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(SEO) is the holy grail of a perfect website. Although your site may look good, function well and provide all the information needed, if it can’t be found online then it is wasted. Take a look at our top ten tips to optimising your content for maximum effect.
1. Do not over saturate the keywords
Google (indeed all of the search engines) look for the keywords within your text in order to find out what your articles are about, however, if you try to trick Google by stuffing your text with loads of relevant words, you will be punished. Excessive repetition of a keyword or key phrase will damage your site, keep them in the right places such as the Title tag, Meta Description, Headings (Hx) and the main content; but don’t go OTT!
2. SEO optimisation for Title & Meta Tags
Make sure the meta description and title tag is different on each page of your site. These titles and descriptions should also only describe the page, not the entire site. SEO is more effective when done on a per-page basis.
3. Keep your title simple
Although you will want your pages and blogs to read as well as possible, the more obscure your titles, the more difficult it is for relevant users to just ‘stumble upon’ your website. Users won’t be searching Google for the terms you’ve used in your title so they won’t find you. The best titles are things like ‘How to build a website’, ‘SEO London’ or ‘How to look after pet hamsters’, this way people looking for this kind of information will find your website.
4. Use of alt tags & title attributes
To maximise SEO, always utilise the image tags ALT attribute and anchor tags title attribute to your advantage. Similar to the meta tags, don’t stuff them with keywords. Use relevant keywords and key phrases which best describe the image. Properly using the ALT attribute can help you rank better in the image search results too.
5. Create a sitemap
Build a sitemap, and search engines will follow. Even if it’s just a plain list of links to all the individual unique pages of your website on a page named sitemap.html, it’s good enough. Creating a sitemap according to sitemaps protocol and submitting it via the webmaster tools section of each of the popular search engine is even better.
6. Avoid duplicate content
You want your website to be original in order to be credible, however, further to this Google will punish websites that have duplicate content. That could be using the same text from page to page throughout your own website or taking text from other people’s sites. Always make sure you are unique!
7. Increase your links
Search engines recognise websites and blogs that are being linked to as good sources of information. If you are being linked to by several websites this puts you at a definite advantage above other sites. The one thing you shouldn’t do, if you can avoid it, is link back as sites that mutually link to each other tend to have a cancelling out effect in the search engine ratings. Google’s algorithms are certainly designed this way and thus it is better not to be involved in link rings and blog rolls on the understanding that you will link back.
8. Try to avoid flash navigation
Purely JavaScript and Flash based navigation systems look cool, but they are not good for SEO! Search engines do not index images or flash very well so it’s a good idea not to overuse them – use images and flash only when necessary and vital to your website.
9. Content Quantity
Pages with only a couple of sentences won’t rank higher. SEs need ‘content’ to index. Web pages with more information tend to rank better in Search Engines; but only up to a point. It’s best to keep the word count on your pages between 200 and 800 words. Build as much text as you can keeping it unique and tasteful.
10. Keep going!
SEO is by its nature an ongoing and ever-changing study. As search engines continue to evolve, and as the efforts of optimisers continue to find ways to ‘game’ the system, the rules and practices of search engine optimization will continue to change. But understanding today’s best practices and putting them to use can have a dramatic effect on how popular your articles become, how many readers are sent to your site by search engines, and your audience growth or influence reach.
BY: Gurleen Jhooti