For most of my life I have worked in web development either as a consultant, for large and small corporations and for a government department.

 What I learned over the years is that you can create a fantastic website with dynamic, interesting content, but if you don't utilise SEO, or search engine optimisation on your website, you will be missing out on a lot of traffic.

 Even if you already have a large amount of traffic to your website, why would you not want to obtain the best Google, or other search engine ranking for your website as you can get?

It is free, after all.

 I have organised the following tips and tinkerings which are relatively basic and simple to incorporate into your website design as long as you have a handle of HTML.

If you are just starting your website or blog, incorporating these tips into your website as you build it will not only mean you will rank higher on Google search pages, but will teach you good housekeeping in your code and image organisation. SEO has the added benefit of making a website easier to navigate for the sight impaired and when makes the curation transition easier when a new developer or curator takes over the site or website or blog.

It is well-known amongst the web developer community that to get to the top of search engine rankings you have to know the tricks of the trade. For years now I have used the ranking system to my and my clients' advantage.




1. Think about the title you are using for your website. (the writing you see in the blue bar at the top of your web browser window)
   What would the most common words you would use if you were looking up your business on the Internet? Take my business site for example. The title contains the words 'website design' and 'graphic design', it also contains my business name 'Harlequin'. Because I am selling my services as a website designer and a graphic designer, I know that the people who want a website created are going to use the words 'website design'. These words are what we call 'keywords'. If you are not sure what your keywords should be, you could ask your customers what they think, or I would be happy to help give you some ideas.



2. Take a look at your current index page. (the first page of your website) How many times within the text that you can see, does it show the type or name of the product you are trying to sell? If your answer is zero, then you are in trouble. Search engines pick up the viewable text of a document second to the title, thus it is very important to have the appropriate keywords all throughout your text. Start implementing your keywords throughout your website text and get a better ranking on search engines.



3. The 'keyword' Meta Tag is hardly used by search engines any longer to rank a website - and web developers in the know do not rely upon this method for website ranking any longer. Even I still place keywords in the keyword Meta Tag simply by habit, and personal preference, but too many website designers abused this search engine ranking system by placing absurd, and unrelated keywords in the tag.



4. Start calling your website graphics and web page links by relevant names. For example, instead of calling your graphics 'graphic2b.jpg', use your business' search or other keywords to add a better ranking, for example an accountant accredited by Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand would want to name their images things like 'chartered-accountant.jpg', 'qualified-auditor.jpg' etc. Think about your business or blog - what business do you perform? What would you search for if you wanted assistance from your business? what type of blog material do you post? Every blog post with images or the blog post links themselves can utilise this method of SEO.

   Each keyword must be separated by a hyphen '-'.

   
   
   
5. Add relevant keywords to the end of a link on your site. This is a frequently google-spammed trick, and over-users will be punished by the search engines - so be very careful not to use it too often!
   
   I will use the Chartered Accountant reference once more: http://charteredaccountantbusiness.com/?chartered-accountant, where the keyword is again separated by a hyphen '-'.
   
   

   Do not be afraid of the question mark '?', this is a commonly used character which helps web developers in the know to ask the web browser to download onto the screen the most current version of the web page being requested instead of the "cached" version, it will not affect you getting people into those linked pages.



Please note, any changes you make to your website may not change search engine rankings for up to six weeks, depending upon the length of time it takes for the search engine 'bots' to find your page, and make the appropriate changes to the ranking scheme.

 

Labels: best Google rank, blog ranking, first page google, google, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, sight impaired code, web development, website ranking

what are your thoughts? 0 Comments

posted by Da at 10:29:00 PM