Having had your new website built, or current site updated, you're probably wondering how best to get more visitors to come and check out your new content, whiz-bang photo gallery, or blog. Putting your organisation on the Internet is a good initial step, but ensuring people come to your site, at least once and preferably regularly, is just as important.

Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is the process of utilising the power of search engines such as Google to funnel more users to your website. There's now a plethora of organisations out there specialising in just that, and you may have even considered approaching one of them to help increase traffic to your site. Like any industry, though, SEO specialists contain their fair share of dodgy second-hand car salesmen, and it pays to know the basics before engaging one of them to look after your needs.

This article is by no means an exhaustive list of factors to take into account when talking about SEO - it does, however, aim to give you a taster of some of the more important issues to take on board.

Incoming links - Google page rank

Google uses a complex algorithm (which changes regularly) to give each site on the Internet a 'page rank'. While you're unlikely to find anyone outside of Google who could explain it in detail, one of the more important factors it takes into account is the number and quality of websites which link back to yours. Speak to organisations in the same or parallel industries about having reciprocating links to each others' websites, and see if you can get your site featured on local news sites and blogs. Ensure the links are named appropriately, preferably containing one or more of the keywords you'd like people to find your site with on Google.

Appropriate use of keywords in page content and domain name

You probably have a good idea of the keywords you suspect people might be searching Google on in order to find your site. Come up with a list of these keywords - preferably no more than a dozen or so, and no less than three or four. Ensure these keywords are used appropriately across your site, but don't overuse them, as Google punishes 'black hat' behaviour such as over-use of keywords by lowering your Page Rank. Conversely, your page rank will rise if your keywords appear in your domain name, page titles, page headings, image description tags and page content.

Fresh content

Nobody enjoys returning to a website, only to find it hasn't been updated since their last visit - or maybe even for a lot longer before that! Google falls into the same boat - regular, fresh content relevant to your keywords will ensure your site is indexed more often, and that you are rewarded with a higher search ranking. Think about updating a weekly or monthly "Company News" page, or a blog, or posting instructional articles for your readers.

Standards-compliant HTML and CSS coding

Employ the skills of a web developer who knows what they're doing. While it won't always be obvious to those looking at your site, ensuring your website is constructed using approved standards will keep Google happy, as well as ensure your page loads quickly and can be read by everyone - including those who have sight impairments or other disabilities.

Site map

Include a site map as one of the pages on your site. Google gives this a big 'tick' when it comes to determining how well laid out your site is - and it lets users find the page they're looking for quickly and easily!

Responsive site

Do you get sick of waiting for slow websites to load ? So does Google. Google tests the load time of each page on your site, and rewards or punishes you appropriately when it comes to search rankings. Host your site with a reputable hosting company, who will have fast servers and a fat pipeline to the Internet.

What to avoid

Don't try and cheat the system. As mentioned above, trying to trick Google by splashing a random collection of keywords across pages on your site will not benefit you, and will often lead to a lower search ranking. Similarly, having a dozen domain names all pointing to the same site, or including hidden text, or other 'tricks', may have worked ten years ago, but not any more.

Do not build your website entirely in Flash. Google finds it more difficult (if not impossible) to parse the content of Flash websites, and will often ignore your site completely, or rank it badly. The advent of modern web browsers means that in almost all cases, functionality which previously required the use of Flash can now be done in standards-compliant HTML and CSS, with the assistance of a little Javascript by your local web wizard. Additionally, sites in Flash are generally unreadable by the blind, who use screen readers to read out the content of websites. Use Flash sparingly, if you must.

You may have heard of "meta-tags", which are behind-the-scenes website descriptors. While search engines once relied upon them when figuring out what your website was all about, they're now largely ignored and simply used to show a brief description of your site on Google search results.