There is certainly a huge amount of hype within the SEO industry probably because it is a techno field plus is very competitive so everyone is endeavouring 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 optimisation playing field.
Yes SEO can be specialized but only usually after you got it drastically wrong in the beginning – your website that is. If you did not hire a good Search engine optimisation advisor to give you the run-down BEFORE you started building then you most definitely wound up with a web site punctured with a zillion Search engine optimisation holes. Websites like these normally takes some fixing for sure. The majority of web creative designers do not know anything about Search engine optimization and what they do know they almost never implement because they aren’t requested to by you! Not employing an Search engine optimization consultant is like constructing a 3 storey house without having an architect and engineer and expecting the builder to get it right – no way.
I encounter a great SEO site once in every 100 internet sites. This is a very poor track record for web-developers. Almost every other single web site is a ship filled with holes sinking in the lower regions of page 196 of Google!
So apart from adding some vibrant pros to this piece I suppose 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 right now to judge a websites popularity. However, it’s now very easy to produce backlinks of good quality in significant amounts to unbalance the ranking game. Google knows it’s got to find the right way to balance this out. When it does, most people’s ranking will probably come crashing to the ground overnight.
On the other hand, Google always wants Top quality content material – the very best it can show. Should 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 no matter what twists and turns Google puts its search engine algorithms through.
Under no circumstances ever neglect that content rules in the SEO jungle. Ignore at your peril.
We battled to get content on clients web sites for so long until we built it into our Search engine optimisation 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 SEO optimised as well.
Your content delivery engines needs to be well tuned
Don’t imagine that anyone can easily simply just add content to a site and miss out on the platform you’re adding it to. Google wants to be sure that the content is not only the best for the key word requested, but it also offers one of the best user experience. So be sure you cross your T’s and dot your Search engine optimisation eyes when it comes to ensuring your website delivers the very best experience such as doing these :
Make sure your server is fast – Google recently added this one – upgrade today if it takes too long to download your web pages
Be sure ALL images have ALT tags WITH meaningful content
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 web page – the more the better for Google
Make sure that if you are using a Content management system that the URL’s are fixed so only words 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 website (maybe you have a flash site), then at least add a weblog attached to your website – this helps a great deal
When you next renew your current domain, renew not less than three years – after all longevity shows maturity and improves trust
Back-links and more backlinks
And lastly don’t cease back-linking. Right now it’s the powerhouse for Search engine optimisation but do not rely on this for the long term.
So I hope this has helped ‘de-hype’ a few of the Search engine optimization resources out there and helped you along the Search engine optimisation road a little bit further.
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