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The following article
addresses some of the more common mistakes made when trying to
build a website based on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). If
the 8 points below are followed, although high search engine
ranking is not guaranteed, the website would have been created
on a solid foundation and the basics will be in place.
1. Keyword Stuffing
In the old days of web
design the use of keywords in the META tags was an important way
of directing search engines to your site. There is some
discussion now as to whether the KEYWORDS tag still adds
anything to SEO results in the Google algorithm but given the
uncertainty it is probably best to still include several
keywords, just in case.
The main point is not to include too many. Most experts will
tell you to include no more than 15-20 words and phrases. More
than that and the search engines consider it to be keyword
stuffing (adding more and more irrelevant terms to boost your
site's results for certain search terms).
2. Not Using Heading Tags (H1, H2, etc)
The search engines use the
H tags of HTML to estimate the importance of the text, believing
that section headings, titles, etc will be highlighted through
the use of the tag. H1 is considered more important than H2 and
so on down the list. The common mistake here is to use CSS to
style headings (including font size and color) and not wrap the
text in the H1 tag. For example:
< h1 >Some important title text < / H1 > in the HTML code can be
backed up with CCS code
For SEO results the above example is far better than this:
SPAN ID="header" >Some
important text< / SPAN which is then linked to CSS.
As the second example does not make use of the H1 tag, search
engines give the text no higher level of importance.
3. Location of Keywords In The Text
The search terms you have
selected to use as keywords need to appear on the webpage as
close to the top of the page as possible for maximum SEO
benefit. This includes Titles, headers and the opening
paragraphs of the text. Search terms located further down the
page lose significance in proportion to their distance from the
top. For maximum benefit the keywords need to appear as close to
the top as possible and with an overall frequency of 2 or 3%
(the keywords make up2 or 3% of the words on the page). A common
mistake here is to use the keywords too often or too rarely and
poorly structure their position on the page.
4. Page Titles
The title of the page (what
shows in the top left corner of the browser) is used by search
engines to determine the relevancy of the page. Therefore it is
important to give the page a title that accurately reflects the
content and relates to the keywords. When using templates to
build the webpages it is easy to overlook updating the page
title which results in several pages having the same title which
has little or nothing to do with the content.
In general, keep the page title relevant and group the keywords
closer to the start of the text if possible. Don't stuff the
title with words, try to keep it brief.
5. Avoid Link Farms
Once the website is up and
running, it is common to receive emails from other sites
offering to swap links with you to increase page rank. Google
has decided to battle this behaviour and now penalises sites
that participate in such schemes. Link farms can often be
identified by the large amount of unrelated links that appear on
the page. If offered reciprocal links check the other website
carefully and make sure they are in some way connected to your
business or site. Being detected by Google can result in very
bad search results and even being removed from the Google
directory for a period of time. This not what you want!!
6. Submitting Your Site Too Early
Although this is a tactic
used by some to start appearing in search results faster, you
should not submit your site to search engines until it is
complete. If the bots start indexing your site while it is in an
incomplete state, the result may not be what you intend. Broken
links and test pages don't score well in search results.
Only submit the site when it is ready to be viewed by the user.
The bots will get the same experience your user does, which is
what you are after.
7. Use ALT Text For Images
All images can make use of
the ALT tag which allows you to add text which displays if the
image doesn't or if the mouse is hovered over the image. The ALT
tag is useful for accessibility if users can't see the image (a
screen reader, for example, would say what was in the ALT tag as
it can't describe the image) but is also a good addition to SEO
practises. The text in the ALT tag is scanned by the search
engines and plays a part in search results.
Therefore, use the ALT tag to give all images a meaningful
message. Make it descriptive. For example your company logo
should have ALT text that says "Acme Co" (for example) rather
than "company logo".
8. The Use of Poor Search Terms
The key to good results in
the search engine rankings is the search terms you compete for.
This is a huge topic and I'm not going to go into depth here.
Have a look online for more detail on how best to select
keywords. In essence, the terms you decide to use in your SEO
efforts need to relate to your website. There is no use chasing
rankings for sandals if you sell mountain bikes. But if you
compete in an active industry trying to take on the big players
for a word or phrase like mountain bikes, you've got a job on
your hands.
The dream combination is to find keywords or phrases that
describe your website but are not competed for that much by
other websites. Before you get carried away with selecting
keywords, keep in mind that they need to be search terms that
your users will search for! There is no point being top for
'azure seat covers' if your users don't search for that term.
This article is not a comprehensive introduction into the field
of SEO but does cover some useful basics that you need to keep
in mind when designing your site. Each item here will add a
certain advantage to your SEO campaign and when all are used in
conjunction your site will be have the basics of SEO working for
it.
Steve
Allan works are as web designer in Christchurch, New
Zealand. His areas of specialty are ASP.Net, database design
and user interfaces.
http://www.chimeradesign.co.nz |
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