Seo Tips

So I’ve decided to do a summary of SEO basics which I’m assuming most people should follow or take into consideration when starting or maintaining a websites SEO.

Many of you out there who will be reading this will probably have your own opinions on what will be listed in my SEO tips section. What I’ll say now is that, this is a very basic and summarized  jumbled up list of points that I think, if you are not SEO aware, should take into account along your travels. Some of the points you may disagree to or may want to even add you own little bit; in which case please do so and leave a comment.

The first half or so cover mainly onsite SEO then slowly moves into offsite SEO. Sorry for the randomness of the order but hope it makes sense. All the below tips and such have helped me along the way and whilst some have more weight than others in terms of effectivness, they are all worth considering.

1. Domain name – If you haven’t got one yet and you want a slight edge on the SERPs from the start then getting a  domain name with a keyword in it that you are targeting is still effective. In the long run though having a brand to push has a lot more advantages. Keyword rich domains I’ve always found easier to rank but often work best as just an affiliate micro site in a niche area.
2. Domain Extension – So, word on the vine is that Google in particular makes life a lot harder on .cc, .info, .biz and such domains to get ranked. I haven’t had any personal experience with them myself but I’ve seen and heard this is the case.
3. Meta Description – 0.0000000001% value. In other words, not so important these days.
4. Valid HTML & CSS – It seems you will benefit from this. See here.
5. SEO Tools – Google Webmaster tools / SEOmoz Linkscape / SEObook tool For Firefox / Yahoo Site Explorer
6. Keyword Research – Ok, keyword research is essential. Let’s decide first what exactly we’re taking on? How much budget have I got? Are there any niche terms I could pick at initially to establish myself? Do I want to take the main generic keyword on or shall I go for long tail? All articles in themselves which I’ll cover at some point. To cut it short, if you are a one man band with £100 in your pocket, then taking on the finance sector keywords (loans, refinance, remortgage, insurance, car insurance)  isn’t going to work. (Unless you’re shit hot at blackhat and just want to make a quick stash and repeat over and over. But we don’t do blackhat at Hurleytime.com.) Tackling long tail in the finance sector however is do’able. (”Loans for under 25 in Glasgow” ..for example…hmm)
7. URL Structure – ‘http://www.mysite.com/1345_n56′ is not as effective as http://www.mysite.com/my-awesome-content.html. If your site is already in ugly URL mode then the best way to over come this and save yourself starting again is to do redirects. You can also read up on Canonical Linking.
8. Page titles – A lot of people forget to have unique page titles for each page. Shove the relevant keyword in their plus the page title is the way forwar
9. Internal Linking – Linking within your site is in my opinion just as important as your external links. So picking out keywords in your content which then link on to relevant pages on your site is essential. Use the correct anchor text!
10. H Tags – If you have a page about Cheeseburgers (I’m hungry) then why not have ‘CheeseBurgers’ in your H1 tag? (And your page Title + Site name). It does work!
11. Date – Something I recently picked up, but adding dates at the beginning of your content chunks seems to be something Google likes. I’ll probably write another article about this as it’s a bit more in depth and many are skeptical.
12. Home page link – Link to http://www.mysite.com and not http://www.mysite.com/index.html throughout your design.
13. Root vs WWW – One mistake I did very early on in the game was to not redirect mysite.com to www.mysite.com or vice versa. Use one or the other and not both. (Use whichever one has more PR weight and quality inbound links if it’s been a while going)
14. Social Bookmarking (onsite implementation) – Whilst most believe in this religously, I do not. However, depending on the site and it’s content and it’s ’social worthyness’ then it’s worth implementing. Cue “what??? that’s a stupid thing to say…” Reply: “oh okay.” No seriously, sites like Digg, Reddit, Del.ico.us, Facebook..etc are all worth having as a share function on your site, just make sure the content you have is worth sharing.
15. Content – Ok, so this is a massive subject on its own and probably should be number one on the list. People, search engines love content. They love unique juicy content. ‘ Loans are good ‘ isn’t going to cut it. Ironic how something so important has the least description. But you get it folks, write good content!!!!!!.
16. UGC – User generated content is a lovely way to get content without doing the hard work.  Just make sure you stay on top of it, even set it to manual approval if you think that your content is highly sensitive.
17. Nofollow – If you don’t understand when to use nofollow then your site is probably not big enough for it to beof any use. However, get to know a bit more about it’s core functionality and when to use Nofollow.
18. Image Alts – Apply image alts to your images. It’s another method of getting your keyword in without too much stuffing in other areas.
19. Image naming – Expand your search verticals, name your image as what it is. So if you have a picture of Bugs Bunny on your site, then 0048.jpg won’t be as good as Bugs-Bunny.jpg. Think how many people are searching for pictures of Bugs buny everyday on Google Images. I don’t think they’ll search 0048.
