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SearchEngineOptimization(SEO)Checklist
1 . D o ma i nN a me Mostsearchenginesdo look at domainnameswhen rankingpages,but the direct benefit of havingkeywordsin your domainis very small. Thereis alsoan indirect benefit to havinga keyword-richdomainnamerSearchEngineslike Googlethat factor link popularityinto their rankingalgorithmsoften also look at the anchor text of incoming links. In other words,the text usedin a text link that pointsto your site should- as far as possible- containyour keyword.If your site is about purplewidgets,you want peopteto tink to you using"purplewidgets"as the link text. Like this: Hereis a goodsite aboutpurplewidgets. Not like this: Hereis a goodsite about purplewidgets. But this is of coursein the handsof the webmasterlinkingto you. Howdo you increasethe probabilitythat they will link to you usingyour keywords?Yes,keywords in the domain.Manypeopte(I'm one of them) preferto link likethis: PurpleWidgets This is a good site about purplewidgets www.purple-widgets. com Apart from SEOconsiderations, there are other (arguablymore important)considerations when choosinga domainname.
A good domain is: o o o .
shoft, €?sYto say and spell, descriptive and memorable.
You should be able to say it over the telephoneonce and the other person should know how to spell it and they should know what you sell. If you can do that AND work keywords in there, good for you. If you can't, skip the keywords.
2 . F i l e N a me The sameapplieshere.The filenameshouldpreferablybe short and descriptive.Havingkeywordsin the filenamehelps,but not a wholelot. By the way, if you do use keywordsin the domainor filename,separatethem with hyphensrather than underscores. Googlesees seo-checklist as seochecklist(good) but it sees (not good) seo_checklist as seochecklist
3. Content is King! The "bait" for search engine spiders to find your site Searchengines'primaryway to locateyour site are the keywordsor phraseson the site that match the searcher'ssearch. Withoutthesebeingsomewhereon your site, it'll simply not be displayedin the searchengine'sresults. The actualpagecontentshouldhave a keyworddensityof about 20olo and shouldweighin at about 200 - 500 words- but there are as many opinionsaboutthis as there are SEOexperts.Somesay keyworddensityshouldbe 5oloand somesay it shouldbe 2Ao/o. Thereis more consensusabout pagelength @ 200 words.Thosethat disagreeusuallysay it should be more. Somesay it shouldbe 500. Thereis no exact rule of thumb here. I've seenlongerpages doingvery well in the searchengineresultspagesfor highlycompetitivekeywordsso longermight be better. Don't fuss too muchabout this. Keepthe file sizeunder 101Kthough becauseGoogle chopsanythingabovethat.
4. Layout & Design o o e o o o o
You should have more !eX[ content than HTMLelements. etc,) unlessabsolutelynecessary. No fancystuff (Flash,Splash,AnimatedGifs,Rollovers No Frames.This often causesthe userto scrollright to view your completepage.Do not assumethat they'lldo this. If you needJavaScript, callit from an externalfile ratherthan dumpingthe No JavaScript. codein the HTMLfile.lavaScriptdropdownmenuspreventspidersfrom crawlingbeyond your homepage.If you usethem, be sure to includetext links at the bottomof the page. No ads if possible.Doesanyonelike pop-upads? Nothingthat doesnot fit perfectlyinto the pagetopic; Thereshouldbe no doubt in the searchengine'smind(or in he user'smind)what your pageis about. No unnecessary directories.Keepyour files as closeto the root as possible.
