Search engine optimisation is key to the success of your website in such engines as Google, Yahoo and Bing, these helpful 10 To-do’s will ensure you add some value to your website today!

1. Correct heading tags

Create a structured, sensible approach to using heading tags, be descriptive and ensure they contextualise what your writing about, and please don’t use them for styling, that’s why we have CSS!

2. Remove duplicate content

Duplicate content plays havoc with your search engine rankings, giving it less meaning and authority, your want your unique content to be treated uniquely! Remove duplicate content by defining a canonical url (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html).

3. Unique page titles

To go hand in hand with your brilliantly written and unique content you should come up with some unique page titles that are not found elsewhere in your website, ensure your descript the pages content accurately.

4. Descriptive description tags

Search engines use your meta description tags to give a little extract of the page as a summary to their users, so make sure it attractive, informative and will make people want to click on to your website.

5. Image naming

If you want to be picked up in the likes of Google image search then you need to name your images correctly and store them in a hierarchical folder set up. You could go for a date based option or maybe by product or sector. Stay away from naming images “banner.gif”, opt for something like “golf-trolley.gif” instead.

6. Friendly URLs

Its just one of those things you need to do, ensure you don’t have horrible long URLs like www.example.com?id=3767464&data=huge-horrid-url, instead go for something like www.example.com/huge-horrid-url which is not so horrid

7. Feed the engines

If you have a very large site then you really should feed the search engines in the form of site maps, so they know exactly what pages to index and how often they are likely to change. You can do this via the webmaster tools:

Google: www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
Bing: www.bing.com/webmaster
Yahoo: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

8. Creative writing

You need to create amazing content for your website visitor to read and indeed for search engine to pick up on. This all forms the basis that you are an authority on your subject matter, meaning higher rankings, so get scribbling!

9. Use robots.txt

Robots.txt really can help search engines be pointed in the correct direction and stop them indexing pages you don’t want to appear on search engines (such as your admin system). Visit www.robotstxt.rog for more information on how to create your robot.txt file.

10. Helpful 404 error pages

404 Error pages happen when a page can not be found on your website and are a means of still capturing website visitors instead of seeing just the standard 404 page. You can help users find alternative pages to the one they landed on, ensure they stay on your website. http://www.404errorpages.com/

In summary

Check over your website with these 10 points and you will be sure to add some SEO value to your campaign today!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 3:40 pm and is filed under SEO Tips & Advise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.