Googlebot reads websites, but not like you. Image by lauradahl

#1 on Google, and ok, maybe Yahoo!

That’s what Web Entrepreneurs want – and we all compete for it.

Here are some SEO guides I go by when optimizing a website.

Keep in mind though you should always first make sure your website is designed well for human navigation and readability; SEO is secondary. Googlebot doesn’t buy from you, humans do.

When thinking about search engine optimization, I always design with the notion that search engine algorithms change over time. Therefore, even if something today doesn’t have a huge impact on SEO but it seems logically it might, I use it when possible. I try not to assume, but always plan.

Please note this article has a lot of links. Ironically, I didn’t do this for SEO but rather educational purposes.

SEO Tip 1 – Using keywords and phrases in your content

Search engines crawl your website’s content, links, and headers to look for keywords and phrases that match what a user typed in the search engine box. So if someone goes to Google and types “how do you catch butterflies” and you have an article with that exact phrase in your content (or even better, title or header), you stand a decent chance of getting indexed well for that search term.

They say Content is King. Web crawlers love to spider your content, so a large portion of your SEO will take place there. Keywords and Keyword Phrases are your best bet. Read more here and here.

SEO Tip 2: Sub-domains

A little less known SEO trick is the use of sub-domains. Sub-domains use their own dns and are indexed differently than normal directories.

SEO Tip 3: Permalinks

Anyone who blogs knows what I’m talking about. A permalink makes your web address look pretty and understandable by humans. So for example, the following two links point to the same article on my blog:

• http://wpbloghost.com/blog/?p=118
• http://wpbloghost.com/blog/2-keys-to-beating-your-competition-in-business/

You see, the first link tells Googlebot ?p=118 is important to your article. The second link, however, tells Google 2-keys-to-beating-your-competition-in-business is important to your article. Which do you think someone is going to type in Google’s search box? “?p=118″ or “2 keys to beating your competition in business?”

Kyle over at Hack WordPress has a great article on the subject.

SEO Tip 4: Get A Google XML Sitemap

In my last post Is A Google XML Sitemap Necessary? I talked about how a xml Sitemap doesn’t necessarily affect your search engine rankings unless your site is not being indexed well. I think since it can’t hurt, go ahead and get one just in case a key page on your website is having problems getting indexed. Obviously, if the page isn’t getting indexed, it won’t show up in a search.

SEO Tip 5: Optimizing Your Web Page’s Title

This is probably one of the easiest things you can do which gives you a HUGE search engine ranking advantage, but so many people get it wrong. Each of your pages should have their own title and when possible, put a keyword or phrase in there.

Let’s look at the following two title examples I could use for the WP Blog Host About Us page.

1. WP Blog Host – About Us
2. About WP Blog Host – A Full Service Web Hosting Company For Bloggers

The first example has no keywords while the second contains: Web Hosting, Company, and Bloggers. Looking at the second one, I’m sure I can improve on it still.

Side Note: In my opinion, this is the fastest way to get a key web page from your site ranked well in search engines (i.e. matching up your page’s title to what people type into a search box).

SEO Tip 6: Include <meta> Tags

For the most part, Google pretty much ignores the famous <meta name=“keywords” tags. However, other search engines, such as Yahoo!, still reference these tags to help digest and index your website. So don’t forget to omit these.

On another note, Google as a proven track record of tweaking their indexing algorithm. One day they may start referencing the keywords tag again in some new way to index and rank your website, so you might as well drop them in your code.

SEO Tip 7: Use the <alt> Attribute For Images

When you use images on your site, be sure to include the <alt> tag. Many times, people do an image search in search engines and these tags will all of a sudden become important parts of your website’s code.

Plus, Web crawlers can’t crawl images, but they can crawl your <alt> tags.

Once again, I’d like to stress the importance of designing for humans and not search engines. For example, people who are blind typically have Web browsers speak content to them and for images, will read the alt text. Just describe the meaning of your image and that usually will have a SEO impact.

SEO Tip 8: Check Your Template’s Uses Of The <h> Tags

This is a little trick I figured out a while back that not many people know about. The header tags (<h1>, <h2>, and <h3>) are important to Web crawlers. What you put between them ranks higher in importance than normal content – hey this reminds me of only reading the bold print back in my college days.

If you run a script on your Web server, such as a blog, forum, or image gallery, it’s likely that your h tags are being misused by your default template. Let’s look at an example.