5. Page Title Thepagetitle weighsheavilyin the algorithmsof all the majorsearchengines,so be preparedto spendsometime on it. Here's what to look for: o o o o
Write an accurate,keyword-richpagetitle of about up to 100 characters. Do not includestopwords(and,the, a etc.) in the title. Thatjust wastesspace. its content. Rememberthat eachpagecan (and should)havea uniquetitle characterizing Remember that the title is the first and probablythe only thingthe searcherwill lookat in the searchresults.Havinga keywordlist as title mightget you listedhigher(if you'renot penalized), but it's lesslikelyto get clickedthan a wellstructuredtitle. Syntax: In the HEADsectionof the site add:
Your
Kevword-Rich,
Descr:ipl-ive
Paqe Trtle
Her:e<,/title>
6. Meta Tags The generalconsensusamongSEOexpertsis that the meta description tag is usedas a "snippet" in searchengineresults(seePOINT#1below).The areasjust belowthe linksreturnedfrom a Googlesearchresultfor "Austrialiantravel", showthe snippetsthat are so importantin whethera potentialprospectclicksto go to your websiteor NOT. If the searchenginecrawlerfinds no meta description,it then looksfor the first availablereadabletext to displayand usesthat as the snippet. snippet(seePOINT#2below). Oftenthis resultsin a jumbled,irrelevant-to-the-search
Allinl Travel Ireland - ever.ythingyou needto Travel to Ireland POINT#{ lf you wouldliketo exchangeAustrialiantravellinks,pleaseemailyourlink exchangedetailsto our webmasterat the fo*lowingemailaddress:Austrailian... - Similarpages www.allin1-travel.comilinksaustrialia. htm- 10k - Cached ***December 23. 2004 SydneyA.{ZSapphirePrincess*** - Topic ... You can fly to the banierreefand bookpackagesthroughaustrialiantravel agents.byefor nowjeff Posts:198| From:ca I Registered: 05-21-01.... - 101kmessages.cruisecritic.com/21 OpenTopic?a=tpc&f=4763056957&m=5913037067 Cached - Similar pages
Raining Cats and Dogs POINT#2......AustrialianShepherdTravelMug.Price:$16.95.StainlessSteelMug. Quantity:Travel Mugs. gallery.bcentral.com/Gallery/ProductDetails. - 9k - Cached - Similarpages aspx?GlD=5021962&PlD=2588842&page=1&sortOrder=0
Here'show to use MetaTags: Syntax: In the HEADsectionof the site add: (meta name:"keywords" content:"KEYWORDlKEYWORD2 KEYPHRASE1 etc. about 30 to 40 unique words") <meta name:"description" content:"An accurate, keyword-rich description - about 150 characters")
7. Headings Useheadingsresponsibly.Frommy own experimentsthey don't seemto makea hugedifference, but they do countand won't huft your site. Unlessyou misusethem of course.Don't be temptedto wrapyour entirepagein . Syntax: Your Top Level Headinq Here<,/H1> Levef 2 Heading
Level 3 Heading
etc. all the way downto
L Bold text With boldtext, generalconsensus is that thereis no advantagein havingimportantkeywordsin boldtext.
9 . N a v i g a ti o nL i n ks, L i n ki n g 9.1 Navigation Whatyour site navigationlink namesare calledto allowmovementaboutyour site is a very importantand often overlookedarea of how searchenginespidersand site usersview your site. Graphiconly linkscan't be readand will not helpspidersdeterminethe relevance of the siteto the searchphraseentered. Alt tags with very descriptivetext for thesegraphic-basedlinks are needed to conveythis. Text-based [inksare alwaysreadby the spiders.Manysiteswill namethe links general,inexacttermssuchas "Products"ratherthan"PrintedCircuitBoardAssemblies". Thiswill allowthe userto knowwherethey'reclickingto and the spiderswill be ableto gleanmuchmore informationaboutthe site'snatureto developa more positivepagerankingfor you. Your keyword phrasesshouldbe woveninto all of the navigationlinks. 9.2Internal Linking .
Everypageon your siteshouldlink to at leastone otherpage.Ideally,you should be able to get to every pageof the site from any other pagewith one click. homepage shouldincludea link to your sitemap(a pagethat linksto all the pages in your site).Thisis goodfor usersand allowsspidersto quicklyaccessall your pages.
9.3 External Linking Onlylink to externalsiteswhenyou absolutelyhaveto. Decideif it enhances the user'sexperience. If it does,add the link. Googlealgorithm,PageRank, weighstheselinksand the validityof the site of the inboundlinks,heavilyin their naturalsearchresultspages(non-sponsored or paidfor). This is termedlink popularity.
