Before you start....keep in mind
Every business with a Web site should make
Search Engine Optimization
-- trying to get
your site as high up as possible on Google
and Bing
search-results pages -- a part of
their growth strategy.
At its most basic, "SEO" means finding ways to
increase your site's
appearance in web visitors'
search results. This generally means more
traffic
to your site.
While intense SEO can involve complex site
restructuring with a firm
(or consultant) that
specializes in this area, there are a few simple
steps you can take yourself to increase your
search engine ranking.
All it requires is a little effort, and some re-thinking of how you approach content on your site.
Monitor where you stand
You won't know if your SEO efforts
are working unless you monitor your
suggests that you keep an eye on
your page rank with tools
It's also important to check your
referrer log regularly to track
where
your visitors are coming from and the
search terms they're using
to find your
site, according to
PC World.
Keywords, keywords, keywords!
You should be conscious of placing
appropriate keywords throughout
every aspect of your site: your titles,
content, URLs, and image names.
Think about your keywords as search
terms -- how would someone looking
for
information on this topic search for it?
The title tag and page header are the
two most important spots to put keywords,
PC World notes.
BEWARE: Putting ridiculous amounts of
keywords on your site will get
you labeled
as a spammer, and search engine spiders are
programmed to
ignore sites guilty of
"keyword-stuffing." Be strategic in your
keyword
use.
Link back to yourself
There is probably no more basic strategy for SEO
than the integration
of internal links into your site
-- it is an easy way to boost traffic
to individual
pages,
SEO Consult says.
You should make it standard to link back to
your archives frequently when creating new content.
MarketingVox
advises that you also make the anchor text search-engine-friendly: "The
more relevant words point to a page, the more likely that page is to
appear in search results when users run a
query with those terms."
As with all other SEO approaches, be sure your
links are appropriate,
and be careful not to cross
the line into excessive linking -- you
don't want
your visitors to get annoyed.
Create a sitemap
Adding a site map -- a page listing and linking to all the other
major pages on your site -- makes it easier
for spiders to search your
site.
"The fewer clicks necessary to get to a page on
your website, the better," advises
MarketingVox.
Search-friendly URLs
Make your URLs more search-engine-friendly
by naming them with clear keywords.
SEO Consult
explains:
"For instance, it’s easy to understand what
‘www.puppyfun.co.uk/puppyhealth/vitamins’
would contain. It’s less easy
to understand if the
in-house classification system of the business is
used, for example ‘www.puppyfun.co.uk/11789/s201.htm’.
A dynamic URL is
similarly off-putting, even if it contains recognisable words:
‘www.puppyfun.co.uk/search/?s=”health”’.
That's all for the day. Get back to refreshed. We'll be back again with the rest very shortly. Till then ByE..
Flash might look pretty, but it does nothing for your SEO. According to the Search Engine Journal,
words associated with your images as
