

www.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

Alas, www.ask.com offers no way of manually submitting your site, you must wait for them to find you.

Directories

Do the same for ...

dir.yahoo.com ($300-$600 pa, urghhh!!!)

www.dmoz.org (free)

Submitting a Sitemap

Many indexes accept Sitemap submissions to speed up their indexing processes. A Sitemap is usually in .txt or XML format and lists all the URLs/pages on your site. Creating and uploading a Sitemap is a useful option for intermediate to advanced web site builders.

You can find out more about sitemaps here ... http://www.sitemaps.org/

Googles sitemap generator tool

This is a website that helps you create a Sitemap ... http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

You can find links to help you submit Sitemaps to Google and Yahoo here ...

www.google.com/webmasters/ (create a sitemap in xml format, upload it to the top level of your site and then tell Google where it is).

siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit Yahoo requires you to create, and upload to your site, a .txt file containing a list of all the URLs/pages at your site. Submit your URL (eg http://www.planetoftunes.com/urllist.txt) to Yahoo as a Site Feed on their regular Submit page.

Aaron Howey has submitted this advice on submitting to MSN (thanks Aaron) ...

On your SEO page you were wondering about submitting sitemaps to MSN. While not possible directly (from many sites I searched) there is a backdoor way of doing it with www.moreover.com (apparently), there is a mini -artcile here detailing how to do this. http://www.seo-expert-services.co.uk/blog/posts/submit-sitemap-to-msn,-google-and-yahoo.html

Web site technologies - pros & cons

Technology	SEO pros	SEO cons
JavaScript navigation		Spiders can't read them, don't use them
Text in images		Spiders can't read them, don't use them without the Alt tage configured
Short text links		Spiders prefer unambiguous longer link text
Long text links	Say what they are
Dynamic pages		Spiders have trouble indexing them, may not index them at all, requires expert SEO skills to work around problems
Image maps		Spiders can't read them, don't use them without full text link alternatives
Frames		Spiders have problems with them, don't use them if your are concerned with SEO
(Page) Title tag	Well written descriptive tags are important to search indexes. Try putting the page description before the site name
Flash intros		Spiders can't read text in them, avoid like the plague
Flash navigation		No no no no!
Flash elements	Use them for appropriate non text information parts of your site, they should not be a substitute for text	Remember spiders can't read text in them so be cautious
Text	Indexes love well written relevant html text content
<h1>, <h2> etc tags	Important to indexes, use them in a logical manner to indicated hierachy of importance of content (not for styling) and make them straightforward and descriptive
External CSS	Leaves the markup uncluttered and semantic, use them
Inline CSS		Clutters up the <head> tag unnecessarily, use external CSS
Meta tags	Consider the use the <meta name="description" content= ...> and <meta name="keywords" content= ...> tags in the <head> tags of each page	Not as important as some thing they are
Java applet navigation		Be careful, they can create index problems
JavaScript elements		They create code clutter, use external linked JavaScript elements
Alt tag	Short concise human readable URLs, descriptive like the page title are best
URLs	Make them as descriptive as possible
Dynamically produced URLs		Avoid if possible
Text styling (bold, italic, case, lists etc)	Spiders rank a words importance partly on its styling, so take advantage of this fact

Cheating

There are various well documented underhand methods for artificially achieving a higher ranking (search the web for link farms, page jacking, cloaking, keyword stuffing, alt text spamming etc) but I would suggest you avoid them. As already mentioned you may possibly be able to out-smart the indexes (if they don't remove your site from their indexes completely!) but you won't out-smart your visitors and if your site doesn't contain content that is useful to them they won't re-visit or recommend you.

Keywords

You need to include keywords in your content that reflect the keywords people are likely to type into search boxes. This means thinking about how they will describe what they are searching for rather than how you might. You may have invented clever phrases to describe processes or products but will other people be searching with those phrases? Probably not. If you site sells door mats then use the phrase "door mat" not "footwear cleaning utility"(am I going to fast for you!) Obvious stuff, but many site builders forget this simple principal. Here are a few other tips ...

Write down a list of phrases you think your sites visitors might use to find sites like yours, ask friends to suggest phrases.
Find out what keyword are most successful on a web site you have built by checking the sites access logs.
Go to competitor sites and see which keywords they have used in their source code.

There is a lot to say about keyword analysis and implementation in a site, so search the web and print for more comprehensive advice.

Content (text 'n' words)

Write good content

Arguably the best way to get a site ranked highly is to fill it with well written, relevant and concise content (text). Many business sites selling a small range of products have learnt this lesson. For example, you will often find technical help articles and tutorials accompanying sound recording equipment manufacturer sites.

Writing good content is a skill and an art, so make sure whoever is doing it is either capable or is happy to have their words re-written by someone who is. A friend (who shall remain nameless) has the job of re-writing the almost un-intelligible writings of her boss. Her boss is great at ideas, she is great at grammar. The arrangement works.

Don't write content just for the sake of it, it must be useful to your visitors.

Technical note

Put content first in your html structure. If you are using CSS and <div> tags to position elements this is easy to do.

The importance of links

It is well known that page ranking takes account of the number of other sites which are linking to yours, and if these sites have high rankings and content that relates, so much the better. Here are a few ideas ...

Actively cultivate relationships with other webmasters and suggest reciprocal linking.
Including a page on your site which helps other sites link to you, with suggestions and perhaps a complete piece of code they can grab and use.
Don't favour image links such as gif banners and animations, spiders prefer descriptive text links.
If someone says they are going to link to you, check that they have and let them know if there are any errors.
You may already being linking to other sites, are they linking to you?
Try to link with manufacturer and retail sites that relate to your content.
Ask employers, friends and family to link to you.
Submit URLs to indexes and directories (obviously!).
Promote your URL at blogs and discussion groups.
Create marketing content for sites like YouTube and always display your URL prominently.
Link with related non-profit organisations.
If yours is an e-Commerce site, submit to shopping directories such as www.froogle.com

Paying for a higher ranking (AdWords, PayPerClick etc)

Why go through the pain of SEO when you can buy your way to a high ranking position with money(!) Essentially, you compose an ad/page link with a description and then bid on related keywords and phrases to have your ad appear high in the list of ads that appear to the right of the search results at a search site. Whenever someone clicks on your link you pay the piper (Google, yahoo etc) the amount that you bid. All the popular search sites offer this facility. Here's a couple of useful links ...