Here are our top ten SEO tips that can help improve your search engine ranking (in no particular order).

1. Use keyword headers (h1 and h2 tags)

Search engines look for h1 and h2 tags they think that they must be important. Place your keywords and phrases in these tags as far as possible.

2. Use bold text to highlight keywords

Search engines give weight to bold text as they think it must be important. Use bold text to emphaise you keywords and phrases - but don't over do it.

3. Use titles for links

Links that say something like 'click here for more info' are wasted links. Google looks for meaningful text in links and so use kewords and phrases for links where possible.

4. Use site maps

If you have a large website with many pages, use a site map page that provides a link to every page on the website. This will help robots and spiders find every page on your site easily.

5. Do not put imortant information in animations or graphics

Search engines cannot read pictures, graphics or animations. So make sure that none of your important information is displayed as part of any of these. Your text should be written in HTML text which can be read by search engines.

6. Put keywords in your page titles

Search engines put a lot of weight on page titles, so where possible, use keywords and phrases to descibe the content of the page.

7. Always start your SEO campaign with keyword research

This may sound obvious, but you would be surprised at the number of people who overlook the keyword research step because it is too obvious. There is a lot more to keyword research than you think, and time spend finding out what keywords are likely to get you high traffic volumes (and what keywords your competitors are using) will pay off in the long run. This is one our best SEO tips.

8. Content is king

Search engines love good quality content. Your website needs to be full of, well-written and unique content that focuses on your keywords and phrases. It should be easy for your human visitors to read and encourage them to want to find out more. The keywords and phrases will be used by the search engines to rank your site for a search query for a particualar keyword.

9. Links are queens

If content is king, then one way links from authority websites to your website are queens. Your SEO strategy should have a full, quality link building strategy to increase your website's visisbilty for the search enines. It is probably fair to say that SEO can be summed up as Content, Links, Popularity and Reputation.

10. Keep your content fresh

Google loves fresh content. You need to regularly update your website and add fresh content to keep the search engines interested in it.