Website SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a method of helping websites to rank higher in search engines like Google. Sites listed on the first page of the organic search results in Google are more often visited, which is why SEO takes on a great importance for all businesses that own a commercial website.

In order to be optimal for search engines, sites must be:

• More relevant to the requested search word or phrase.
• Of a high quality from the search engine's point of view.

In order to do SEO, one must be acquainted with the way search engines work. Nowadays, SEO companies are at hand, that specialize not only in On-Page SEO, but also in Off-page SEO, which generally means creating links to your websites from other pages on the web, and other marketing activities all around the World Wide Web.

Optimization of Code and Content

The process of SEO begins even before developing the website, with the choice of domain. A strong domain is preferably not a new domain, but rather one with seniority in the given website topic. Then, as the site is being developed, the code optimization is taken into consideration again. This includes writing a semantic code based on informative tags (such as description, h1, h2, etc.) that Google can read and infer from them about the page relevancy. We also recommend to use code that conforms to the W3C standards which is scanned more easily by the Google crawlers.

A clear and convenient site hierarchy also contributes to the site's legibility for search engines. Categories should be set logically, so that the content will be well-organized. This helps not only the crawling by search engines, but also the users surfing on the pages of the website. A well-constructed site is examined from top to bottom and must include the following parameters:

• Title - This text is located at the highest point on the page. The Title is of critical importance to the optimization of the page and therefore should contain the main keywords you are targeting.
• Headings - The different headings should be defined in the code by using the appropriate tags h1, h2, h3 etc. This will create a clear structure in the web-page. If the headings include important keywords, that will help Google understand the relevance of the page to the targeted keywords.
• Keywords - The main keywords can be entered as the attribute of the 'keywords' meta tag. Google has declared not to consider this in the process of ranking web pages, but it might be that other search engines still do.
• Internal links - It is recommended to create a net of internal links between the different content pages of the website. All links must have a textual anchor, which is “read” by Google and makes the connection between the word or phrase and the web-page that the link leads to.
• Highlighting (bold text) - Important words and phrases can be marked in bold letters, to emphasize their relevance to the subject of the page. Be sure to include your keywords here and there in the highlighted text.
• Alt attributes for images - Images in your page should have an Alt attribute inside the tag. This is an alternative text that functions as a replacement for the picture itself when it is not presented for some reason. This attribute gives Google information as to the content of the image.
• Site map - It is recommended to create a page with links to all the important pages in the website. All the pages of the site must have a link to this site map. Site map increases new-page indexing speed.

It appears that SEO includes not only high quality links from other websites, but also the internal structure of the site is relevant for ranking it by search engines. In order to be ranked high in Google, the site must have a good hierarchy and a carefully-done content optimization.