This article is meant to give newcomers to the SEO world a starting point. It is more detailed than an SEO cheat sheet. It is also meant to help some of us "old timers" remember a few things at the same time. If you are entering into the SEO world and want to know some of the more common tasks that I think will help your site grow, read on.
So what is the reasoning behind this list? I simply want to keep a list of the techniques that I know make a difference to the quality of the sites that I build. I also want to share what I feel it takes to help keep those sites looking good in the eyes of both its users and the search engines. Because the search engines and web technologies are constantly changing, this list will also change over time. Also, keep in mind that this list is not in any particular order, every aspect is important and should be treated as such. To stay up to date I welcome comments from everyone else describing their own situation and SEO techniques.
Let's get started!
1. Content / Keyword Analysis: Make sure your users are getting what they ask for. While writing your content be sure to keep in mind that the more you use certain words the more "density" that word has on your page. If you are writing an article on SEO, you want to use words that would be relevant to SEO, such as "keyword density", "content optimization", or "SERP".
2. Site Architecture: This simply means build it right from the beginning. Make sure you have a proper layout designed before you start building. Make sure you know what your site will need in the future and plan for it from the beginning.
3. Web Analytics: Whether it's Google Analytics, WebTrends or any other analytical software, analytics can tell you exactly what people really want who end up on your site. Using analytics, you can determine how users landed on your site and how they left.
4. Code Cleanly: Tableless div's, XHTML, CSS, proper validation. All this not only makes it easier for the search engines to differentiate the content from the code on your site, but it will help you to perform edits or upgrades in the future.
5. Web 2.0: Everyone has their own take on web 2.0. My belief is that web 2.0 simply means taking advantage of the technologies that are currently available and allow your users to be involved in your site. Whether it be a user community, forum, blog, image / video sharing, whatever... getting the user involved in your site gives them a reason to come back. Utilizing modern technologies can be anything from using Ajax to perform quick database updates to creating full feature rich sites using ajax, css, dhtml, javascript and other technologies to make things as smooth as possible for the user.
6. Accessibility: Make it so the user can find what they want easily and without extra effort. Menus should be clean and to the point. Pages should have a user friendly layout, not just a search engine friendly layout.
7. Inbound Links: Other sites that have content relative to yours that also link to your site, help boost your PR and will definitely boost your position in the SERP's. Although link trading is good, be sure you are trading with someone who has content closely related to your own. Using link farms can be considered an attempt to "trick the search engines" and can actually cause a lot more pain than good.
8. Site Maps: Many search engines now offer site map programs that literally let you tell the search engine about every page of your site. Make sure you do it correctly and a good site map can be your ticket to quicker indexing.
9. Don't Trick the Bots: Do NOT try to trick the bots! It may help your rankings for a few days but if you get caught it could mean spoiling your domain for a long time.
10. Keyword / Content / URL / Page Title / Header (H1) relevancy and consistency: Be sure to use URL's that coincide with the content you are displaying. If possible set up your meta keywords and description to be dynamically generated based on the content or simply the H1 tag. If it is a blog, the
of the page and the meta description should both be the title of the blog post.</p>
<p><strong>OK So there is the short list, if you want to know more detail and want to read more than what is on every "Top Ten SEO Tips" list, keep reading. All of the techniques listed above will basically be covered in the list below. They are just not written in the same verbiage and written with more detail. This list will be ongoing.</strong></p>
<p><strong>More Detailed SEO Techniques:</strong></p>
<p><strong>1. Learn to know the difference between a "top quality" site and a "low quality" site.</strong></p>
<p>For a site to be "top quality", it must offer a good user experience while still maintaining a good position in the SERP's. to be classified as "low quality", the site would have to be user unfriendly and also be ranked low in the search engines. The lack of user experience could be as complex as an unfriendly registration or checkout system to something as simple as bad template design. Knowing what makes a site "top quality" before you start building your own can keep you from making many poor decisions and essentially wasting your time and money.</p>
<p><strong>2. Know what you are building.</strong></p>
<p>This may sound simple but it actually goes much deeper than the beginner webmaster could know. There are a lot of smaller attributes to a web site that can be utilized to capture a certain niche of the market. Be sure to do the needed research on your competitors and learn to differentiate between the top quality and low quality sites in your particular niche.</p>
<p><strong>3. Exercise proper coding techniques from the beginning</strong></p>
<p>This can be a very broad subject as it can contain everything from writing code that validates properly to using proper CSS techniques to minimize formatting code in your markup. If you are not sure what any of this means you need to learn XHTML and CSS. There is no way around it, one of the most important things in being able to have an effective web site is coding techniques. If you know that your site will be growing in the future and you plan ahead by creating a modular system from the beginning, you will be able to scale up your site without the headache of rebuilding everything.</p>
<p><strong>3.1 Table less Code</strong></p>
<p>This is simple and is actually a part of number 3 above but it deserves its own number. So here ya go 3.1 Table less code. By using proper XHTML and CSS you can create layouts that offer the same functionality of tables with as little as ten percent of the code. Less code makes it easier for the search engines. There will soon be a new blog post with instructions on creating table less code, check back later.</p>
<p><strong>4. Maintain your file paths (URI's).</strong></p>
<p>If you switch to a new CMS or switch over to a CMS you need to make sure that any content that you transfer over either uses the same URI or has a permanent 301 redirect to the location of the new content. This means that if you had an "About Us" page at <a title="www.example.com/about_us.html" href="http://www.example.com/about_us.html"><u><font color="#0000ff">www.example.com/about_us.html</font></u></a> and you switch over to a CMS that wants to use <a title="www.example.com/?1=node&t=about_us" href="http://www.example.com/?1=node&t=about_us"><u><font color="#0000ff">www.example.com/?1=node&t=about_us</font></u></a>, you need to make sure that on the new setup you have a 301 redirect pointing <a title="www.example.com/about_us.html" href="http://www.example.com/about_us.html"><u><font color="#0000ff">www.example.com/about_us.html</font></u></a> to <a title="www.example.com/?1=node&t=about_us" href="http://www.example.com/?1=node&t=about_us"><u><font color="#0000ff">www.example.com/?1=node&t=about_us</font></u></a>. This lets the search engine know that you have moved the content and when it finds the new page, it will not consider it duplicate content.</p>
<p><strong>More Coming Soon!</strong></p></div>
<span class="article_separator"> </span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- END: CONTENT -->
</div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- END: CONTENT -->
</div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- BEGIN: FOOTER -->
<div id="ja-footer" class="clearfix">
MoeDesigns is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Joomla Project or Open Source Matters. The Joomla logo is used under a limited license granted by Open Source Matters the trademark holder in the United States and other countries.</div>
<!-- END: FOOTER -->
<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-395238-8");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview("");
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
addSpanToTitle();
//jaAddFirstItemToTopmenu();
//jaRemoveLastContentSeparator();
//jaRemoveLastTrBg();
//moveReadmore();
//addIEHover();
//slideshowOnWalk ();
jaMenuIcon();
fixMenuWidth();
</script>
</body>
</html>