The majority of a website's visitors will find the site through a search engine. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is therefore very important to ensure that your site has maximum visibility and a high search engine ranking.
Whilst a No.1 search engine ranking is extremely difficult to achieve and can never be guaranteed, I have listed below some tips that should help boost your site's ranking and subsequently lead to an increase in hits/visitors:
1. Choose your keywords carefully and don't overdo it or put irrelevant keywords in - search engines don't like it and your site will suffer in the long run!
2. Ensure you have ALT Tags set up for all graphics/images listed on your site - describe the images with the use of this tag. This will help users with text-only based browsers and enable search engines to index your site better.
3. Create a Sitemap.
Here's ours - simple yet effective! It's useful because a) it allows visitors to easily get around your site and b) it makes it easier for search engine spiders to crawl and index your site and all its pages.
4. Get as many incoming links as possible. Get friends/family to put your link on their website with a short description as this can also help increase your search engine position.
5. Do
NOT use iFrames - they're ugly and search engines cannot index/view them.
6. Finally, you must have patience - don't expect your site to suddenly make it to the no. 1 spot overnight!!
Hope you've enjoyed reading this and I look forward to hearing your feedback/comments. :-)
Tim