Everyone loves a good tip, right? Here are 55 tips for SEO that even your mom can use with ease. Oh, not my mom, but you know what I mean. This means that most web designers and SEO newbies can get started quickly without any difficulty.
1. If you must use Java script drop-down menus, image maps, or image links, then you must place their text links in certain places on the page to facilitate search engine spiders to crawl;
2. Content is king, so be sure to focus good, better and unique content on your top-line keywords or keywords;
3. If content is king, then links are queen. Use your keywords as links to build a network of high-quality backlinks. Remember, if a bad website links to you for no logical reason, don’t ask for that link;
4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank, that is only a very small part of the ranking algorithm. A website with a low PR value can actually be ranked higher than a website with a high PR value.
5. Make sure that the title tag of every page on your website has a unique keyword. Also, if you must put your company name in it, put it last in the title. Unless you are a household name, your company name will probably get some searches;
6. Fresh content can help you improve your rankings. Be sure to regularly add new, useful content to your web pages. An increase in fresh content will attract the attention of search engines;
7. Be sure to use keywords to link to your website. In other words, if your link target is "Blue Gadget", then the link text says "Blue Gadget" instead of "Click here";
8. Pay attention to the search terms, not just a single keyword, and place your geographical location in the text "For example: Beijing mobile phone wholesale, not mobile phone wholesale." [Note: For the convenience of understanding, this example is made up by the translator and does not match the original text . ] will help you get netizens’ searches for surrounding areas.
9. Don’t design your website without considering SEO. Make sure the web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Let it build without cutting it and make an update on your sparkling Flash-based website. Spiders can crawl text, but not Flash or images;
10. Appropriately place keywords and keywords in text links, image alt attributes, and even domain names;
11. Check the specification issues of www and non-www domain names. After deciding which method you want to use, use a 301 redirect from one to the other. In other words, if http://www.chflash.cn is your configuration of choice, then http://www.chflash.cn should redirect to it;
12. Check the entire website for links to the home page. Is Index.html under your main domain name? If so, please distinguish your links. If it is an external link, it will link to http://www.chflash.cn, and if it is an internal link, it will link to http://www.chflash.cn/index.html;
13. Frames, Flash and Ajax All of these have a common problem - you can't link to a single web page. Its all or nothing. The best SEO results are always the absence of frameworks, flash, and sparing use of AJAX;
14.URL extension doesn’t matter. Use this for SEO you are concerned about. html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc., there is no difference;
15. Want spiders to visit your new website? If you submit a form through Google's rules, you can do it in a few weeks. But the quickest way is to have a high-quality website link to it;
16. If your website content is not updated frequently, then your website needs a Blog because search spiders like fresh text. The blog is updated at least three times a week to feed those little crawlers with good, fresh content;
17. When building links, think about quality, not quantity. A single, good, authoritative link is far better than having a dozen of poor quality links that will actually hurt you;
18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won't work. Search engines will look at the frequency of keywords in the content. If the frequency is too high, the search engine statistics will be counterproductive for you.
19. Not only should the link use keyword anchor text, but the text surrounding the link should also be relevant to the keyword. In other words, surround these links with descriptive text.
20. If you use a web host, do a blacklist check to make sure you are not with a penalized or spam proxy site. Their negative notoriety may affect your own ranking;
21. When you register a domain name and use the feature to hide domain owner information, Google may view you as a potential spammer; [Translator's Note: This was revised on May 1, 2008]
22. When optimizing your blog articles, remember to extract the article title to optimize the title tag;
23.The fundamental issues of SEO are text, links, popularity and reputation;
24. Make your website easy to use. This affects your link building and popularity, and therefore, your ranking;
25. I am happy when I give a link, and I am happy when I get a link. Don’t be reluctant to link out, this will encourage others to link to you too;
26. Search engines like unique content as well as quality content. There is a difference between the two. Make sure your content has both;
27. If you must make the homepage eye-catching and use Flash or a large image entirely, please place text and navigation links at the same time;
28. Some of the most valuable links don’t always appear on websites, but may appear in email communication forms such as newsletters and zines;
29. You’ll get nothing but a few clicks from a paid link unless the link is embedded in the text and obvious sponsored links are removed.
