Friendly Search Engine Optimisation; A Bootstrapping Guide.

Optimising websites, content, and articles  for the web and search engines isn't easy. Anyone who says it is, is lying. This is especially true if you want to generate high traffic, to keep content readable, and to do it all on a budget!

Web technology and search engines continually change,and what is true today is frequently irrelevant tomorrow. The way information is searched, classified and ranked is in constant flux. And more bad news for you, the Search Engines methods and algorithms are kept in locked boxes, away from prying eyes, so there's no way to say for sure how you can dominate in search results!

HOLD ON... DON'T PANIC.

There are some eternal truths on optimising websites and content for Search Engines, while keeping them people friendly!  It's essential knowledge for businesses and individuals Bootstrapping as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services can be costly!

So. What are these mysterious truths...?

The web is smart, and getting smarter. Searching for information on the web is becoming an ever more personalised experience, and hype around The Semantic Web has been growing. The web is slowly becoming 'more human'. A bonus for you... One day.

Despite the Search Engine companies' and Technorati's best efforts, the process is still far from perfect. And yet users want more. They need creating and gathering information to be childs play. Timeliness, saliency and relevancy has never been more important.

Naturally, everyone wants their information to be at the top of all searches, and given the current shortcomings of Search Engine tools, content creators and website owners need to use SEO to achieve content notoriety, and to push their relevance. It's not so much forcing, but giving search engines a friendly pointer and to help them look at content in the right way.

If you have a website, or create content, and are even partially geeky then this Basic Guide to Friendly Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) should get you on your way to DIY SEO mastery. It's based on some pretty eternal Search Engine Optimisation truths.

SOME BASIC RULES OF SEO TO LIVE BY.

• Always create content, and design, with SEO in mind. It's easier than going back to do it after!
• Concise, well-written content will naturally rank highly in Search Engines, but a little focused SEO never hurts.
• Being connected is key to SEO success. Always be aware of how your content links to, and is linked from other sources!
• If you know how, make sure your HTML is clean and well formatted. Search Engine Spiders LOVE good HTML!
• If you already have a site or web content, assess it. Be honest with yourself. The Search Engines take no prisoners!
• If it can be analysed, it can be improved.
• Estimate how long you think your SEO project will take... Multiply by 3 and you might be getting close.
• If you have budget, hire third party SEO specialists to help. They will look at your content with a fresh perspective and experience.

PREPARE AND REVIEW YOUR SEO. KNOW HOW?

1. Be aware, SEO is an un-ending process; you’ll need to come back to it again and again! So schedule in some time!
2. For new and existing websites, set up an analytics system. The free Google Analytics solution is full featured and simple, but there are others too!
3. Set up Webmaster Tools, Site Explorer, or a similar website management and analysis tool.
4. This is vital. Create an SEO project document. Records and analyses are essential for SEO to work.
   • Work out your website/content goals. What are you trying to say and do?
   • Define your target audience, who are they? Be precise.
   • If you have, or are designing a website, work out the landing pages, i.e. the pages you reach when you search, not necessarily where the conversions take place. They might be the start of your 'conversion process'.
   • Define Your ‘Conversion Goals'. If someone visits your site or content, what do you want them to achieve? Contact, sales, click-throughs?
   • Set up analytics and/or Off-Line systems to track your conversion goals.
5. Concentrating on your keyword selection is paramount to successful SEO. For each page and article be selective about the key words you use. The Google Keyword Tool can help to understand keyword popularity as well as how relevant they are to you! Also don’t forget to look at ‘keyword difficulty’!
   • As a rule of thumb your keyword selection should focus on: Low popularity, high relevance -> High Popularity, High Relevance -> High popularity Low relevance -> Low popularity Low relevance!
   • From your all of the possible keywords and phrases...highlight your top 10-15. These are your primary targets!
   • Don’t forget you can combine keywords, e.g. ‘Gavin’ And ‘Poynton’ or ‘Gavin Poynton’ which contains both individual keywords!
   • Match your keywords to your landing pages, 3-4 per page, and a target density of about 5%. Don’t be afraid to drop keywords, sometimes they just aren’t worth it!
6. Who are your top 5 competitors? Who’s linking to them? Note down their backlinks, page rank, and their keywords. You might notice you've missed a few. The Site Tools from earlier can help!
7. Manually check the rank of your site and its pages in different Search Engines. How many pages from your site are indexed? All of them? Record all of this. Hint. Type "site:yourdomain.com" into Google and Bing!
8. Check all the backlinks to your sites. Who's linking to you?
9. Now you’ve done this… you can make amendments, but in time you’ll need to review all of this information, and use it to further hone your site!

