Search engine optimisation comes in two parts: on-page and off-page. Let’s take as an example my website which sells personalised christening gifts: to appear near to the top of the search engine pages I need to construct the pages in such a way that the search engines know where I want the site to appear – or, to put it another way, I have to ensure that when people search for the term ‘personalised christening gifts’, the search engines show them my site. Obviously to do this the search engines need to know that my site sells personalised christening gifts, and to that end I have to use that term (known in the trade as a ‘keyword’) in the text throughout the website.

‘Off-page’ search engine optimisation is important to persuade the search engines that my website is important enough to place in front of searchers – there is no doubt many sites selling christening gifts. This is done by linking from other websites to mine. This encourages the search engines to think my site is important enough for the others sites to link to mine. A whole industry is in place to assist website owners to get these links.