9.4 Reciprocal Linking (link exchanges) Onlyexchangelinkswith sitesyour visitorswill find useful.Don'texchangelinksonlyto increase link popularity. Linksfrom link farms, a site that you have linksto your site from just to increase your link popularityrankingin Google'salgorithm,are now lookeddown upon by the crawlers. 9.5 Anchor Text / Link Text and Link Titles Usedescriptiveanchortext for all your text links. Mostsearchenginesconsideranchortext of incominglinkswhenrankingpages.Thejury is still out on whethersearchenginesalsoconsider
otherelementson the link page(liketext surrounding the link,the pagetitle etc.). Link titles are like alt text for text links.Very neat. Link titles add to the usabilityof a site. It is not clearwhethersearchenginesconsiderliketitleswhenrankingpages.I'm guessingthey do. Here'san example: Hoveryour mousepointerover this linkto seea link title in action. Syntax: (a href:"checkf1st3.html"
title-"This
1s a li-nk title.")this
f1nk<,/a>
9.6 Linking/Submissionto Search Engines There is no need to submit your site to search engines. The crawlerswill find you. Simply link your siteto otherrelevantsitesand the spiderswill locateand indexit. Thisincreases your link popularityas well as allowingpotentialprospectsto locateyou too. Checkto see if you'vebeen indexedalreadyby typingwww.yourdomain.com into GoogleSearch,Yahoo,and MSN. Continual submission whenyour site is alreadylinkedtakesup valuablecrawlerresources. Also regardingcrawler/serverresources,we stronglyadviseagainstthe use of rank checking softwarelike Web PositionGold,etc. The followingis straightfrom the "GoogleInformationfor Webmaster"area of the Googlesite: Fiction: Automated"rankingchecking"programsare a good way for webmastersto save time and measuretheir'online presence." Fact: Automated"rankingchecking"programsviolateGoogle'stermsof service.They use server resourcesthat should be spent on answeringuser requests.We strongly requestthat you not use rank checkingprogramsto check your positionon Google. As you can see, somethingsare written in stone.
10.lmagesAnd Alt Text All imagesshouldincludedescriptive, keyword-rich alt text, especiatly clickableimages. Alt spam (alt tags that's nothingmore than a list of keywords)is fairly common,but can get your site penalized. A good guidelineis to use alt text to describethe image.If it's a productimage, describethe productin sucha way that someonewith a text browseror imagesturned off knows what the imageis about. Onepossibleexceptionis the title image.To just put "logo"in the alt is of no useto spidersor your site visitors.Hereis the alt text I usedin the logoat the top of this page: "TargetMarketing Solutions- SearchEngineOptimization Tips& Techniques". Thattells visitorswhat they'remissing and helpsthe spiderunderstand whatthe pageis about. Don't be temptedto make it very long. If it does.notfit in the imageplaceholder,it's probablytoo long. Syntax:
(imq
src:".imaqe.qif"
aft:"Your
aft
text
here")
1 1 .T h eme s Mostof the major searchenginesprefersitesthat focuson one theme. If your site is about widgets,gizmosand SantaClaus.you'll do better if you registera uniquedomainfor eachand split it into 3 separate sites. Please note: Do not registermultipledomainsto housedifferent parts of one theme. If you havea site sellingpink widgetsand blue widgets,that shouldbe on one domain- not on pinkwidget.comand a blue-widget.com respectively. That willjust diluteyour link popularity. Anot'her note: Don't cross-linkyour domains.Thereis a lot of speculationaboutjust how much cross-linkingis safe. Don't go there. If the info you want to shareis all on one theme, keep it on one site. If it is on multiplethemes,placeit on differentsiteswith no links betweenthem. Thereare rare exceptionswhere it's ok (from an ethicalpoint of view) to cross-linkyour sites,but remember that searchenginescannotlook into the intentionsbehindevery instanceof cross-linkingand your site might get penalized.
12.No Tricks Thereare no tricks in long-term SEO.Cloaking,hiddentext etc. etc. will all hurt your rankingsin the long run. Buildpagesthat the searchengineswill love,text-based,content-rich,tightly focused and you'll reapthe rewards.