The 52 Top SEO Tips - here are 10 of them
By David Leonhardt
From the obvious to the "Hey-I-never-thought-of-that-great-idea-
before", here are 10 of the top 52 tips on how to optimize your
website for its turbo-charge rocket ride up the search engine
rankings.
Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages
as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web
sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you
obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a
search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page?
That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links
were generated by automation rather than by the value of your
site.
Become a foreigner. Canada and the UK have many directories for
websites of companies based in those countries. Can you get a
business address in one of those countries?
Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive
their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their
archives.
First come, first served. If you must have image links in your
navigation bar, include also text links. However, make sure the
text links show up first in the source code, because search
engine robots will follow the first link they find to any
particular page. They won't follow additional links to the same
page. You can see this in action at the link to the home page on:
http://www.dotcom-monitor.com/web-site-monitoring.asp .
Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each
support their own website, it might be worth having multiple
domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page
per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two.
Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can
get more directory listings this way. Why not a site dedicated to
gumbo pudding pops?
Article exchanges. You've heard of link exchanges, useless as
they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges,
only much more useful. You publish someone else's article on the
history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. They
publish your article on the top ten pudding pop flavors in Viet
Nam, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You
both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in other
tips.)
Be bold. Use the <b></b> tags around some of your keywords on
each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once
or twice is plenty.
Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this
help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them,
but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a
page.
Not anchor text. Don't overdo the anchor text. You don't want all
your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like
automation - something Google frowns upon. Use your URL
sometimes, your company name other times, "Gumbo Pudding Pop"
occasionally, "Get gumbo pudding pops" as well, "Gumbo-flavored
pudding pops" some other times, etc.
Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to
from every page on the site. This will help the search engine
robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a
site map, too. It's called the navigation bar. See how the second
navigation bar at the bottom of http://www.lastminutevillas.net
is like a mini-site map?
There you have it: 10 of the 52 Top SEO Tips, a free tip sheet
that comes with Don't Get Banned By the Search Engines:
http://www.thehappyguy.com/SEO.html
There is a lot more to search engine optimization, and there are
always more details when looking at an individual site. But these
tips should help any website significantly improve its rankings.
David Leonhardt is a freelance writer, and an online and offline publicity
specialist.
visit his website at
http://www.thehappyguy.com
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