The 52
Top
SEO Tips – here are
10
of them
By
David Leonhardt
From the obvious to the "Hey-I-never-thought-of-that-great-idea-before", here
are
10
of the
top
52 tips on how to optimize your website for its turbo-charge rocket ride up
the search engine rankings.
Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible.
What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to
different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile
content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in
to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your
links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site.
Become a foreigner. Canada and the UK have many directories for websites of
companies based in those countries. Can you get a business address in one of
those countries?
Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The
links stay live often for many years in their archives.
First come, first served. If you must have image links in your navigation bar,
include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in
the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they
find to any particular page. They won't follow additional links to the same
page. You can see this in action at the link to the home page on
http://www.dotcom-monitor.com/web-site-monitoring.asp .
Multiple domains. If you have several
topics
that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple
domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for
any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually
accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Why
not a site dedicated to gumbo pudding pops?
Article exchanges. You've heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally
are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You
publish someone else's article on the history of pudding pops with a link back
to their site. They publish your article on the
top
ten pudding pop flavors in Viet Nam, with a link back to your site. You both
have content. You both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in
other tips.)
Be bold. Use the <b></b> tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do
NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.
Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually
impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines
figure this into their relevancy for a page.
Not anchor text. Don't overdo the anchor text. You don't want all your inbound
links looking the same, because that looks like automation – something Google
frowns upon. Use your URL sometimes, your company name other times, "Gumbo
Pudding Pop" occasionally, "Get gumbo pudding pops" as well, "Gumbo-flavored
pudding pops" some other times, etc.
Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every
page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with
just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. It's called the
navigation bar. See how the second navigation bar at the bottom of
http://www.lastminutevillas.net is like a mini-site map?
There you have it:
10
of the 52
Top
SEO Tips, a free tip sheet that comes with Don't Get Banned By the Search
Engines:
http://www.thehappyguy.com/SEO.html
There is a lot more to search engine optimization, and there are always more
details when looking at an individual site. But these tips should help any
website significantly improve its rankings.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Leonhardt is a freelance writer, and an online and offline publicity
specialist. Contact him at: mailto:info@thehappyguy.com
Or visit his website at
http://www.thehappyguy.com .
For a copy of Get In The News:
http://thehappyguy.com/publicity-self-promotion-report.html .
Promote your website with an ezine:
http://www.thehappyguy.com/ezines.html
