Robin Paardekam

100 SEO Tips

Boris Veldhuijzen-Van Zanten wrote a great blogpost in which he requested his readers to come up with the best SEO-tips. He collected all remarks and created a list with them, which he then converted into a nice WordPress plugin. For all readers who do not use WordPress, I thought it would come in handy to publish the complete list just online. Here it is:

• Google Base is a great place to submit all kinds of information that link back to you.
• A few quality links can weigh much more than a lot of non related low quality ones.
• About the URL's, consider using dashes between the words. not '%20' or '_'
• Always set up 301 redirects for renamed or deleted pages.
• Always use "alt" and "title" tags for images, flash objects and links.
• Avoid people copying your content by checking regularly with Copyscape
• Break larger pages into two or more smaller ones.
• Browsers allow for bad html code, SE spiders are a different beast.
• Build everything you want indexed so that it also works without javascript, flash, java, activex and css.
• Build sites to pass an honest-to-goodness human inspection, and not just an algorithmic inspection.
• Buy 299 Steps to Website Heaven. An invaluable guide to SEO for the SME
• Buying backlinks is always a bad idea.
• Check regularly for Dead Links or old links that are redirecting to something else.
• Check that what you think you have done = what you have actually done.
• Check that your site looks OK in all browsers before taking the time to promote it at browsercam.com
• Choose menu labels that are intuitive for visitors and also make keyword sense (without stuffing).
• Create a Google Gadget to promote your site.
• Create a XML sitemap as well as the usual HTML one
• Define a clear and measurable SEO goal.
• Despite progress in indexing dynamic sites, static-looking still URLs do better, and are easier to remember.
• Do not forget to offer other payment options giving details ( bank account number etc. )
• Don't buy links from any company that offers to sell them to you - you'll be banned from Google for sure
• Don't have keywords in small font or the same colour as the background of your site - it's classed as spam
• Don't link back to "/index.html" but to the / root of your domain.
• Don't neglect your sitemaps, don't leave broken links in them.
• Don't think that being found for your company name is good - more people DON'T know your name than DO
• Don't try and optimise a page for more than a couple of search phrases - it just won't work.
• Don't use automated tools to submit to Google - it's against their terms and conditions and could get you banned
• Don't use meta redirect, Google dislikes them.
• Eliminate or make less prominent all links to fluff pages (like member profiles).
• Ensure keywords used in titles and meta descriptions actually appear on the page and in significant numbers.
• Ensure that secondary keywords appear towards the top of the page and are consistent with the primary topic.
• Ensure what the Search bot sees = what the user sees.
• Find out how to make the most of Web 2.0 PR by reading The New Rules of PR
• Find out what keywords your target market is searching for at wordtracker.com
• Find out where you competitors are advertising - that's where you should be too
• Focus each page on one topic and make sure the page title and description tags are consistent.
• Forget about 'cloaking' and other Black Hat techniques - you'll be found out eventually and banned!
• Formulate a strategic (viral marketing) plan for more relevant inbound links to your website
• Generate fresh content as often as possible.
• Google and other search engines simply love sites that are regularly updated.
• Google has more than 50 datacenters - find out where you are listed in them all
• Google searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case.
• Have a "verisign" or similar trustworthy certificate.
• If you have a blog, start investing some time in community marketing, use blog friends for Facebook, and submit to Twitter.
• If you offer more than one service, it may be worth investing in producing a few niche ‘mini sites’ to capitalise on niche and ultra targeted traffic.
• Ignore the Meta Keywords tag; it has no value
• Is your site "Client" focused or "We We" focused? Find out!
• It’s tempting to only choose the phrases with the most searches to optimise for, but the key word is relevancy.....
• Learn about 'anchor text' and use it where you can
• Learn about Google Search Engine Ranking factors
• Link out to quality external sites where appropriate.
• Link to your less tasty pages from the site map.
• Make sure that each page has a 'call to action' whether it be to sign up, click here or buy
• Make sure the search phrases you are optimising for are included in the content of your site
• Make sure whatever you're trying to sell/promote/accomplish is user friendly and your call to actions are clear.
• Make sure you use accurate titles in pages, and avoid redundant phrases
• Make sure you use valid html code.
• Make sure you're targeting the correct keyphrases on your front page?
• Meta tag that describes the page accurately in more detail, and motivates the searcher to click.
• More pages of content mean more potential incoming links for your site = more traffic.
• Never, ever, delete a 301 redirect.
• No 301 or 302 redirects unless the URL has actually been changed
• Participate in busy online communities that will give you valuable links to your website
• Plan the site architecture using a rational naming hierarchy so that the folders make sense.
• Plan the site so it can easily change when new web technology comes along. Be modular.
• Redirect non-www to www or vice versa (domain name canonicalisation).
• Register with Google Webmaster Tools to find out what Google really thinks of your site
• Remember to delete the obsolete page from the server.
• Run Zenu or similar for links out on page internal navigation
• Schedule a "Search Engine Position Audit" in your schedule to make your results measurable.
• Search Yahoo and Google at the same time and compare results.
• Search Engine Genie’s Sandbox Checker will help you to see if you\'re in The Google Sandbox or not
• Site optimalisation is more effective than simply a having keyword rich domain
• Spiders don't look at a fancy CSS. Build with bot in mind, make sure the content is available and put the important stuff first.
• Start a blog, search engines like fresh content. Actually, they LOVE it.
• Stop bots from indexing pages which you don\'t want in the index, especially dynamic sections which have no relevance to the SERPs.
• STOP optimising for single words and start thinking in terms of key PHRASES not keywords.
• Stop using the 'reindex' META tag - no bot actually listens to it, especially not Google
• Submit your website to reliable directories, and stay away from blackheads.
• Take time out every now and then to review Google's Webmaster Guidelines
• Think seriously about your META description tag - it’s what people are going to read in most cases when you show up in a search.
• Thinking of blogging for business in order to help your SEO? Great idea - check out http://www.betterbusinessblogging.com/ first though
• Title tag that accurately describes the subject of the page, contains the most important keyword (or two, or three if required).
• To quote W3C, "Cool URIs don't change."
• Treat search engines the same as visitors.
• Try and eliminate the phrase "click here" from your site, and use your keyphrases instead
• Unless you're a 301 redirect master, don't rename your pages.
• Use a plugin like AddThis so users can easily submit your site to other social media.
• Use consistent and correct server response codes
• Use H1 tag once on the page, H2 for a few of the sub headers, and H3 for less important titles.
• Use meta keywords tags, but with a few well-chosen keywords.
• Use solid semantic structures. It makes a spider's job a whole lot easier.
• Use the META tag content="noarchive" to keep search engines from showing the cached version of your site
• Use the w3c validator on ALL of your pages, link to css and javascript docs, not inline.
• user-friendly-url's (with dashes between words, not underscores)
• When getting others to link to your website make sure they link to a relevant internal page, not just your front page
• Write articles - they establish you as an expert and can be placed on sites such as Ezinearticles.com and feelgr8.co.uk
• Use a script that will generate meta-tags out of the first 250 characters of the page itself.
• Publish a WordPress Plugin to get people to link to your pages.