Near the top left corner of my blog you’ll see a heading in my sidebar called “About This Blog.” Looking at my blog’s code, you will find *About This Blog* is nested between two h2 tags as follows:

<h2 class=”widgettitle”>about this blog</h2>

So what my blog is telling Googlebot is the term about this blog is an important term to be noted. Is it though?

Nope.

Words like entrepreneur or web development should be my <h> terms. So why haven’t I changed this yet? Because I’m saving those changes for a post I’ve got in the works which is about speeding up and customizing your WordPress template once it has found a home on your site.

SEO Tip 9: Flash Sites Look Nice, Index Poorly

Flash sites can be fun, but you gotta be careful when designing an entire site in flash because spiders currently have issues when crawling and understanding flash sites and menus.

SEO Tip 10: Avoid Duplicate Content

Ideally, only show the same content once to Googlebot. In case you didn’t watch it on my Videos To Help Craft A Better Website & Attract Attention article, I present it here again for your viewing. Popcorn anyone?

SEO Tip 11: Use The Correct TLD For Your Website’s Target Country

TLD stands for Top-Level Domain and refers to the .com, .uk, .ca, .gov, etc. that you see at the end of domain names. To learn more, Raj explains it well in his article entitled, What Is A TLD Domain Name?.

Using the correct TLD for the country in which you plan to do business in is of high importance when it comes to search engine optimization.

For example, if you own a landscape company based in London, England, you’re going to want your domain name to end in the .uk TLD. When someone from the UK goes to the UK version of search engines and types in “landscape companies,” they will most likely be taken to .uk websites.

It is not necessary to find a web hosting company in a specific country to obtain a particular TLD, though some TLDs come with restrictions, such as .gov.

As an example of the many TLDs that are out there, you can view the TLDs WP Blog Host offers for domain names here (opens in a new window).

SEO Tip 12: Keyword Domain Names Rule!

When signing up for a domain name, keep in mind domain names weigh heavily on SEO and could get your site indexed near the top of the SERPs (search engine results page).

I always say design for humans, not search engines; however, if you can come up with an easy to remember domain name which includes a keyword for your website, that’s gold. For example, if you do landscaping in Las Vegas, a great domain name to have is lasvegaslandscape.com.

I happen to own a Las Vegas landscape company and no, our address is not the one listed above, however I still managed to incorporate those words.

The address is modernlandscapelasvegas.com and happens to be listed #1 on most search engines, including Yahoo!, Google, and Ask for the search term las vegas landscape company. I mention this only to show you that all these tips do work.

SEO Tip 13: Get Your Site Listed In DMOZ

DMOZ, The Open Directory Project (ODP), is a Web directory you can list your website’s url in but is so important I chose to make this its own separate tip.

First, just take a look at its PageRank. As of the writing of this article, it’s an 8 out of 10 – not so shabby. Second, and probably the biggest reason for getting your url referenced in DMOZ is the fact that its directory is downloadable and search engines, such as Google, download it and use this directory for searches.

Needless to say, that then is a great place to have your link submitted to. Here’s an article explaining it in more detail.

SEO Tip 14: Use The <title> Attribute For Links

This one I’m bad about and forget to use all the time. When creating links, it’s a good idea to use the <title> tag. This tells the Web crawler, such as Yahoo, what this link might be about and what it can expect to find if it follows that link. Here’s the example code:

<a href=”http://www.securepaynet.net/Hosting/Legacy.aspx?ci=1782&prog_id=442543″ title=”web hosting by WP Blog Host”>

At this moment, SEO-wise this probably has very little, if any, value for you. However, every search engine is different and it’s impossible to say if none of them use the title tag to help index your site.

Plus, you never know what Google and Yahoo might decide to change next time in their algorithms. We just might find that one day this attribute weights heavily in your search engine optimization.

SEO Tip 15: Googlebot Can’t Read My Javascript Menu. What To Do?

Javascript brings great interaction to your website, the problem is, Web crawlers can’t read it.

So if you design your navigation using Javascript, make sure to include a “noscript” tag as an alternate menu. This way, Web crawlers will skip over your Javascript menu but read the html version and you’ll still be awarded brownie points by your friendly neighborhood spider.

SEO Tip 16: Using WordPress? Use A SEO Plugin

For those who use WordPress as their blogging client, the All-In-One SEO Pack Plugin has long been known to be the plugin to get for optimizing your WordPress blog for search engines.

SEO Tip 17: Link Exchanges And Getting Linked To

Most, if not all, search engines use hyperlinks to help determine a website’s reputation. The more relevant links pointing to it, the more votes that are cast to increase its PageRank.

