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The details behind search engine optimization and what attributes make a difference for ranking.
Search engine optimization (SEO) allows you to improve your web presence by increasing your website's visibility on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. When a user performs a search for a keyword that your site ranks highly for, making your website one of the top search results, it means you have optimized your site well for organic traffic for that keyword.
If you can get your site within the top three results for a search engine query for competitive keywords that are relevant to your website, you will find that your traffic increases and that your website will receive better targeted traffic.
SEO does not simply target content related to wording on the site. Your site can rank for other formats of content related to the keyword by using alt tags and keywords for images, videos, downloadable files, and other data items.
1) Subpage URLs that clearly identify the page’s primary topic with usage of a few keywords that describe your page’s topic. While cryptic URLs might eventually gain traffic, keyword-rich and accurate URLs can lead to better (and faster) crawling of your documents by search engines.
2) Use punctuation in your URLs. The URL "itstrategists.com/buy-bpos.aspx" with a hyphen is much more useful to search engines than "itstrategists.com/buybpos.aspx" without a hyphen.
3) Use hyphens (-) and not underscores (_) to separate subpage URL words.
4) Avoid generic and lengthy URLs like the plague.
5) Use keywords that are discussed or VERY relevant to your content.
6) If you do use a keyword that is not present on the landing page, make sure you have a link to another page on your site that does have that keyword and additional information relevant to the topic.
7) Misspellings can be helpful for ranking, but do not make for a professional site. Use only correct spelling keywords.
8) Plural and capitalization can have an effect on the keyword interpretation. Include both.
9) Some websites say to include 100 keywords that are relevant to the page. That is too many and will not help ranking in the same way that 10 very well-targeted keywords will. Depending on the length of the content, the keywords should be relative. 10) The meta description needs to include not only keywords, but also elements in the header tags and phrases that you would like to rank.
11) Meta descriptions should not be too long, but they also need to be a reasonable length (about 150-160 characters, including spaces).
12) The meta should contain some reference to the title, without being verbatim.
13) The best meta descriptions are done with the end user in mind, and frequently meet the standards of search engine ranking when done in context to the landing page text. 14) Titles need to be unique and accurately reflect the content on the page. It is important that titles are not too redundant or identical to other page titles, unless they are variations.
15) Spelling is important in titles and can affect ranking for misspelled words.
16) The title should contain keywords and related to the meta description as well.
17) Titles need to be short, but concise (no more than 50 characters, including spaces), otherwise they will be cut off or might not have the important keywords picked up. 18) Content needs to be original, and where possible, reputable sources need to be cited (or any source that is a decent web page).
19) Content should not have repeated or “stuffed” keywords and should make sense to the reader. Nonsensical content deters visitors and damage the level of quality for the overall site. Instead of stuffing keywords, try adding more useful items related to the keyword such as images, videos, downloadable resources, or even interactive tools for the user. 20) Include multiple related links on your web pages (particularly seamlessly interwoven within the content).
21) The links should go to pages that contain the keyword(s) and expand the subject for the linked words.
22) There should be several links that are seamlessly integreated with the text of the document that links to related documents on your website. 23) Outbound links should be used sparingly and if used, should include rel=”nofollow” in the tags.
24) Outbound links should only go to sources that are directly related to the content on the page.
25) If an outbound link is going to an article that is locked or has limited viewing, but the content on your webpage expounds on the restricted content, no follow is not as important to include.
26) Getting your site on directories and other online listings is essential for increasing traffic. Some of the best places to list your web page include: dmoz.org, dir.yahoo.com, alltheweb.com, and botw.org.
27) Backlinks are essential. Interact with blogs and other websites and include a link back to your site in the comment field. This can increase traffic and also show as a link back to your site (rarely are they dofollow links). 28) Page rank is not as important, but having other websites with higher pageranks links to your website can help your position for keywords that the linking site is ranked for.
29) Page rank is not frequently updated and sometimes is not accurate. It should not be taken as important as content and backlinks. 30) There are trending CSS techniques that utilize Web 2.0 to improve the layout and interactivity of websites. Websites should be intuitive and easy to find related content.
31) The main page needs to be easy to return to at any point (a header with a home page link).
32) While two-columns can have excellent SEO benefits, three column structures with both headers and footers can help to meet the basic layout needs for crawlers.
33) CSS should contain the h-tags automatically and the font sizes should include large-font titles, medium size subtitles or sub categories, and other sizes for addresses and links, etc. |