by Frances Laing

Created on: October 04, 2010

The moment you begin to write on the internet is the moment you need to understand basic search engine optimisation. If you write without due regard to basic search engine optimisation you run the risk of spending a lot of time and effort on web site design - and crafting your copy - without getting the return (and the readers) you deserve.

The process we're talking about looks like this: search engine 'crawlers' review many millions of websites and blogs - these 'spiders' will try to apply a process of ranking to the material they come across. Relevance is key. The aim of search engines like Google is to sift out the sites which are most relevant to the reader - and - to relegate those sites which are not relevant to the bottom of the heap.

This article title is a case in point. I'm writing something with the title: "A guide to basic search engine optimisation (SEO)". Why has this title been selected by title seeders? The answer is: it contains some strategically important key words and phrases. Title seeders (the people who choose the titles) - have tried to put themselves in a reader's shoes.

If you were a reader just starting out on the internet and you wanted to learn or find out something about basic search engine optimisation - you would probably go to a search engine search box and spontaneously type in several words or key phrases to find out the answers to your questions. What would you type in? Chances are you would choose the phrases "a guide to search engine optimisation" or "basic search engine optimisation".  If you were a complete beginner you might start with "SEO" or "search engine optimisation" but you would soon find the search results you would get with this search would only be of limited help to you as this key word phrase is just too broad. 

As a writer on the internet - in order to understand basic search engine optimisation you need to understand where potential readers are coming from and what they want. Then you need to give it to them!

Look back at this article and see where and how the phrase "basic search engine optimisation (SEO)" has been incorporated into the copy. You will see that the key word phrase has been included five times - and that it is located and repeated in the first paragraph. This key word phrase also features towards the end.

This is a basic and important search engine optimisation technique. Hopefully readers wanting to know more about "basic search engine optimisation" will now 'Google' these key words - and will be able to find the information in this article easily. They will find it because search engine crawlers will quickly sift through all available articles on "basic search engine optimisation" and will rank those articles highly that are most relevant to the subject in question.

There is a lot more to say about search engine optimisation than this of course. Google operates with a mathematical formula called an algorithm - which very few people understand in it's entirety and which is constantly changing. This is understandable in a way - as it forms part of a successful commercial secret. This is the reason why a website which is currently ranked highly may not be ranked that way in a year's time. So to understand search engine optimisation - we need to recognise that we're going to be dealing with a constant learning curve. 

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