If starting a new website, one way to help search engines find you is through exchanging links with other similar websites. So if you provide landscaping services in Phoenix, Arizona, try finding and exchanging links with similar websites in your area, such as a gardening tips website based out of Phoenix, Arizona.

Do be careful, though. There is a whole topic on how you need to be careful buying, selling, and exchanging links. You can read more about it here and here.

Skelliewag has a great article on how to attract links. It’s good to note, though, that one way links pointing to your website are the best kinds of links SEO-wise (i.e. similar websites that link to you but you don’t link back).

SEO Tip 18: Directory Submissions To Bring In Some Backlinks

A Web Directory is a place that lists websites under sub categories and is where you can go to submit your website’s url. Make sure you submit your site in the right category.

SEO Tip 19: Name Your Directories and Files Wisely

As mentioned in Tip #12, domain names are of high relevance in SEO, so don’t forget this rule when naming files, subdomains, and subdirectories on your site.

For example, WP Blog Host also provides incorporation services for businesses. Once this Web page is finished, I will be dropping that page into an *incorporation* folder rather than a *services* folder because “incorporation” is a keyword people will use to find this service.

SEO Tip 20: The 411 On Keyword Density?

Some people have this notion of the more times you mention your keyword, the more weight it will carry and the better indexed your page will be for that term. On the other hand, others say after you reference a word once or twice, the repeated references have no SEO value.

If you’re curious about the topic in more detail, try reading here:

• The Keyword Density of Non-Sense – An article about how keyword density is of little importance.

Personally, my tip here is don’t focus on repeating your keywords more than 2-4 times. Focus more on where and how they are used and write so your content reads well for humans .

SEO Tip 21: Feed Googlebot New Content

It’s not uncommon to see early on some of your Web pages indexed by search engines only to find out a few months later only your home page is showing up in searches.

Many times this is due to content never changing on Web pages. One way to combat this is by updating your website’s content from time-to-time. Blogs are great for this.

SEO Tip 22: Write A Press Release

Ok, I pounded my head against the table a few times trying to figure if this one was truly a SEO technique. In the end, it does attract links to your site so I felt it had some SEO influence for your website, but probably not a lot. This technique can also be used by writing articles for other companies (and linking back to your site) and guest posting on blogs.

SEO Tip 23: Don’t Be Too Concerned With <NoFollow>

Don’t be too concerned (SEO-wise) about leaving links in places where your link will have the NoFollow attribute assigned to it, that link will still have some SEO value.

No, Google and other search engines won’t give your website a backlink credit (because it’s not suppose to follow that link), however when the page gets spidered by a Web crawler, links will be considered of higher relevance and this person’s page (with the link to your website) may show up in the SERPs (search engine results page).

SEO Tip 24: The Best Way To Leave A Link In A Comment Section

If you blog like me, you read other people’s blogs and comment; sometimes, you might even leave a link or two. When leaving links in a comment section or new forum thread, there are two ways to leave a link – see example below (links open in a new tab).

• http://www.topseotricks.com/improving-your-link-popularity-with-directory-submissions.html/
• Directory Submissions For Attracting Backlinks

Both lead to the same place, however the second one is much clearer to readers and straight forward for our pal Googlebot to digest. Like in Tip 24, the nofollow tag won’t necessarily give you a backlink credit, but it will help the website owner’s SEO for that page and as a result your link may get his page referenced in the SERPs for that keyword phrase (which happens to lead people to your website).

SEO Tip 25: Link To Your Own Web Pages

As noted above, links are considered important to Web crawlers. It’s perfectly fine if those links are links to your own site. Just be sure those links are relevant to the content.

Bonus Tip: Starting A Blog? Don’t Choose Blogger.com or WordPress.com

Start a blog the right way and don’t go with a free Blogger or WordPress account – trust me, not only will it save you a lot of headache trying to transfer everything over when you do decide to use a real hosting account, but switching to a paid account from a free one has major SEO implications for you.

When you decide to go with an actual Web hosting account, you will be assigned a new domain name. When you transfer your blog articles over to your new domain, guess what? All the links and momentum that your free Blogger or WordPress blog has gained will be lost.

No more links pointing to your blog. No more PageRank. No one can find you immediately in search engines. People you personally don’t know no longer know about you. You have to start attracting links all over again.

When I brought this topic up in one of the forums I frequent, ishkey made a great comparison between free and paid hosting and how search engines read your domain. Remember, free hosting has its drawbacks.

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And if you need to get online, start here.

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