20. Blog – If you run a retail site, you have something to sell, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’ t have a blog. Blogs mean new content. Don’t tell me you have nothing to write about! Even if you sell Bed Springs then you can still write an article on “10 Best Mattresses for fun times”. (Now apply Social media bookmarking. Await Digg massive. 0.004% conversion rate but a handful of links if successful).
21. Create Tools/Widgets – You have a site on mortgages you say? Check out how many people search for “Mortgage calculator“. A lot hey? Make a tool, get one on the go and before you know people will be referring other people to it via forums and so forth. Another link baiting method basically whilst also capturing the traffic that you may not have realized was there.
22. Keyword Stuffing – Oh yeah, don’t do this. Do it to an extent where you’ve used the page title, the H tag, image alt and included it within your content (not overly).
23. Local Optimisation – Submit your site to Local Business results if it applies. Google Local / Yahoo Local. Now optimise your website for local listings
24. Link Building – “You’re just going to list Link building as a bullet point?…you can write a book on that!’” I hear you say. Well yes, but as this is a short summary list then we shall stick to short summaries. Link building covers a wide wide wide selection of methods. We’ve already listed some methods of gaining links by simply doing stuff onsite (p16, p15, p11), but there’s always:
    • Emailing webmasters requesting a link (think of it as asking someone for £££, what you giving them in return?). Personalize the email, compliment their site, offer them a link or a mention or whatever you think adds value to them for doing you the favor.  Make sure their site is relevant and you use request the keyword in the anchor text (not always do’able).
    • Directories (Yahoo Directory, BOTW, Dmoz…). I have in the past done the slow manual directory submission, which does pay off initially but in the long run the pr1-2-3 directories become less valuable. Here’s a handy list of directories which are fairly powerful. The $299 for the Yahoo directory is worth it if you have it spare. Same for BOTW imho.
    • Research Your competitor backlinks: Use Yahoo Site Explorer to check out links to your competitor sites.  So if you’re after the keyword ‘JCB Diggers’ then do a search on it, check out who’s listing in the top 5 then explore each of their backlinks, take the first 5 pages of each. Visit each of those sites and see if you can get a link on them.
    • Blog Comments: Using Do-follow blogs, leaving a worthy comment with your link in it. Here’s a list: Do follow blogs.  Word to the wise, leaving one comment and then going will probably end up with your comment being removed. Spamming your comment will get it removed. So, make a few comments, get to know people then dunk your link in when the time is right.
    • Forums – Got a site about ponies? Go to google, type in “Pony forum”. Join all the relevant forums, get chatting. Leave a link to your site in your signature. Note: Some sites will require that you make X comments before they let you have a link in your signature. Note2: Some forums have No-Follow in place. This doesn’t it’s not worth a go because if your site is relevant, then you may just get some valuable clicks from people wanting to buy one of your pony jumpers.
    • Micro Sites – So, your pony site, which sells pony jumpers…why not create a few blogs/mini sites about ponies or even a site about “Ridiculous things you buy for animals”. Then link in to your “sell” site respectively.
    • Social Media - Get in on the twitter, facebook, digg, reddit, del.ico.us, flickr, Sphinn, Mixx action. Register with them all, submit your recent content each time and keep on top of them. (A lot of work but effective if your content is good for it)
    • Templates – A nifty trick, if a little greyhat…create some templates for Myspace, Wordpress…etc. Your author name = Your keyword -> Your website. 500 downloads = 500 links. WARNING: I do not recommend this one. But thought I’d include it as it’s pretty popular. Plus, if you make a template about Call Of Duty (the game) and submit it to ‘Games’ categories, and ‘Gamers’ download the template and use it for Call of Duty purposes and the author name is ‘Call of Duty Game’ and it links to your site http://www.buycallofdutyhere.com then what’s the harm? hmmm. Still, don’t do this one. Actually, I’m scrapping it.
    • Anchor Text- ‘My Website’ / ‘Click here’ / ‘More Info’ / ‘Hey’ are all methods of how NOT to use your anchor texts. ‘Seo Tips’ / ‘Seo Guide’  / ‘Handy SEO tips’ are much better. That’s pretty basic to understand right?
    • Deeplinking – When linking to your site try to spread it evenly across your pages. (Ok maybe not so much your ‘about page’ or ‘privacy page’…). Don’t just link everything to yoursite.com, try get links from relevant pages deep linking into further relevant pages on your site.

So that’s it for now. I’ll add more as I think of them, but for now, that seems to cover things, in basic form. Obviously I could elaborate on some of the points and even explain more in depth in terms of How-To but that would defeat the purpose of it being a basic summary list. I will be writing more about each and every single point above so stay tuned.

Of course, if you can’t be bothered to do any of the above or you need some help then give me an ebuzz at stephen@hurleytime.com or on MSN messenger stephen@hurleytime.com.

Feel free to add any points by commenting, cheers!

Stephen