Since Jigsaw Design moved from focusing strictly on Design to Search Engine
Optimizing, we have been spending a lot of time researching this process and
reading feedback from other SEO Companies via message boards, blogs and other
sources. We eventually came to the conclusion that 90% of the people out there
really don’t have much of a clue what they are talking about. In the next few
paragraphs, we will be discussing some methods and practices that will boost
your position and still keep you in good favor with the search engines. We will
also be looking at some practices that SEO’s put a lot of stock into that may
not necessarily be as important as they will lead you to believe.
IMPORTANT
Less code more content
When a web crawler visits your site, it is there to read your title,
description and content. What it doesn’t want to do is wade though pages of
code in order to find a few lines of content. There are two reasons why this is
bad:
- It looks to the crawler that you are trying to hide something (spammers will
use code to hide hidden text or redirects). If the crawler doesn’t understand
something, it will ignore it and, most likely, your site. - The web crawler may think you don’t have enough content to put any
importance into your site and, if it doesn’t think your site is important, then
it will not list you too high in the returned search results.
What you should be shooting for is at least a 2/1 ratio in favor of content
on 75% of your pages. This will let the web crawler know your site has some
sort of relevance and also gives the crawler more content to index, which it
really likes.
Frames and Flash
I have addressed this subject before, but I want to go into it again because
it is one of those things which a lot of SEO’s just don’t understand. The major
search engines, i.e. Yahoo, Google and MSN, will all say the same thing on their
web masters pages and that is “some web crawlers have difficulty reading the
context of these pages”. What it doesn’t say is don’t use flash or framed pages
because this is a no-no. The reason why I want to make that clear is a lot of
SEO’s will try and tell you that this is a bad thing and that all your pages
need to be flat static pages with lots of alt text behind your flat images.
This is not the case. We have gotten many websites in the top ten and number
one spots, some of which use both flash and framed pages. Some do not even have
any indexable text or links on the home page. So how do we do it? Simple and
its something you should be doing anyway. You should have an alternative version
of your site which viewers with flash installed will be directed to. For a
framed site, you should also have a non-framed version for people whose browsers
don’t support framed pages. Now that you know how simple it is, here is the
temptation. Because your index page will most likely only be seen by maybe 10%
of the people that come to your site, the temptation will be to flood that page
with keywords and search text to get yourself bumped up the search and that will
happen. However, when you get caught (which you will), you will be dumped.
This page should only contain a stripped down version of your site and should
only contain the same text content as your flash or framed site.
Keyword overindulgence
When writing the copy for your site, write it for your viewer and not for the
web crawler. A lot of people get tempted to use the same word or phrase over
and over to try and get themselves placed first on an web search. This is a
total rookie move and can also get you bumped for what’s called keyword
flooding. Here are some examples:
- BadBay Area Search Engine Optimizing
Bay Area search engine optimizing company, located in the bay area. Our
services include search engine optimizing, SEO and search engine placement. As
part of our search engine optimizing service, we guarantee you top placement on
all search engines within 30 days or your money back. When you chose our
company for your search engine optimizing needs we will…….. I think you get
the point. - GoodBay Area Search Engine optimizing
Jigsaw design is located in the Bay Area California. We are committed to
serving all your design needs. Also, as part of our service, we also include
search engine optimization, web hosting and online store solutions…… bla bla
bla
I’m sure you notice the difference. Our web site does show up in the top ten
for the search term “bay area web search engine optimizing”. However, that was
before we wrote this article. So how many times can you include the same search
term? That only the Search engine companies know for sure. However, based our
experience with sites we have successfully placed in the top ten, we would say
no more than once every two paragraphs or once every 100 words.
Out of style sheets
Style sheets are one of those things that are easy to abuse and can get you
in trouble. When use correctly, they can really help you when optimizing a
site. To abuse the use of style sheets is simple. All you have to do is make
your H1 tag the same as your normal text style to try and make the crawler think
that all your text is important. The trouble is crawlers are not as dumb as the
used to be. They figured out that nobody has a header that lasts 5 paragraphs.
The proper use of the H1 tag is your main page header. For example, this page
is “SEO Secrets”. Sub headers like “out of style sheets” should use the H2 tag
and your content should always be normal text. Never, no matter how tempting it
is don’t make any text hidden by use of style sheets or any other method because
your site will be bumped. Also do not make the folder that your style sheet is
in hidden or private because, if the web crawler can’t read your style sheet,
it’s not going to trust that everything is legitimate.
Stale content
You may be able to get your site listed in the top ten within 30 – 60 days,
but that’s no guarantee it will stay there. If your site is not continually
being updated with fresh content and growing, then the search engines will
simply dump it in favor of newer fresher sites. You should be adding a new page
to your site every time the crawler visits and updating your old content as much
as you can. Daily is preferred, but weekly at the very least. This will mean
that the crawler will have fresh content to index and new links to explore.
Thus, it will never see your site as stale and drop it.
NOT AS IMPORTANT AS A LOT OF SEO’S WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE
Page Rank
If you have downloaded Google’s toolbar, you will see a bar at the top of
each page which gives you a rating from 1 to 10 of how Google ranks your site.
This means absolutely nothing when it comes to search engine optimizing. Some
search engine companies think that getting a high page rank means you are going
to be listed higher in the search. This is not the case. In fact, it couldn’t
be further from the truth. What this little bar indicates is simply how
important Google sees your site and it makes that judgment on the quality of
sites that link to you. The single most important thing about your site is not
page rank, it is not how many incoming links you have and it is not how long
your site has been up. It is your content, plain and simple. If your content
matches the search criteria, then you will be listed. The more relevant content
you have, the higher your site will be listed. There are a lot of sites listed
in the number one spot that don’t have any page rank.
Incoming links
Don’t believe a word you hear about incoming links, the quality of the link
or anything to do with link exchange because the truth is; it doesn’t really
matter how many links you have to your site and what sites link to you. What
does matter is the way the sites link to you and how often new links show up to
your site. If you wake up tomorrow and, overnight, 1 million other sites
decided to link to you, that would not affect your position in any way (what it
may do is hurt your listing because it will look like spam). Here is how links
work for you:
- If you are a plastic surgeon and another plastic surgery site links to you,
that will give you a boost because you are being linked to a site that has some
relevance to yours. - If your site sells used network equipment and the link to your site is like
this used network equipment that will give you a boost because the link is a
search term. - If you acquire new links slowly over the course of time, that will give you
a boost because it looks like your site is gaining popularity. - If people link to internal pages of your site, as well as your home page,
that will give you a boost because it looks like you have lots of pages of
relevant information.