Below are some tips on how to help your website get better search engine results. These tips wont necessarily get you to the top but it can't hurt to make sure these points have been addressed.
There is much more detail on each subject out there so get busy and get that site of yours in the top 10 of google. Also
have a look at our list of
20 things to not do.
Lets deal with the first one and still very important to getting good results in Google the search engine that everyone wants to be on fist page.
- Linkbuilding. Still very important are quality links to your website from other places on the internet. This can be quite a task but lets start with some obvious places. Start with friends and friends of friends. Do they have websites? get some links from there's to yours.
Submit your link to relevant city/town governmental resources
Write content that people will want to link to. If you are an expert in your industry get something written up like a Top 10 list or a Top 10 things to avoid list. People will naturally want to link to these pages.
List your site at the local library's Web site.
Develop business relationships. See if your business partners, manufacturers, or retailers might be willing to link to your site. If they are in non competitive areas of your country you might be surprised how willing some people are to exchange links. Don't just exchange links with anyone though make sure the sites rank high themselves perhaps the best people to approach are those on page two of google they are the most likely to want to exchange links as they desire to get to first page results.
Review content on other peoples sites for free. Even places like Amazon. If you are an industry expert on a product why not write a review and mention the source of the info your website of course!
- Link text. Often overlooked the text that people link to your site is important. For example if a client of ours runs a company providing tennis camps in the uk if we were to link to them we would use the following as the link text.
Nick Ring Leisure: UK Tennis Camps
This means that the important keywords UK Tennis Camps are the link text the search engines read. People search for "UK Tennis Camps" not "Nick Ring Leisure" this is best practice. Vary it up a bit also. "UK Tennis Holidays" perhaps on some sites.
- Fresh content. Keep your site updated with content. Not only does this give a good reason for customers to return but search engines like to see this.
- Meta Tags. There are 3 tags that are important. The first "keywords" is not used by many search engines anymore and is pretty redundant however it is still worth having these. We wont go onto explain these in detail there is lots of information out there about this and tools to generate keywords from your content on your site.
The title tag. This is the wording you see at the top of your browser window. The <meta> title tag should contain your main keywords twice if possible.
Using Nick Ring Leisure as an example again their title tags contain the following we have highlighted the important keywords. Do not overstuff the title tag. You will get penalised by search engines. The title tag is the most important SEO factor for on-page optimisation. Your main keyword should be used at the very start or near the start of the Title Tag on the webpage.
<title>Tennis Camps UK - Tennis Breaks - Weekend Tennis Breaks- Nick Ring Leisure - Windmill Hill</title>
Don't ever leave this empty always have keywords in there for that page. All pages should have different titles so vary it up.
Meta Description. This is also very important. The meta description is the description you see then a search engine brings up the results. This is controlled by the <meta> description tag within your web page. We suggest around 30 words perhaps 120 characters long as ideal. Some websites use the meta description as a way to link to your site, so to avoid truncation get those keywords in early. Again using Nick Ring Leisure as an example the description goes as follows. Again the keywords are highlighted.
<meta name="description" content="We host UK & International children's tennis camps & adult tennis breaks. We specialise in children's tennis breaks & activity summer camps and we also host unique golf & tennis tuition holidays for adults in the UK and Spain.">
- Page Content.
Keyword your content. Keyword your page content, have a look through it. It must read well for visitors to your site but make sure that the words that you wish to be found under are on the page of your site. Optimum keyword density for targeting the majority of search engines is considered to be between 3% and 9% of the page. Avoid overstuffing as you will get penalised by search engines.
There are a number of tools out there to check "keyword density"
Keyword Proximity - Proximity refers to the closeness of the keywords and how close keywords are to each other on a page. The closer keywords are used to each other, the better it is for search engine rankings.
- Header Tags. Ok so you have the meta tags sorted out now onto the structure of your website. Think of it as a newspaper. Right at the top you want the heading. These are the <h1> tags in HTML. Get those keywords in there. Using Nick Ring Leisure again as an example the the wording could be. Tennis Camps, UK Tennis Breaks, Tennis Holidays & Weekend Breaks
Now onto the <h2> header tags. Here place a short paragraph of what you do or caption that includes your keywords. Always try to avoid over stuffing it looks artificial to visitors and you might get penalised.
The <h3> tags are like the column headings you might see in a newspaper. Again if you can get some keywording in here.
- Anchor Links & Cross Linking. It is important to link to your main pages from the homepage but also it is a good idea to cross link within your own site. This is good to help people navigate but also good for search engine results. Get those key terms you want to be found under and use the text as the link.
- Alt Tags for images. This
no longer really counts much. The alt description for images is used to
show wording when an image is loading or for non visual browsers. It is
best to complete this tag don't leave it empty get some keywords in there
if possible. The SEO weight of this is minimal to none though, still better
safe than sorry.
- Buy / Hire Links. Why not pay for links. be careful though, don't go cheap if someone offers 1000 links for £50 then you will probably end up getting blacklisted by google and get even worse SEO results. Pay for links with a reputable company.
- Blogging
Blogging is a wonderful way to get links into your site. There are lots of free blog tools out there. We can integrate a blog into your website if you wish. Blogging is still a popular way to share information on the internet. Write articles on a regular basis much like writing fresh content on your website. Importantly link to other peoples blogs. Many keep track of who is linking to them and will create a backlink to you as a courtesy. Links links links & quality content. This is what it's all about. Getting people to your site and providing a site that looks professional and at the top of its game. This will no doubt create leads/sales.