30. Usually links from .edu domain names will be rated higher by search engines. Do a search for non-profit .edu websites that may be looking for sponsors;
31. Give them something worth talking about. Link bait is just good content;
32. Focus on one keyword phrase on each page. It’s best not to try to optimize a page for multiple keywords;
33. SEO is useless if you only have an inadequate or non-existent call to action. Make sure your call to action is clear now;
34. SEO is not a one-time job. The search engine landscape is changing every day, so expect your SEO efforts to be consistent every day;
35. Cater to influential blogs and authoritative websites where people may link to you, along with your images, videos, podcasts, etc., or ask for reprints of your content;
36. Get the website owner or CEO’s blog. It’s priceless! The influence of a CEO’s blog is incredible and can be compared to an official statement from the company. Responding to comments from readers of the site owner will skyrocket your credibility;
37. Just like your articles or web pages, optimize the text in your RSS feeds and use descriptions and keywords to enrich the text in your title and description;
38. Use captions with your images. For example, like a news picture, add a title description with keywords;
39. Pay attention to the text surrounding the image. Images are ranked based on the text surrounding it on the same page. Pay attention to keyword text, and titles;
40. You'd better give up the idea of letting crawlers automatically discover your website pages. Good global navigation and links will serve you better than relying solely on an XML site map;
41. There are two ways to not display Google personalized search results: log out of Google; add a parameter &pws=0; at the end of the search URL in the search bar
42. Links from (especially deep links) high PR websites are worth gold. High PR represents high trust, so this kind of link will improve the quality of the website;
43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your site's link navigation less problematic [like pages linking in and out from https] but also, if someone cites your content, you'll get backlink juice from the outside world;
44. When you move to a new domain, see if the hosting provider offers "sticky" forwarding. This allows the original old URL to be temporarily forwarded to the new domain name, ensuring that the new URL is in the address bar, so that users can gradually use the new URL;
45. Understand social marketing. It is part of SEO. This will help your competition in future searches as you learn more about sites like Digg, Yelp, Del.icio.us, and Facebook;
46. To give your videos the best chance of being discovered by crawlers, create a list and a video map under your Google Webmaster Controls account;
47. Don’t just show videos from YouTube in Google’s hybrid search results, make sure to submit your videos to other high-quality video sites like Metacar, AOL, MSN, and Yahhoot, just to name a few;
48. Surround your video content with keyword-containing text on the page. Search engines that define the purpose of a video for a query analyze the surrounding content;
49. Use the keyword “image” or “picture” in your photo’s alt description and caption. A large number of searches use a combination of keywords + pictures or images;
50. Turn on "Enhanced Image Search" in your Google Webmaster Controls account. Images are a large part of the new hybrid search results, so allowing Google to discover your images will help your SEO efforts;
51. Add viral widgets to your website or blog - like reviews, shares, ratings, visitor comments, etc.;
52. Expand your offerings to include videos, podcasts, news, social content and more. Now SEO is not just about more than 10 blue links
53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the cache date of the linked page in Google. Search for "cache:URL" and replace the URL with the actual web address. Newer cache dates are better. If the page does not exist or the cache date is more than a month old, the page has little value;
54. If your site has pages that are very similar (i.e. you're concerned about duplicate content) and you want to make sure the right one is included in the search engines, put the URL of your preferred page into your sitemaps. )
55. Check your server headers. Search "check server headers" to find dedicated free online tools. You should ensure that your URLs report a "200 OK" status or a "301 Moved Permanently" redirect if redirected. If any other status is displayed, check to make sure your URLs are set up correctly and used consistently throughout the site.
Richard V. Burckhardt, also known as the WEB Optimist, is an SEO trainer in Palm Springs with over ten years of experience in SEO, WEB development and marketing in California.
This article is published at [www.chflash.cn]