Jul 14 2008
Onsite SEO Primer
Does the Title of your site contain related keywords?
Title tags will play a great role in where your website will rank for specific keywords. Make sure your targeted keywords are presented naturally within your title.
Does the Title of your site have 8 words or less?
Having a title that is straight and to the point will increase click throughs from visitors who find your page within the search engine results.
Is the title of your site different on each page?
Having the same title across each page can get your rank penalized and lets not forget you will probably lose the opportunity to rank for more specific keywords relating to your products. For your inner pages, design specific page titles while keeping the above guidelines in mind.
Is the meta description for the pages within your site different?
Make sure the meta description relates to the specific page instead of matching the home page description?If you use meta keywords, even though not much weight is placed on these anymore, you may want to use the same guidelines across pages within the website. Keep them related to the page and title. Avoid being flagged as a spammer by using too many.
Do all links within your page link correctly to your inner pages?
Avoid linking to the ip address of your inner page. Use your domain.
A link from your homepage to your products should navigate to:
yourdomain.com/products/stuff, not http://77.777.47.180/products/stuff
Im still seeing this on some sites. Keywords within your domain play a role in rank. There are no keywords in ip addresses so…why use them.
Use of H2 tags
Use <h2> tags for your headings just above paragraph discussing your product or service. I like to use H2 tags at most once every 200 words. Clean up the font of your page with css.
Place the code below between the <head> section or (preferrable) link to an external css file from the <head> section of your page. Your <h2> tags will be viewed with the parameters set in the css code which optimizes your page for quicker load times. Css is great to use for all the text and even image placement.
CSS Code:
<style type=”text/css”>
h2 {
font-size: 13px;
color: #543t44;
font-weight: bold;
margin-top: 0px;
margin-bottom: 3px;
}
</style>
Avoid using keyword spamming:
Spam filters are knocking these websites down. Your targeted keywords should make up about 7% or less of the total text on a page. The more content you write, the more keywords you can use. Just avoid redundancy on the Topic. Build your site for humans and not search engines will help you avoid getting banned, which will eventually happen if your page hits top ranks using spam methods. With this in mind, make sure to clearly state your purpose on your front page. Good contact information will help with future website reviews by human search engine editors.
Flash is not search engine friendly:
This doesn’t mean you cannot make your page sharp. Remember that rank means nothing if visitors are leaving as soon as the see your layout. Attracting the visitor and earning conversions must be made a top priority. If visitors really like your layout, they may help you promote your website. Word of mouth advertising is where great things are accomplished, online and offline.
