1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus,
image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere
on the page for the spiders to follow.
2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and
unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword
phrase.
3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of
quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link.
Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link
to you, you donʼt want the link. (This doesnʼt apply if your using
BH methods)
4. Donʼt be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one aspect of the
ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one
with a higher PR.
5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every
page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your
company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand
name that is a household name, your business name will probably
get few searches.
6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful
content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds
relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.
7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword
phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to
“blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.
8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your
location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to
help you get found in local searches.
9. Donʼt design your web site without considering SEO. Make
sure your web designer understands your expectations for
organic SEO. Doing a retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site
after it is built wonʼt cut it. Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or
images.
10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text
links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.
11. Check for canonicalization issues – www and non-www
domains. Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the
other to it. In other words, if http://www.domain.com is your
preference, then http://domain.com should redirect to it.
12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is
index.html appended to your domain name? If so, youʼre splitting
your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal
links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html.
Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and
always link back to your domain.
13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you
canʼt link to a single page. Itʼs either all or nothing. Donʼt use
Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO
results.
14. Your URL file extension doesnʼt matter. You can
use .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it wonʼt make a difference as
far as your SEO is concerned.
15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through
Googleʼs regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest
way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through
another quality site.
16. If your site content doesnʼt change often, your site needs a
blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three
time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.
17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single,
good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen
poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.
18. Search engines want natural language content. Donʼt try to
stuff your text with keywords. It wonʼt work. Search engines look
at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally
high, will count this against you rather than for you.
19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the
text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In
other words, surround the link with descriptive text.
20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure
youʼre not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their
negative notoriety could affect your own rankings.
21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership
information when you register a domain, Google might see you as
a potential spammer.
22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag
independently from your blog title.
23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and
Reputation.
24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your
link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.
25. Give link love, Get link love. Donʼt be stingy with linking out.
That will encourage others to link to you.
