Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Hints

[tag]Search engine optimization[/tag] (SEO) is a phase that you hear all the time. There are [tag]SEO[/tag] experts who make a living optimizing web pages for the search engines. And the good ones are well worth the money.

But there are a lot of SEO companys that use sneaky and underhanded tactics to get you better ranking. What they don’t tell you is that your temporary gain could get you banned for life from the search engines. And that’s not a very good trade, is it?

We have searched the Internet to put together a top ten list of simple things you can do to make your website more attractive to the search engines.

1. Incoming links – Every incoming link is a point for you. The link, the text within the anchor tag, the quality of the source URL, and the text around the anchor tag are all important to how the search engine determines where you rank in search results.
2. Internal links – Be sure that your internal link structure is logiacl and that there are no dead links. Link related content together and use links to emphasize important content. Use a sitemap (see below) to provide back-up navigation and to inform the search engines about the architecture of your site.
3. Organic growth of links – If you have a way to get 1000 links in a day, it could be really good or it could get you a spam flag – and even if it is good, the effect may be temporary. Steady organic growth in the number of incoming links is the best way to go.
4. Page title – It is very important to use a short relevant page title. It used to be common to stuff as many keywords as possible into the title, but no more. You can help you search engine ranking by using a simple format: document title – site title.
5. Proper HTML tagging – Your most important headline MUST go in <h1> tags. <h2>, <h3>, etc. can be used for headlines of lesser importance. Use CSS, not the header tag to control the look of the text contained in the tag. Likewise, bold <b>, strong <strong>, italic <i> and emphasis <em> tags tell the search engines that the text has importance over other text.
6. Meta Tags – Meta tags have been a subject of contention recently – do I use them or not? Here’s the scoop. Only use keyword and description meta tags if they are different and relevant for every page. Use a maximum of 5 keywords per page.
7. Text Navigation – This is a MUST. The search engine crawler can’t read or click on your image maps or navigation images. Always use text navigation as a backup. And don’t use drop down navigation! Drop down navigation is convenient for the user but mind-boggling to a search engine robot. If you feel you must use drop-down navigation, back it up with regular text navigation and a sitemap.
8. Keyword rich text – This should be #1. Writing keyword rich copy for websites is a very different animal than writing sales copy or print copy. It is an ongoing process and copy sold be updated regularly. Search engines love updated copy and you will too when you include new keywords that you have researched as being active in your market. Always keep up with new keywords that might be used by people searching for your product or service.
9. Directories &150; This is a must also. Yahoo, DMOZ, Wikipedia, etc. Some, such as DMOZ are free. Others, like Yahoo can cost up to $300. You can still apply for a free directory listing with Yahoo, but it may take up to 2 years to get listed! A paid listing on Yahoo directories may be a good investment because it shortens the time to listing to several weeks. It may also help you with rankings in other search engines such as Google because of the high relevance given to Yahoo directory pages. We have a list of popular directories at OrangeCat.com
10. Alt Text – When you put an image onto a web page, one of the possible attributes is the “alt” tag. It look like this (alt=”Your Alternate text goes here”) Search engines can read alt text. They don’t all use it the same way but you should use it. Why are alt tags important? When your image fails to load for some reason, the alt text shows instead. This is important if your image is linked. In that case, the alt text will be linked. If there is no alt text and the image fails to load, there is no link. Also, when sight-impaired people are using a page reader scan your page, the alt tag can be read to them.

Bonus. Site Map – Sitemaps are as old as the web itself. They are simply another web page that contains links to all of the pages on your website – hopefully arranged hierarchically. Use a site map page to tell the search engines how to find all of the pages in your different content sections. Sitemaps based on xml and text are also a good idea to help the search engines properly catalog your website. Ask you webmaster about xml sitemapping.

Well, that finishes this top 10 list and there is still more to say about this fascinating subject, so watch for Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Hints, Part II, coming soon.

Bob Stovall has been marketing on the Internet since 1991. Bob is the founder of BobStovall.com, a blog for Internet marketers, OrangeCat.net for Web Hosting Made Easy and is the Director of the Association of Real Estate Investment Professionals (AREIP.org).

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