Search over

One of the ways of increasing traffic to your site is by using search engine optimisation, or SEO.

SEO involves tailoring the content of your website to make it more attractive to the programs which categorise search results.

For example, one basic measure of how search engines rank sites is by the number of links leading to and from them. Hence, increasing the number of hyperlinks on your site can increase its popularity, which is measured on Google by its PageRank.

PageRank is an algorithm named after Google co-founder Larry Page.

As Google describes it: "PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote, by Page A, for Page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyses the page that casts the vote."

Depending on which internet browser you use, the Google PageRank will show up in the toolbar at the top of the browser.

SEO is a valid tool used by businesses and bloggers to increase hits on their sites. Obviously if it were as simple as increasing the number of links to a page - a process known as link-spamming - search results could be easily manipulated.

Sites which are found to use such techniques can be downgraded or blocked by search engines.

Another basic way to optimise your search performance is to use words which other people would use to find your content.

Another way to drive traffic to your site is to link in with community sites such as Facebook, which can be used to post links to it, and where you can set up a Facebook page linking to your external page.

If you are running a business, or have a compelling reason to drive traffic to your site, you can buy search terms from Google, which will list your site highly when those search terms are used, but this is obviously an expensive proposition.

IF the brevity imposed on you by Twitter is inhibiting your creative output, head over to Woofertime.com (above). While Twitter demands that you communicate your "tweet" in 140 characters or less, Woofer demands that you use at least 1400 characters to get your message across.

Woofer's 11063 users pales in comparison with the millions over on Twitter, but you can try to recruit a few more by tweeting about your woof. Let's just hope Premier Mike Rann doesn't get wind of it, otherwise we'll be in real trouble.