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SEO Advice


SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION - SEO

Seo image
Search Engine Optimization
There has been much written in the field of SEO(Search Engine Optimization), too much actually. There is a lot of very good advice from people who know exactly what they are doing, and there is a lot of bad advice from people who do not know anything about SEO.

Our purpose here is to try to provide you with the good SEO methods for enhancing your exposure in the major search engines, like Google, Yahoo and MSN. But SEO is really an educated guess as to what the spiders(search engine robots that scan your web pages) like and dislike. It is a Secret Spider Society that determines your 'ranking' within the search results. Search engine algorithm's are top secret and constantly changing. Sure search engines will tell you what to do and what to avoid, but this is just the tip of the list of calculations they use to measure your position within their results. Search engines usually update their results daily, but to give site owners a ranking, Google, for instance, will update every three months. SEO is just not about making it easier for spiders to index your site and improving your search engine position.

SEO is also, and mainly, about helping people with disabilities and those with text browsers to 'see' your site. People with disabilities and text browsers can't see images and only text with the right contrast. For instance, take an image, these people cannot see it, so when I place the image here, in the code I provide an 'alt' text. Alt text is short for alternative text. This text gives the person seeing it a description of that image. Right click on the SEO image above and select 'properties', a pop-up will show the properties of the image, including the alt or description tag, in this case, "SEO image". This alt tag helps those less fortunate than ourselves to 'see' the image.

Web Spider
Artist Impression of a Web Spider
We have compiled list of techniques to assist you in optimizing your website, so that they may get a better position within the search engine results. This list is by no way a complete list, but a very good start to enhancing your website. Here are the…

Your Domains Name Hosting Company Top 10 SEO tips:

  1. Set-up your meta tags in the header. ALWAYS put the <title></title> tag first after the <head> tag with a descriptive title for your site. Use keywords that are in your content. Use a description tag to describe what your site is all about. If you don't use a description tag, then the spider will use the first sentence or so to determine what your site is about.
  2. Put title and alt tags in all your images. This help those less fortunate than us and also makes it easier for search engines to index your site.
  3. DON'T use Black Hat(Shoddy) techniques or 'cloaking' to enhance your site to the spiders, as they will catch you, and 'sin bin' you or throw your site in the sandbox(time-out zone where you will not show up in the search engine results) or just plain BAN your website.
  4. Set up a xml sitemap. This can be done with a software program or an online service. A xml sitemap helps spider when they come to follow the links within your site. Place the map in your root directory, which is usually where your websites files reside. Create a sitemap here.
  5. Use a Robots.txt file. This will tell robot where and what they can do on your website. You can create a Robots.txt here.
  6. Use original content! Don't steal others work. Duplicate content will be penalised. If you are using someone's content for reference, please indicate this at the beginning or end of your content. Plagiarism just plain sucks and is stealing. It shows the owner's lacks of imagination or morals.
  7. Make sure your site is using HTML compliant code. If it is not using compliant code, it can break your site and make it difficult for spiders to search your website. Validating services are here.
  8. Assessable Links. Ensure that all your links are followable. Broken links create problems for your human and non-human visitors. Check for broken links!
  9. Avoid using flash and javascript on your site. Spiders have difficulty reading them. Flash takes forever and a day to load. This slows down your visitors experience.
  10. Have the size of your pages trimmed so they are loaded quickly when someone comes. The longer pages load because of incorrect code and large image files will ensure that your visitor will click off your site and go elsewhere. If the page can load within 8 seconds, you're on the right track.

All this is all in good, but what is really important, is providing a great atmosphere for your visitors. Create original, fresh and interesting content. Create your website for your visitors, not the search engines. Your primary role is to keep your visitors on your site, for as long as possible, and hopefully get them to purchase your products or sign up for your service.