Search Engine Optimization

March 23, 2011

Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

SERPs

An acronym for Search Engine Results Pages.

Basically they are the search results you receive when doing a search at a search engine.

Backlinks Pointing to Site Crawlers look for links back to your site and count them as a

“vote”

A Quality Link On topic (The page linking to your page is about the same main

topic) Ranked well for the key phrase you are after (In the top 1,000) Contains the keywords you wish to rank well for

Tip: If you run a local business, add your information and website to Google Places.

Using Social Media

Search engines look for regular updates Blog is a great way to regularly update

content You should be distributing links to fresh

content on your site across appropriate social networking platforms such as Facebook

Social Media Checklisthttp://www.lilengine.com/social-media-marketing/lil-engines-social-media-check-list-1891/

Before you write one line of code:

Do keyword research to determine what keywords you want to target.

Optimize your content

Use keywords liberally yet appropriately throughout each page

Have unique content

Have quality content

Keywords -- Simple

<h1>Advanced PHP Programming</h1>

is better then

<h1>Advanced PHP Programming Is Really Cool And Stuff</h1>

Keyword Optimization

Should clearly describe the content and purpose of the site

Think of keywords as search terms Use keywords in content but not more than

5% of entire text If you have too many keywords on your site

spiders are programmed to ignore sites guilty of “keyword” stuffing

Ask yourself 3 questions

How are people searching for your site? Which sites are winning those searches,

why? Which searches can I win?

Keyword Tools

Google Keyword Suggestion Tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends

What is anchor text?

<a href="http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/">Webmaster Forums</a>

The anchor text for this link is "Webmaster Forums".

This is important in search engine rankings because the search engines use anchor text to help determine the relevance of a page being linked to for those keywords.

Anchor Tag Best Practices

Avoid writing generic anchor text like “page”, “article”, or “click here”

Avoid Using the page’s URL as the anchor text, unless you are promoting or referencing a new website’s address.

Avoid creating unnecessary links that don’t help with the user’s navigation of the site.

Meta Tags

The large majority of search engines do not use Meta Tags as part of their ranking algorithm.

Should you use Meta Tags in your site? Yes. Write a nice concise description of your page and

throw in a sampling of keywords

<meta name=“description” content “hello world”>

<meta name=“keywords” content=“hello, world, etc”>

Optimize your URLs Use Search Engine Friendly URLs

Use keywords in your domain (http://www.keyword1.com/)

Use keywords in your URL (http://www.example.com/keyword2/keyword3.html)

Use dashes or underscores to separate words in your URLs(keyword2-keyword3.html)

Heading Tags(<h1>, <h2> etc)

Make sure you are using correctly Good practice for head tags-imagine you

are writing an outline Use headings sparingly across the page Avoid using heading tags only for styling

text and not presentational structure

Title Tags

Use keywords Make unique title for each page

Which is better for SEO: text links or graphical links?

Text links are better for SEO. Text links can contain the anchor text that your page wishes to rank well for and that is an important factor in all three search engines, especially Google.

Search Engine Friendly Navigation

Do not use inaccessible site navigation (Pictures, JavaScript or Flash menus)

If you use a JavaScript or Flash menus include an alternate text menu at the bottom of the page, so it can be followed by the search engines

Image Optimization

Naming matters Use the “alt” attribute with images

Allows you to include a keyword rich description for every image on your site

<img src=“images/dog-pic.jpg” width=“100px” height=“60px” alt=“Picture of a dog”>

Use semantic markup - HTML is a powerful tool that search engines use to determine the context of a page

Use a sitemap - sitemaps make sure your pages are easily found by the search engines (good for humans, too).

Good Crawlable Design

How do I check if my site is search engine friendly?

Turn off JavaScript and CSS in your web browser and view your website.

This is how the search engines most likely see your website.

If you can successfully view your content and navigate your website your site is mostly search engine friendly.

Sitemap

Create 2 Sitemaps: One for Users

In HTML simple hierarchy structure

One for Search Engines XLM File or plain text file

Sitemap Protocol Google Sitemap Generator Script

Submitting Sitemaps using Google Webmaster Tools

Before you begin, make sure you have the site on which the Sitemap is located added and verified in your Webmaster Tools account:

Upload your Sitemap to your site. On the Webmaster Tools home page, click the site you want. Under Site configuration, click Sitemaps. In the text box, complete the path to your Sitemap (for example,

if your Sitemap is at http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml, type sitemap.xml).

Click Submit Sitemap.

Submitting Web Sites

Google http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

Yahoo http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

Bing http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx

Submitting websites to the Search Engines

Do it by hand. It will not take long to do and will ensure

that you are successful in submitting each form with the correct information.

Only submit your Website once.

Why aren't all my pages being indexed?

Takes at least six months After six months make sure you have:

Made a sitemap? Used search engine friendly URLs? Used search engine friendly navigation?

Web Tools

Google Webmaster Toolshttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home

Google Analyticshttp://www.google.com/analytics/

Yahoo! Site Explorerhttps://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/mysites

Bing Webmaster Centerhttp://www.bing.com/webmaster