There is certainly a whole lot hype in the Search engine optimization industry probably because it is a techno field plus is very competitive so everyone is attempting to eyebrow everyone else and get the upper edge.
Being in my antiquated 40′s – hippy 1965 baby to be exact – I have been around the IT industry well before most of the current players were out of diapers. I was there in our computer room when they unveiled the latest hard drive – it looked like a modern day top-loader washer and was the same size! All up it held a ‘breath-taking’ 40 Meg of data. Yes that is right 40 Meg! When we saw the new micro PC’s come out we felt they would never take off (we must have had IBM blood in us!) and the IT journey went on from there.
Today my ‘long teeth’ dip in my beer and my eyeballs roll back in their sockets when I hear some of the hype plastered around the Search engine optimization playing field.
Yes SEO can be technical but only usually after you got it drastically wrong at the start – your website that is. If you did not hire a good SEO consultant to give you the run down BEFORE you started building then you most definitely finished up with a web site pierced with a trillion SEO holes. These web sites normally takes some fixing for sure. The majority of web creative designers know nothing with regards to SEO and what they do know they hardly ever implement simply because they are not requested to by you! Not employing a good SEO consultant is like developing a three storey home without having an architect and engineer and expecting the builder to get it right – no way.
I encounter a great Search engine optimization site once in every 100 web-sites. This is a weak track record for web-developers. Nearly every other single web site is a ship full of holes sinking in the lower zones of page 196 of Google!
So apart from adding some bright colored pros to this piece I guess I should add some substance. Well here it is – short and simple (well maybe not that short!)
Content is King
Google uses back-links a lot at the moment to judge a websites popularity. However, it is currently super easy to produce back links of high quality in significant amounts to unbalance the ranking game. Google knows it has to find a way to balance this out. When it does, most people’s position will probably come crashing towards the ground overnight.
On the other hand, Google always wants Top quality content – the very best it can display. If you have this, then because content is the only reason why we have search engines like google in the first place, your website will usually excel regardless of what twists and turns Google puts its search engine algorithms through.
By no means ever overlook that content is king inside the SEO jungle. Ignore at your peril.
We fought to get content on customers sites for so long until we built it into our SEO ranking packages. We now offer a content and back-linking service (SEO.SIMPLE.) that solves this inherent problem. Now our clients get fresh unique content on their internet sites weekly and gain ranking results from it seeing it is Search engine optimization optimised as well.
Your content delivery engines needs to be well tuned
Don’t think that you can easily simply add content to a site and miss out on the platform you might be adding it to. Google wants to make sure that the content is not only the best for the search phrase requested, but it also delivers the best user experience. So be sure to cross your T’s and dot your SEO eyes when it comes to making certain your site provides the best experience such as performing these :
Ensure your server is quick – Google not long ago added this one – upgrade today if it takes too long to download your webpages
Be sure ALL images have ALT tags WITH meaningful content material
Make sure every page has a UNIQUE page title relevant to the content of the page
Fix Canonical problems (were http://www.yoursite.com and http://yoursite.com and http://www.yoursite.com/index.php etc all resolve to the same page but have different addresses. Instead they should all redirect to a single page and that page should be utilised throughout the site in all links. If you are on a UNIX based server this can be fixed quickly usually through the htaccess file)
Make sure there are at least 300 words of meaningful textual content on any page – the more the better for Google
Make sure that if you are using a Website cms that the URL’s are fixed so only phrases appear (and preferably keywords) and not funny programming expressions and numbers
Whenever you create a link use a keyword(s) and not the notorious ‘click here’ as the anchor text
If you cannot add content material to your internet site (maybe you have a flash site), then at the very least add a weblog attached to your site – this helps a good deal
When you next renew your current domain, renew not less than 3 years – after all longevity exhibits maturity and improves trust
Backlinks and more backlinks
And of course don’t stop back-linking. Right now it’s the powerhouse for Search engine optimization but don’t rely on this for the long term.
So I hope this has helped ‘de-hype’ some of the SEO resources out there and assisted you along the Search engine optimisation highway a bit further.
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