What actually is search engine optimisation? There is confusion in the minds of many, as evidenced by the varied approaches seen within any cross-section of web sites. A lack of understanding is apparent on the part of many web designers whose design techniques ensure that search engines cannot penetrate to any internal content!

SEO is the art of clarification, with a clear emphasis on the principle that "form follows function.

What vs who - clarify what it is your site offers, and ensure that this is clearly articulated throughout its content. Unless you are a "household name" brand, the focus should be on what you produce, sell or service, not on who you are.

Searchers usually refine a query with 2-4 words, e.g. "stainless steel spade" It is amazing how many sites waste vital opportunities with fatuous lines like "Welcome to my web site.

We are repeatedly told that implementing a Blog (weB log) is an excellent way to steadily increase the depth of content on your site in an easy and efficient manner. We are also told that there are numerous benefits, because a Blog, if properly used, enables you to;

- Distribute new information to clients and prospective clients
- Efficiently increase site content by rapidly adding new material
- Provide "advertorial" material to other sites
- Increase links to your site as your Blog contents are disseminated across other sites on the 'net.

Ok, so you've created your nice shiny new blog, and you've been adding high quality postings containing lots of useful information on a regular basis for a few weeks (or months)... whats next?

Review Your Blog

First, take stock of your blog's set-up, and make sure its ready for debut;
1.) Do your postings have some relevant key word content in the headings? If you're intending to improve your overall ranking across search engines, remember to "optimise" the page just as you would any other page of your site.

One of the advantages touted by blog proponents is the ability to use your blog (and/or other blogs) to automatically add "fresh" content to your site. Search engines like regularly updated content, and will get in the habit of dropping in to see whats new!

However, as you will have quickly discovered if you've had a go at this already, getting the content flowing is somewhat tricky.

There has been a flurry of entrants into the Search Engine Optimisation market in the past year or so. Judging by the horrendous rates some are charging, money rather than service seems to be the main motivation. Judging by the horror stories from clients who have arrived on my doorstep after being ripped off by sharp operators, in some instances there is evidence of a serious deficiency in both ethics and skills in some cases.

If you own a web site AND you have multiple domain names registered, you might want to read this with your full attention. There are a great many web sites out there which, by inappropriate use of multiple domain names, effectively cripple their search engine rankings by blatantly breaching search engine guidelines!

Site owners often register more than one domain, and there are sound reasons for doing this, including;

- The main URL includes a keyword phrase but is too long to type quickly, so a shorter, cryptic one is utilised and maybe is also used on business cards and letter heads.

Another thing the web hosting company forgot to tell you... An aspect overlooked by many site owners, and one that gets minimal coverage in web design or SEO articles etc, is the importance of server location to your site rankings, traffic and consequent success. Most articles are written by web design & SEO practitioners in the USA, and are therefore written from "The Inside, Looking Out.

Latent semantic indexing (LSI) is a concept whereby your site is also assessed on content other than the keywords that you are obviously targeting in the on-page and off-page elements of the site. Partly, this is to combat using keywords to draw traffic to content unrelated to the keywords - as porn, gambling and pharmacy spam sites are inclined to do.

One of the fastest way to minimise your chances of web business success is to use a Content Management System (CMS). There are a number of open-source CMS products, such as phpWS, Mambo, Plone, Drupal, Geeklog, Siteframe, and phpNuke etc and and a plethora of proprietary CMS products espoused by individual web design companies as the answer everything from lack of HTML knowledge to rapid shopping cart deployment etc.

As mentioned in previous posts, using blogs to generate additional traffic for your primary site can pay huge dividends. Just "doing it" can mean significant increases in traffic, but what you really want to do here is - as in your main site - generate qualified traffic.

Post Writing - Content Creation Discipline

By that, I mean you want to draw in people who want exactly what you offer.