SEO tutorial STEP 1. KEYWORD TUTORIAL Using the right keywords is essential in search engine optimisation (SEO). Many companies have their name in the title and heading tags - this is pointless unless people search for your company name. Instead, use the keywords that describe your product or service. To find out what people search for, and compile a list of keywords visit: UK http://inventory.uk.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ COM http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ Also see: http://www.wordtracker.com/ and Google's keyword tool it's also useful to know the address of their lab. http://labs.google.com/ When you search for those terms on Google, Yahoo etc - 1. Look at the cached page image. This shows you most of what the spider sees. 2. Read the text that the search engine displays - its mainly <title>, <heading>, anchor text and keywords in their immediate vicinity.
3. Visit the competitors site. In your browser, click View
and select Page Source to view their HTML. STEP 2. SEARCH ENGINE TUTORIAL Understanding a little about search engines helps too. Search-engine spiders (aka robots) read a page from the top left corner. Text in the top left corner has much greater relevance than text in the bottom right corner. Imagine you are rushing to catch a plane, and have only moments to buy a newspaper. You scan the selection of papers - You instantly see Titles and Headlines.
Congratulations - you are now a spider. Spiders work in much the same way but have to sift through 4 billion websites in fractions of second.
In SEO, repetition of keywords is vital because a
search-engines reputation is based on the relevance of its results. Search
engine spiders love repetition, and keyword placement. This gives the spider
reassurance that the page is relevant. All search engine spiders use similar
algorithms. Canny webmasters recognise this. A site that is No1 on Google
will also rank highly on all other search engines. STEP 3. SEO TUTORIAL This tutorial assumes that you understand a bit about HTML. If not, follow this link There is no trick to SEO - search engine optimisation is mostly about using HTML properly and doing things above board (eg don't use text the same colour as the background, don't use frames or flash). Place these HTML tags immediately after the document <head> • Use a brief, descriptive, keyword heavy <title> tag; Aim for 4 - 10 word title with 1 or 1.5 keyword repetitions. This is the spider equivalent of a newspaper headline. It is hugely important in seo, but rarely noticed by the user. The title is displayed in top left of the browser's border. • <keywords> use 3 or 4 word keyword phrases rather than individual words. Aim for 10-30 keywords in total, with the main keyword on left. Keywords or keyword phrases must be separated by commas. The <keywords> tag reinforces the visible text and shows the spider your design intent. It reinforces, and expands upon, the title. Some bold webmasters don't use the <keywords> tag nowadays as it's much less important than previously. • <description> 20-40 word real description with 1 or 2 repeats of main keyword. For seo, description should be descriptive, with your keyword on, or close to, the left hand side. May 2005: Where there is a DMOZ listing, Google now seems to be using that description rather than reading it from your site. So make sure that your DMOZ description is seo'd. In the document <body> • Use only one heading tag <h1>with the same keyword ratio as the <title>. Place secondary keywords in the next 20-ish words. Regard <h1> as the <title> equivalent aimed at viewers and has some relevance to spiders. This is like the headline and first paragraph in a newspaper. May 2005: <h1> is designed as a user-aide so use it as such eg 20pt bold font. • Main keyword in link (anchor) text in the first link, top left corner, with keywords in next 20 words. That keyword should not be used in an any other anchor text as it dilutes the impact. Notice that some of the links on this page are optimised for "seo" and "tutorial", others aren't. • On all other page menus instead of simply saying Home, say keyword Home. Do this on every page and you've got a load of internal, keyword heavy links pointing to your index page. Such internal links seem to count almost as highly as external links. And we all know the relevance of links in seo. Seems to guarantee a Top 5 slot, especially if the keyword is part of your site's URL. For example check this site's position for ISO 9001 help on Google, Yahoo or MSN.
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Google has search parameters that
focus specifically on <title>, <heading> and anchor text: The very fact that Google uses these parameters must imply that they are important elements in SEO. • It is said "Content is King", I say "Relevant Content is King". Aim for around 300 words in body with keyword repeated once per 20-ish words. Where ever possible, place your keyword on, or close to, the left hand side. It helps a little to have place your main keyword at end of the page. Ranks.NL have many online tools, including a keyword placement & density analyzer tool. Alternatively, use Web Position Gold 30-day freeware to help tune your site and compare it to your competitors. Don't worry that this freeware edition only has a small sample of search engines - it doesn't matter. All search engines are much the same. The one exception is Amazon's A9 search engine which may factor in Alexa's traffic data. It is worth noting that keyword Home gets me a No.1 slot on A9, whereas other keywords (eg iso 9001 quality manual) rank much lower than on Google, Yahoo or MSN. WebCEO's freeware is also worth a look. • Ensure the text is readable by a human. Try to write naturally - remember these tips but don't force it. Choose a font and stick to it - Verdana is very popular with web professionals and was developed specifically for the web. • Every page is an entry page canny webmasters apply the same seo techniques to them too, not just the index page. • On completion, submit your for free site to Google, Yahoo and MSN search engines and Google, Alexa and DMOZ directories. These sites feed results to most other search engines and directories. It generally takes 2 - 6 weeks for newly submitted sites to become visible on a search. Don't bother to re-submit if you change things. Once you're indexed the spider automatically comes to you whenever it does a "refresh". The one exception is Mirago so re-submit when you do a major change. See Google's webmaster tips And this very handy toolkit shows, amongst other things, search engine relationships.
Good placement is one thing, understanding
the human algorithm and making your site sell is similar to seo, but is more subtle
art. See our marketing blog
for a recipe. |