SEO AND YOUR SITE CODE. MAKE SOME CHANGES!

1. Search Engines care about the quality and quantity of links... inbound and outbound. Remember this because it’s just about the most important factor!
2. Use a Spider emulator to view your site, as the Spiders would see it. It might give you a clearer picture of why you’re making changes!
3. Ensure as much text as possible is in HTML format, avoid using images with text on in your content. Search Engines don’t read images.
4. Are you using flash or AJAX? They might look good, but they aren’t particularly Search Engine friendly, have you got HTML alternatives? Oh… And don’t forget…Apple and THE IPAD don’t like Flash!
5. Spiders aren’t massive fans of dynamic websites PHP and ASP articles, so make sure your internal HTML links are spot on!! It’s the '?' mostly!
6. Ensure Page Titles include keywords, and keep them under 60 characters! Also remember Title Case Page Titles get clicked on more.
7. You should use article headers (<h></h> tags), and when you do, you need to include keywords in the text.
8. A common mistake is with canonical URL's. Ensure all links in a site have the same format (www or no www essentially).
9. Similarly, where possible make sure external links have the same format as any dynamically generated URL and internal links! If you can… Also get them to include your keywords in the link text!
10. If you can, include keywords in ALL links associated with your text.
11. Outbound links from your content should include keywords and be contextually relevant to both your content, and the target content.
12. Always add your 'Meta Information' to articles and content. It’s easy in things like Joomla, Squarespace and Wordpress. The Meta Keywords too. Despite being considered mostly redundant, Meta Keywordsare stil looked at by some Search Engines.
    • Ensure your keywords appear in both the content text and meta description text, and tags.
    • Don’t Add reams and reams of keywords to the Meta Keywords fields.
    • Keep meta descriptions short and packed with your keywords, and avoid selling.
13. Add keywords to captions for any images.
14. When doing the graphics and design of a site or content, always optimise your images for load time, the GIF and PNG tend to do the job at 72 dpi!
15. Always add ‘Alt’ tags with keywords if possible!
16. Make sure you or your company are mentioned at least once on every page.
17. Avoid having any duplicate content on your site… Even if it’s duplicated on another site. Uniqueness is key.
18. Add a keyword rich strap line of closing line at the bottom of each page.

PUBLISH, SUBMIT AND POST ARTICLES, BLOGS AND WEBSITES. READY?

1. If it's a blog you've got don't forget to promote your blog to specialist blog Search Engines... some systems like Squarespace include "ping" services... but there are lots out there.
2. Make sure your content is worthy of being submitted, that it's unique, well presented, written and delivered. If you do life will become so much simpler!
3. Get your brand and website out there by engaging in social media and forums, BUT, don’t be sales focused and so blatant as to directly advertise your own products. Do however include a link in the footer to your own site. Remember in those situations it's about adding value.
4. Get listed in human edited directories e.g.dmoz.org, dir.yahoo.com Thomson. You can find lots of lists!
5. If you have the opportunity, try promoting social networking and media practices with give aways and promotions for top commenter’s and promoters.
6. Don’t be afraid to write ‘link letters’ to other authors. Just make sure they include key information, a clear benefits statement of why they should link to your content, and the HTML code. Another tip is don’t offer a link trade, if it’s relevant it’s worth their time!
7. Make your content social by ensuring people can easily promote your content via Tags and Social Media widgets, and by adding comments!
8. A WORD OF WARNING. Be aware that there are unscrupulous people around. Good content tends to have legs... And other people will profit from your work if you aren't careful. Make sure you check the Search Engines and your server logs to see who's linking to, scraping, or outright stealing your best stuff!
9. Don't forget to post copyright or creative commons license notes.

As stated... This Tech Life Guide is basic, but it will help you fly at Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and web search improvements! Good luck getting found!

Comments

[Barye]

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[Web development company India]

all tips are very helpful for SEO. You describe all tips so well in very basic understanding language.

[Brian Roehm]

SEO is the process of improving the visibility of website...It mainly emphasis on creating backlinks to the website and thus increasing traffiv to the website..It is one of the useful method for the promotion of the website..
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