Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Look around, it seems that feeding our children is not our priority any more! Maybe something more important has taken its place. Our prime concern today is that our website is at least among the top five on Google. And everyone is doing everything in their power to climb the search engine ladder.

Wait a second folks, let’s stop and first think about what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is? It is a process of improving the traffic on a website through search engines. But how do you do it? The most common and sleaziest way to do this is to fill in your homepage with keywords. Which means if you are a an Italian restaurant in London, you would cleverly squeeze in the words ‘Italian’, ‘Restaurant’ and ‘London’ as much as you can on your website so that the search engine detects it and put you higher up on their search list. Well, if you are thinking along these lines, two things I would like to tell you here, one – you are practically trying to cheat the system and two – this method does not work anymore!

So then how do you make your website search engine optimized? Well, there are a couple of brilliant and genuine ways you can do this.

Coining a Word: A way towards the top of the Google ladder is to create a word that is small, easy to remember and is new. For example if I come up with a new dish in my Italian restaurant in London and decide to call it ‘Giffel’, now if you type the word ‘giffel’ and ‘food’ together in the search bar, it would automatically bring my restaurant on top on Google. The logic is similar to that of coining famous words as ‘Jeep’, ‘Hoover’, ‘Pampers’, and ‘Thermos Flask’, only now its being used to optimize your website on ‘Google’ – which is another example of coining a word that we know means ‘search’.

Show that you Care: Another way to move ahead in the race is to build trust. Did you know that a few years ago one of the best search engine optimized website was not of Coca-Cola or Microsoft, but in fact it was of a family-run French bicycle company? Yes, and the reason behind it was that the prime objective of the website was not to advertise more and more bicycles of that company but instead it was to help people who owned bicycles. It mostly contained all the information a bicycle owner would need, right from the instruction manuals to assembling a bike to repair broken chains. Google recognized this and gave them the top seat for bicycle searches. So the point is, if you are selling anything make sure you offer business support to your customers and don’t always look to push sales, because sometimes that is not the best way to go.

Even a Ferrari needs Servicing: You can not come out as a winner by simply making the best or the world's most expensive website and letting it fly on the internet. If you want to win the race you have to stop in the pits! Make sure you keep your website updated. Add new pages and new articles from time to time. Add links to other relevant sites. Or maybe even play with the design a little if you can, to give it a refreshing look. What impression would I be leaving behind today if at the bottom of my website it says Copyright © 2004?



I personally think that the best websites are ones that serves a purpose of helping customers achieve what they are looking for - not confusing them.