One of the key tools we use in any optimisation campaigns is Google Analytics. This very powerful tool allows you to find out a wealth of information about your website, it allows you to see the number of visitors you have had, how they found your site, the keywords used if they came via a search engine and even where they came from and the browser they used.

There are a vast array of other useful tools within this suite, however, for the beginner it is simply a great way of analysing how your Search Engine Optimisation is going and which way to take it next. It also allows us to show you how we are doing and therefore gives you a great way to determine your Return on Investment (ROI).

At TribeWeb we have experience of using Google Analytics for small businesses with fewer than 60 to 80 visitors a day, as well as delving into the information about sites which have over 5000 unique visitors a day. We understand how to leverage the information gained to the advantage of the site owner in order to show a real increase in traffic.

Over the next few weeks I am going to be publishing my A to Z of SEO, these will be purely in alphabetical order (not in order of importance). If any of the subjects which come up interest you, then why not get in touch with us and we are always happy to chat them through with you.

Our approach to SEO, here at TribeWeb, is to enable you to do as much as you can. You know your customers or target audience better than anyone else.

So lets start at the very beginning (it's a very good place to start)

One of the keys to good Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is good quality back links. In simple terms a backlink is a URL Hyperlink from another site back to yours. This link is seen by search engines such as Google as a “vote” for your site, this in turn means your “ranking” increases for that particular keyword or keyphrase. This is the basis of Page Rank (see later)

There is has been a lot of discussion recently about the type of backlinks and if they are “natural” or not (this is the reason why so many people have suddenly been talking about Penguins). For many years certain SEOs have bought, traded or otherwise gained backlinks in dubious ways. Because of this we at TribeWeb ensure that any backlinks which we gain for you are based on the quality of your site and we never ever buy backlinks from other sites. We take the view that either the site is worth linking to or not!

If this list were in order of importance, then there is absolutely no doubt at all that content would be top of that list. If you do not have top quality, dense, unique and fresh content then there is little point in trying to promote your website. It is this which search engines such as Google will pick up on in their index and it is this which will bring both Google’s bots and your visitors back again and again. Also it is worth noting that the search engines are getting better and better at knowing what good unique content is

The other massive advantage to high quality content it is the best way we at TribeWeb know to gain good quality, relevant and above all natural backlinks. By having great content others will link to you and with this brings not only direct traffic, but also higher Page Rank (see later) and therefore better search engine results.

No not the Britain’s Got Talent street dance team, we are talking about your inbound links and the Anchor Text which is used in them. Anchor text is the word which you see as the label for the clickable hyperlink through to your site. In the past it was very popular for SEO companies to try and get as many links to a site with the targeted keyword as the anchor text, however, the Google Penguin update has changed all this!

Google is now looking for a good diversity of anchor text, which is what it would expect to see if the links back to your site came from natural and organic sources. In this way Google is trying to weed out “unnatural” links which it considers as spam.

What does this mean for you and your site? Well in short you need to make sure that your backlinks are natural and better still natural looking. That’s why at TribeWeb we are very deliberate with the way we structure our link building campaigns for our customers, we never have and never will buy links or seek to exchange low quality links. Our view is that one good link is better than a hundred poor ones.

There are probably more search engines than you think, to name just a few we have Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Blekko...oh and Google of course. By far the biggest player in the market is Google (because it is the most widely used by a very long way). Because of this it is Google which we at TribeWeb pay most attention to when it comes to optimising our sites.

In basic terms a search engine uses an algorithm to decide which of the web pages in its index (see later) it should serve up to the users, based firstly on the term they are searching for and then a whole host of other things. These other things might be preferences which the user has set (for example safe-search which is Google’s way of filtering adult content out of it’s results) or the history of that particular user.

While Google is a very important search engine, it is important to never forget that the others do still exist, because of this we never ever disregard the other major search engines.

The process of SEO on a site is often seen as a series of tricks to try and fool search engines, such as Google, into showing a site in their search results. In reality it all depends on what you are doing and how you are doing it.

A lot of people will talke about Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO and there is some truth in what they say. Here at TribeWeb we make sure that everything we do is simply to ensure the search engines can understand what the website is about and therefore give them good reason to move it up the rankings.

The following video was recently released by Google's Matt Cutts and it explains how Google views the subject of SEO.

The following is one of the best videos I have seen which explains what SEO is. It is only 3.5 minutes long and fun to watch too. If you are interested in finding out more then why not get in touch with us?

The way in which your website ranks on any given search engine is decided by a multitude of different factors, these factors range from the things which appear on your site, where they are on the page and also the "authority" your site has on the Internet as a whole.

With this in mind it is easy to think "Where do I start?", well here st TribeWeb the top 5 things which we would star with are:

1. Content. This is always the most important thing about your website, not only is it really important to have good quality unique content to rank well on search engines, but it also makes for a much better user experience. The two things go hand in hand.
2. Keywords. You need to research the terms which people use to search for the thing which you are selling or writing about. This can be a trick which some SEO firms use to sell you their service, they will tell you that they will choose a handful of search terms and get you to ranck highly for them, however, if no-one ever searches for that term or word, then is is useless.
3. Links. There has been a lot written about inbound links (links from another website to yours). It is a very complex subject and one which can lead to confusion. In simple terms you need to get some good quality links to your site from other sites.
4. Get Social. You need to have a presence on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. These sites are a great way of getting your message out and also driving new people to your site.
5. Content. OK so this is the same as point number one, but it was so important that I think it deserves repeating. Make sure that your website is not full of "thin" content and keep the content fresh and up to date.

If you want more advice about how to get your website to rank better, or of you are looking to have a new website designed and want to make sure your business is found on Google then why not get in touch?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and in simple terms it is the art or skill of gaining higher rankings on search engines which ultimately will lead to increased traffic to your site. If your site is a shop it is the same as driving more people through the door of your store, the obvious benefit would therefore be more sales and increased profits.

SEO is a very varied and diverse discipline leverages the many different "on page" and "off page" factors which search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing take into account when returning results to users search queries. The skill is to ensure that you have done everything possible in order to ensure that your site is higher up the list than your competitors or other competing websites.

We will discuss the "on-site" and "off-site" factors in more detail in the coming posts, however, for now here are a very few examples (these are in no particular order and some are more weighted towards than others):

On Page Ranking Factors

• Keyword density
• Meta-tag data
• Internal linking
• Page load speed

Off Page Ranking Factors

• Quantity inbound links
• Quality of inbound links
• Diversity of inbound links

Please bookmark this Blog as we will be updating it regularly with news, views and insight into all things SEO.