With marketing budgets being crunched, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is starting to look even more appealing. The 80-20 rule (otherwise known as the Pareto principle) states that in general 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In SEO terms, this means that a few low-cost changes to your site can result in a dramatic increase of traffic. However, when you consider that Google has over 200 factors that determine ranking on search results, it’s important to focus your SEO efforts on the areas that are really going to make a difference.

And here’s the proof: we carried out some SEO work on a brand site, which now comes up on the first page of organic results against key search phrases. In total, organic traffic on the site accounts for around 10,000 site users per month. Driving the same traffic through pay-per-click (PPC) would cost approximately 40 pence (55 US cents) per click. The maths is simple: it’s clear that time spent on a considered SEO project will pay for itself in just a few months. In the long run, SEO can produce a higher return on investment (ROI) than PPC.

By effectively managing a few relatively simple factors in SEO, you can greatly increase the consumer value – and thus, the traffic – of your site. Here are our top five tips for an 80-20 approach to optimising your site:

Creating content: text is key
It is impossible for search engine “spiders” to read images or Flash code. Don’t ruin your site’s chances of being found by not providing text for the spiders to read.

• If you use Flash in your site, make sure that any written content is also provided as plain text. There are ways of incorporating this text so that only the search engines see it (a method known as ‘depreciation’).
• Use your key phrases throughout your text. Optimum key phrase density – the percentage of normal text made up of key phrases – is generally around 5-10%: any more, and search engines may dismiss your page as spam.
• Try to keep your pages short. Page length is linked to key phrase density: the longer a page is, the harder it is to maintain a high key phrase density.

Depreciation in action

Link building and link relevance: the art of linking

Link relevance – that is, links on your site that are related to your product – is a deciding factor on how search engines rank pages in search results. High link relevance is an indication that a site is an authority on its given subject – hence, more useful to searchers.

• Search engines place a high priority on link relevance, on both incoming and outgoing links. Make sure you provide links between all of your pages: whenever you mention one of your products, link to it!
• Instead of using “click here” for your links, use your key phrases. Both visitors and search engines will appreciate this.
• You can also link out of your site and encourage link-backs from external sources. Don’t be tempted to pay for inclusion on link lists: poor links can actually hurt your ranking. Remember ‘quality over quantity’. It is also better to have a ‘one-way link’ from a third party coming to your site than it is to have ‘two-way’ reciprocal links between sites.

Behind the scenes: good practices for metadata
Search engines go through all of the HTML code on a page in order to determine where it will appear on search results, so make sure it is optimised.

• Make sure your page titles (under the <title> tag) contain your key phrases. These appear at the top of a browser window and in the links on search results.
• Use your key phrases in the description tags on your pages. Not only do spiders search these, most search engines (including Google) will have them appear in their results.
• Use heading tags – <h1>, <h2> – to set headlines on your page, and use key phrases within them. Search engines attach great importance to these.
• Put key phrase text in image <alt> tags. Also, include the words ‘image’ or ‘picture’: users often use these words in their searches.

An examples of how to format meta tags

Making a call-to-action

You’ve got people looking at your site: now you need to keep them there. SEO is useless if users don’t know what to do next.

• Have an obvious call-to-action on your landing page. This can be as simple as a phone number to call or an online request form for information.
• Put this call-to-action above the “fold” of the page: don’t make visitors scroll down to find it.
• As stated above, guide your users through your site with well-placed links that make use of your key phrases.

Fresh content: making visitors come back for more

Even casual blogs usually do well in searches, even when they have been built without any SEO. High content turnover and short, key phrase-heavy articles mean that blogs are regularly trawled by search engine spiders.

• Fresh content can improve page rankings by making the spiders keep coming back. Keep updating your site to maintain a high search position.
• Having new content isn’t just good for search engines: it’s also good for site visitors. If they see that a site is regularly updated, they are far more likely to make repeat visits.
• Make sure your content is well-written. While you should aim for good key phrase density, remember that text will be read by people as well as by search engine spiders!
• Don’t forget that search engines regularly update their search algorithms to weed out spam sites. SEO is not a one-time event: you need to keep an eye on what works and what doesn’t, and make sure that your site stays up-to-date.