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Do have as much content as possible

In the world of search engine optimisation, content is king. The more content you have, the more information search engines will have about you. The more frequently it is updated, the more the search engine will visit your site.

Writing articles and blog posts around content you are trying to optimise for is a great way to get traffic, and it's one of the search engine optimisation agencies' biggest secrets for getting your site up the rankings for a particular keyword.

Even if your site isn't editorially focused, it's a good idea to have a latest news page, or a blog on a subject you are trying to get traffic for. Search engines are trying to get the most relevant and recent content to users, based on a simple search term, and writing a blog every few days that is stuffed with keywords and links to other parts of your site will be considered as a rich source of information.

Recent content marked by date also gives the impression that your site is active and not just something that was knocked up on a whim and forgotten about.

Don't think quirkiness; think search

We've all done it: spotted a quirky headline on a tabloid newspaper and felt driven to read the article solely on the back of that.

In 1998, the Sun ran a story entitled 鈥淚s this the most dangerous man in Britain?鈥� The man in question was Tony Blair, and the issue in question was whether to scrap the pound for the euro. As search engines place the most emphasis on keywords in headlines and page titles, a user Googling 鈥淭ony Blair pound euro scrap鈥� is not likely to see this story at the top of page one.

When writing headlines and page titles you must ask yourself 鈥淲hat would I search to find this page?鈥� Off the back of that, try to use common language and not crazy new, made-up words like 鈥渁dverblish鈥� (a combination of 鈥渁dvertise鈥� and 鈥減ublish鈥� - thanks for that one go to Feedburner). WYSIWYG (鈥渨hat you see is what you get鈥�) is the best approach for writing page titles and headlines. Taking a deep dive into your thesaurus can make you appear erudite, but unsearchable.