Many of them can achieve top
rankings by applying just the search engine
optimization basics - which can be learned in less than 30
minutes.
This article lays out
the basics of search engine optimization. It can be
well worthwhile trying them before paying an expert as,
oftentimes, the basics are all that's needed.
NOTE: the SEO copyright method(a.k.a. search engine
optimization copywriting) applies these basics to a site's
existing pages. It doesn't go into more advanced search
engine optimization techniques that require more knowledge
and expertise.
What is Search Engine
Optimization?
Search engine
optimization is the process of achieving top rankings in
the search engines for a website's most relevant search terms.
The most relevant search terms are the phrases that people are
most likely to type into a search engine when looking for what
the website has to offer. These are the search terms that it
is essential to rank highly for, and these are the search
terms that search engine optimization targets.
The first step is to
choose the most suitable search terms for your site. Then
allocate one or two of them to each suitable page within the
site. One search term per page is preferable, but two per page
is not so bad. Sometimes it is useful to split a largish page,
that covers several closely related topics or several aspects
of a topic, into two or more smaller pages so that a different
search term can be targeted on each of them. Matching search
terms to a page's content is essential.
NOTE: smaller pages are better than
larger ones because it is easier to target a search term when
there is less text on the page to dilute the focus.
Search Engine Optimization - the
basics
Link
structure within the site
An obvious, but
sometimes overlooked, aspect of search engine
optimization is to make sure that search engine spiders
can actually find (crawl) all of the site's pages. If they
can't find them, they sure as hell won't get spidered and
indexed, and no amount of search engine optimization on
them will help.
Some points to note
Spiders can't see links that are accomplished by
Javascript so, as far as search engines are concerned, they
don't exist. Don't use them if you want spiders to follow your
links.
Google won't spider any URL that looks like it has a
Session ID in it, so URLs with longish numbers in them must be
avoided. These are usually dynamic URLs.
Make sure that all pages link to at least one other page.
Links to pages that don't link out are called "dangling
links", and the reason to avoid them can be found here.
It is good to structure the internal links so that
targeted search terms are reinforced. E.g. organize the links
so that a topic's sub-topic pages link to the topic page with
the right link text (see below), and vice-versa.
Off-page elements
Link text
<a href="url">some link
text</a>
This is one of the two most
important elements for good rankings. The link text can be on
pages within the site or on other sites' pages. Either way, it
is important. The target page's main search term should be
included in the link text. When possible, don't use identical
link text for every link that links to a page, but do include
the target page's main search term in the link text.
Google attributes link
text to the target page - as actually being on the
target page, and it treats it's pseudo-presence as being an
important element of the target page. Links carry even more
weight if the text around them is concerned with the target
page's topic and search term(s).
On-page elements
The Title tag
<title>some title words</title>
This is second of the two most important elements for good
rankings. Make sure that the page's search term is contained
in this tag, and place it as near to the front as is
reasonable, whilst ensuring that it reads well. There's
nothing wrong with placing the search term up front on its
own, followed by a period; e.g. "Pagerank. Google's PageRank
and how to make the most of it". The target search term is, of
course, "PageRank". Obviously each page's Title tag should be
different to the Title tags on the site's other pages.
The Description tag
<meta name="description" content="a nice
description">
Some search engines, such as
Google, don't display the Description like they used to do
but, even so, it should still be included in each page for
those engines that do, and for the odd times when even Google
displays it. Write an appealing description for the page and
incorporate the page's search term into it at least once and,
preferably, twice. Place one instance of it at the start or as
near to the start as is reasonably possible.
The Keywords tag
<meta name="keywords" content="some
keywords">
The words in the Keywords tag were
never treated as keywords by the search engines; they were
treated as text on the page. The tag isn't as effective as it
used to be but there is no reason to leave it out. So put
plenty of relevant keywords into the tag and include the
search term once at the front, and a second time further along
the line. There is no need to seperate keywords and keyphrases
with commas, as is often done, since the engines ignore
commas.
The H tag
<Hn>some heading words</Hn>
"n" is a number from 1 to 6; the biggest heading size
being 1. H tags are given more weight than ordinary text and,
the bigger the H size, the more weight it receives. So include
the target search term in H tags at least once on the page,
and two or three times if possible. Also, place the first H
tag as near to the top of the page as possible.
Bold text
Bold text is given
more weight than ordinary text but not as much as H tags. As
much as is reasonable, enclose the search term in bold tags
when it appears on the page.
Text
Use the search term as
often as you can on the page whilst not detracting from the
page's readability. Make sure that you use the term once or
twice very early in the page's body text and as often
as possible throughout. Reword small parts, and even add
sentences, to make sure that the search term is well
represented in the text.
In all probability,
each word in the search term will be found on the page
seperate from the search term itself. This is good. In fact,
if they are not there on their own, add a few of them through
the page.
Alt text
<img src="url" alt="some alt text which is
displayed on mouseover">
Include the search term
in the alt text of all images on the page. Keep in mind that
some systems such as Braille readers and speach synthesisers
use the alt text, so you might want to make them usable whilst
including the search term.
Summary
-
Select your main search terms.
-
Allocate each search term to a suitable existing page.
Split some pages if necessary.
-
Organize the internal linkages and link text to suit the
target search terms and their pages.
-
If possible, organize links from other sites to suit the
target search terms and their pages.
-
Organize all the on-page elements to suit each page's
target search term.
-
Sit back and watch your rankings improve!
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