SEO Best Practices

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Preface

The purpose of this article is to describe SEO best practices. The list was put together based on recommendations from SEO consultants as well as individual research. This is not meant to serve as a definitive guide since this is a quickly changing field and with every new update to Google’s algorithm, some of these “rules” may no longer apply. Use with caution.

For those looking for introductory material check out how Google crawls, indexes and serves pages, as well as their introduction to SEO.

Introduction

The number one, most important thing to know is the best way to have your pages appear high in search ranking is by having unique, quality, relevant and updated content. All the optimized keywords in the world won’t help if your content isn’t original and fresh.

The sections in this article deal with:

  • How to Structure and Optimize Pages
    • General
    • Title Tags
    • Links
    • Meta Keywords / Descriptions
    • URLs
    • Images
  • Sitemaps
  • Other Technical Improvements
  • Additional Ways to Improve your Ranking
  • Google Says you Should Avoid…
  • Resources

How To Structure and Optimize Content on your Pages

General

  • Make sure your HTML, CSS, RSS are valid: http://validator.w3.org/. This allows spiders to more easily index the content on your page. You can check out how a spider views your page by using a text browser like Lynx.
  • Include a clear hierarchy and make sure every page is reachable via one static link.
  • Make sure the most keyword-rich content is at the top of your page. In specific circumstances, this could mean using includes or unobtrusive javascript to minimize the amount of additional non-content related html is at the top of a page/template.
  • H1 tags should define the theme and focus of each page. There should only be one H1 per page. Have H1 tags match the Title tag of the page as much as possible.

Title Tags

  • Title tags are the most important on-page element in regards to SEO.
  • Make sure to use readable page titles that include information on how people search for the topic (see keyword research below).
  • Words at the beginning of title tags are given the most weight. Try to have them be unique. Move the name of the site to the end. (i.e Product – Genre – Department – Sitename)

Links and URLs

  • Use descriptive text for links (i.e. Do NOT use “Click Here”). Make sure the anchor text for links are keyword focused.
  • If there are multiple links to the same destination page use nofollow tags (i.e. on images, arrows, etc… where there is already a text link)
  • Links within content on pages are extremely valuable to search engines. Make sure to link to other pages within your site that have relevant content. Surround links with keyword heavy content (context).
  • Have less then 100 links on a page (otherwise Google thinks you are a link farm)
  • If there is any navigation within flash, use text links behind the flash using <noscript> tags (so search engines can get to those pages).
  • Make URLs as human readable as possible. Include keywords and datetime (where applicable).

Meta Keywords and Descriptions

  • Meta descriptions should be one to two sentences summarizing the content of the page and using main keywords.
  • Meta description should be listed just before meta keywords.
  • Generally 4-8 keywords are enough, don’t repeat phrases, pluralize words when possible (spiders can determine singular versions), include common misspellings

Images

  • You can use full sentences or phrases for alt text for images.
  • Use the full name of people and any event information as a caption/alt text.
  • Use phrases full of keywords surrounding a photo.

Sitemaps

There are two types of sitemaps HTML and XML. XML sitemaps are used directly by search engines. HTML sitemaps are useful for your users as well as by search engines.

Tips for building a good HTML sitemap:

  • Link to the sitemap from the footer of every page on the site (including any splash/landing pages).
  • Do not include more then 50 links per page (if there are more create individual sitemaps per section)
  • The anchor text should be the main keyword being targeted.
  • Provide a short description of the page being linked to.  Make sure the sitemap is still usable for real visitors who are searching for content on your site.

Other Techical Improvements

  • Redirect all traffic from non-www url to www (i.e. http://amitklein.com should redirect to http://www.amitklein.com).
  • Create and upload a robots.txt file for every single domain and subdomain. The robots.txt tells spiders what not to index (i.e. ajax layout files, data files, CMA, etc…).
  • Serve a customized 404 error page

Additional Strategies for Improving your Ranking

Google Says you Should Avoid…

Taken from Google Webmaster Guidelines:

  • Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
  • Don’t employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
  • Don’t send automated queries to Google.
  • Don’t load pages with irrelevant words.
  • Don’t create pages that install viruses, trojans, or other badware.
  • Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
  • Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
  • If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.
  • Tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.

References

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