Everyone loves a
good tip, right? Here are 55 quick tips for search engine optimization that
even your mother could use to get cooking. Well, not my mother, but you get my
point. Most folks with some web design and beginner SEO knowledge should be
able to take these to the bank without any problem.
1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image
maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the
spiders to follow.
2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written, and
unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.
3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of
quality backlinks. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for
a site to link to you, you don’t want the link.
4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy
part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one
with a higher PR.
5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every
page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it
at the end. Unless you are a household name, your business name will probably
get few searches.
6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.
6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.
7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your
keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to
“blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.
8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your
location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you
get found in local searches.
9. Don’t design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure
your web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a
retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site after it is built won’t cut it.
Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images.
10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text
links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.
11. Check for canonicalization issues – www and non-www domains.
Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words,
if http://www.domain.com is your preference, then http://domain.com should
redirect to it.
12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is
index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links.
Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to
http://www.domain.com/index.html.
Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and
always link back to your domain.
13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you
can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at
all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.
14. Your URL file extension doesn’t matter. You can use .html,
.htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it won’t make a difference as far as your SEO is
concerned.
15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s
regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site
spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.
16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a
blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week
with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.
17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single,
good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality
links, which can actually hurt you.
18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to
stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many
times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this
against you rather than for you.
19. Text around your links should also be related to your
keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.
20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be
sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative
notoriety could affect your own rankings.
21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership
information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential
spammer.
22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title
tag independently from your blog title.
23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and
Reputation.
24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your
link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.
25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking
out. That will encourage others to link to you.
26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality
content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content.
Make sure your content is both.
27. If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page
that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the
fold.
28. Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web
sites at all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newletters and
zines.
29. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless
the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links.
30. Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search
engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for
sponsors.
31. Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply
good content.
32. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try
to optimize the page for several keywords at once.
33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to
action. Make sure your call to action is clear and present.
34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes
daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.
35. Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might
link to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your
content.
36. Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence
on a blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from the
owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket!
37. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with
your posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title and
description.
38. Use keyword rich captions with your images.
39. Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images
can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to
keyword text, headings, etc.
40. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally
by the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much better
than relying only on an XML Sitemap.
41. There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search
results:
(1) Log out of Google
(2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the
search bar
42. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are
golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more weight.
43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your on-site link
navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if
someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it.
44. See if your hosting company offers “Sticky” forwarding when
moving to a new domain. This allows temporary forwarding to the new domain from
the old, retaining the new URL in the address bar so that users can gradually
get used to the new URL.
45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you
understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better
you will be able to compete in search.
46. To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the
crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster Central
account.
47. Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t
just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video
sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few.
48. Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text.
The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the
video for the query.
49. Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT
descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of
those words.
50. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster
Central account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so
allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.
51. Add viral components to your web site or blog – reviews,
sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.
52. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts,
news, social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.
53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the
cache date of the page where your link will be located in Google. Search for
“cache:URL” where you substitute “URL” for the actual page. The newer the cache
date the better. If the page isn’t there or the cache date is more than an
month old, the page isn’t worth much.
54. If you have pages on your site that are very similar (you
are concerned about duplicate content issues) and you want to be sure the
correct one is included in the search engines, place the URL of your preferred
page in your sitemaps.
55. Check your server headers. Search for “check server header”
to find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a “200
OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status shows
anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and used
consistently throughout your site.
.jpg)
