SEO Tips
SEO Tips
1. Keyword Selection
- Use keyword tools (i.e. Google keyword tool on: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) to find the most targeted keyword phrases for your site.
- If you run ppc campaigns i.e. Google AdWords, look up most popular keywords which also convert well
- Develop grouped themes of keywords that reflect the different pages of your site.
- Keep within a grouped theme, choose different keywords to target each page.
2. Site Optimisation
- Decide on theme for each page targeting a small group of 2 or 3 keywords. The more specific you can be the better. More general terms may be hard to optimize for because you will be up against more competition when it comes to result page
- i.e. for the keyword “shoes” dedicate each page to the following themes
o Women high heel shoes
o Men leather black shoes
o Children sport shoes
o etc
Once you decide on themes follow
3. Page Optimization
- Use text-based navigation if possible
- If you already have, or insist on using, graphic navigation, use descriptive alt text on the images, and link to every primary page from your sub pages into footer of the sub pages.
- Use descriptive keyword breadcrumb navigation.
- Create an XML sitemap (read more about sitemap on : http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40318&hl=en)
- Check the text that links pages of your site to make sure it’s descriptive whenever possible.
- Link to resources outside your own site that improve each user’s experience.
- Deep link to related articles and content from you page copy.
- Rely as little as possible on the site navigation. Instead, guide your visitor through your site with link in the active content portion of the site.
- Avoid duplicate content issues. Ensure that each page has significantly unique content that does not exist on other pages on your site or other sites.
3. Page Optimization – for no more than 3 terms / keywords
- Put chosen keywords for the page in your page title tag, repeat them with prefix or suffix if possible
- Make sure your page title tag text is unique to each page and has around 65 – 70 characters.
- Write a description for the meta description tag. Make sure your description is unique to each page.
- Use H1, H2 and H3 tags throughout your page and include keywords in them
- Include your keywords in headings, the URL, in bold and italic. All this will reassure the search engine that the keyword is relevant to the content. Aim for keyword density around or over 3 % excluding stop words (i.e. the, a, and, etc) - although it’s best to use an optimisation tool to get the optimal density
- Use bulleted lists and bolding to make content easier to read (improving usability)
- Make sure your text is written for human consumption-not bots.
- Keep the page size as small as possible
- Outbound links – link to one or two high ranking sites under that particular keyword from every page.
- Use text links unless you have other good reason for using pictures etc.
- Use in-site cross links – cross link your pages to make the most of your whole site Make sure that main keywords are in the link leading to the keyword targeted page
- All pages should be linked to more than 1 pages unless there is other reason for them not to be
- Use anchors but do not repeat the exact same text every time
4. Home Page Optimisation
- Make sure your home page builds credibility and directs consumers to the most important parts of your site.
- Target your most competitive keyword on your home page or a page that is well integrated into your site.
- Link to major themes pages from your home page.
- Link to your home page from every sub page.
Posted by Olga
