What is SEO? Techniques and Examples (Part 2)

Aspects of a Successful SEO Implementation

The search engines look at so many aspects of a Web site to judge them through extremely complex algorithms. These algorithms use similar components to each other and do not change drastically very often. The tough thing is no search engine will reveal 100% of how theirs works.

Here are some techniques.

1) Page Title Tags -- <title></title>

• These are by far the most important piece of the site’s code/content and
• everything feeds off of these.
• The site’s key words should be clearly spelled out and prioritized on these.
• Never overload a page with too much information on the title tags
  
  

2) Page Heading Tags - <H1>, <H2>, <H3>

• These tags should match up with the Title tags on the same page. If the page is about this information then it should be described as such.
  
  

3) Page Text Content - <p>content</p>

• This is all of the text on the site that is NOT in a Flash file or in an Image.
• Keywords need to be placed inside of the text that match the Title and Heading
  tags

4) User Sitemap and XML Sitemap

• The creation of a sitemap can support the search engines in finding all of the
  pages on the site without having to follow links
• These sitemaps can also serve to name the links that the search engines are
  following.

5) Site URLs structure

• Universal Resource Locators should describe to the user and search engine
  exactly what is being viewed. Anything unclear here to a person will be unclear
  to the search engines too.
  • Good use = http://www.nissigroup.com.ar/content/curso-intensivo-de-oratoria-en-c%C3%B3rdoba
  • Poor use = http://www.nissigroup.com.ar/node/68/

6) Site Navigation

• The links in the main navigation should describe exactly where the user is
  navigating to on the site.
• Be sure to NOT use images, hotspots or flash because these cannot be indexed by
  the search engines
• If a link is named something, then perhaps it actually means that
  
  

7) Internal Links between pages

• When writing content for the site; make many keyword phrases into hyperlinks
  between internal pages. These links allow keyword stuffing and also tell the
  search engines what the page they are looking at mean/include.

8) Meta Description and Keyword Tags

• These tags are normally only seen by the search engines
• Google actually pays little attention to these tags because visitors of the site
  cannot see these on the page, so false information can be placed here
• Bing does place some validity on these if they match the Title and Heading tags
  on the site

9) Construction

• Avoid using tables <table>, <tr>, <td> These make it really difficult for the search engines to index the site
• Use divisions/dividers or <div></div>.These make clear separations in the code and also can be named in theCSS
• Do not use any of the following tags on any site
  • <font></font>
  • <b></b>
  • <i></i>
• Use CSS first and foremost and
  • <strong></strong>
  • <em></em>

10) How often the site gets updated with relevant content?

• A site that gets updated and pages added to it on a regular basis is seen as more
  valid to the search engines.
• If a site sits stagnant for long periods of time then search engines tend to let it fall
  down its rankings because it is stale

11) How mature is the domain of the site?

• Did the site just go up or has it been there for a long time?
• Has the content of the site been consistent throughout its lifetime or has it
  changed

12) How relative is the domain of the site?

• Does the domain say what the site is or does?
  • Good use = http://www.insurance.com
  • Poor use = http://www.yfrog.com/