UK SEO CONSULTANTS AND WEBSITE DESIGNERS
diy seo
Do It Yourself SEO - How To Optimise Your Website
You may not be an seo expert, but there are still valuable things you can do to contribute to your online success. Listed below are just a few tips you help you with the seo process.
Learn some simple tasks now that will help
you to optimise your website...
The first thing you should do is check how
your website is currently listed in Google. Just type in your
url and you will see exactly how your website is displayed,
including the title and description for each page. This should
give you a better understanding of how your website is being
found in search engines, or not...
1: Read and Learn
Google Webmaster Guidelines
It is important that you read and understand Google's webmaster guidelines. For areas where you require further clarification there is a blog with input from other users which is invaluable.
2: Avoid Duplicate Content
Avoid filling your pages with duplicate content. The search engines easily pick up on this. Websites should always be created, designed and optimised with the visitor in mind. Write unique content throughout your website and overtime you will gain both repeat traffic and valuable back-links which will help your website achieve better pr.
3: Write content for human visitors
Make your content interesting and visible to human searchers, not just for search engine spiders and robots. You would be surprised how much of a difference YOUR content can make to a reader. Don't hold back. If you have details about your products and/or services share it on your site. You can gain traffic from a combination of both obvious and obscure search words and phrases, so the more detail you provide, the better.
4: Use effective alt tags
Each image on your website should have an accurate, informative and relevant alt tag. Be descriptive, but keep it brief. If you have several spacer images than I would recommend leaving these blank as they would be be useful to your visitors and could end up as spam.
5: Optimise your Title, Description and Keyword Meta Tags
When writing your meta tags there are several things to keep in mind. Length is important, so make sure that your title tags aren't too long. As well they should be succinct. Say exactly what you want to say in as few words as possible Google will display up to 68 characters, and Yahoo up to 120, but the recommended length by W3C is 66. Use the most important keywords at the beginning of your title tag.
Your title and description meta tags should be unique on all of your pages. As well, make sure that your keywords and part of your actual web page content. Don't use keywords that aren't relevant, and don't use tricks like misspelled words.
Do a bit of research on the internet. Type in something your interested in. Looks at the title and description tags of a site your interested in. This should give you an idea as to how to optimise your meta tags for your website and business.
For keywords and phrase suggestions try Google Keyword Suggestion Tool
6: Do not use Flash in your design
If you have used Flash for your main design, convert it to a static image such as jpeg or gif and add descriptive alt text.
Never use Flash for your navigation. Convert this to either css or standard hyper-linking.
If you must use Flash as part of your design, make sure that you embed it into your html.
Don't include all of your page content into one Flash file. If you must use Flash, use it for design elements only, and put any actual content into your html.
7: For faster indexing, list your site on Craig's List or similar
List your website for free here Top Web Directory or at Craigslist.
8: Sign up for Google Webmaster tools, it's Free
You can control several aspects of your listing in Google within your account as well as gain valuable insight into how your site is being indexed, when, how often, how your site is found and who's linking to you. This is also where you would submit your xml sitemap and select your region preference.
9: Create a free xml sitemap
10: Create an html or php sitemap
Create a page with links to all of the different areas of your website. Make sure you add it to your homepage for indexing.
11: Check your site for spelling errors
Always make sure that you avoid spelling areas in your content. Take your time, read through everything carefully and run it through a spell checker if required. Don't forget to check your meta tags as well. Grammar is also important, so read through your content as if you were a new visitor - does it make sense? Is it written properly? Does your content flow?
12: Optimise your images for quicker load time
If your images take too long to load, you may be losing vital traffic. Have you ever visited a website and lost patience waiting for the page to load and then just left? Use this tool to optimise your images without losing quality and keep your visitors longer.
13: Know your online competition
Knowing your competition can be a useful tool in developing you seo strategy. If you're a plumber in London, search for similar in a search engine. Take a look at who's at the top of the natural listings. Don't click on the links. This will only help to keep them up there, and if they are your competition, you need to keep YOUR position in mind. Copy the link below their description and paste it into a browser.
Go to VIEW and SOURCE from your top menu. You will then be able to view their meta tags. Do not copy these. Create your own. Their meta tags can be used as a guide, but you should develop unique meta tags that are based on YOUR content.
14: Make sure that your keywords are in your content
You may already have written your content and may be writing your keywords at a different time. These two elements must work together.
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about our website design and optimisation services...
