Search Engine Optimization Good Practices
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is probably one of the more debated topics on the web. With the battle to be #1 on major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN and the technologies behind the engines ranking methods always changing/improving it can be very hard to keep up.
So what are some of the “good” SEO practices that can help your site today?
Basic Meta Data w/ Structure:
What this means is that although having key words, a title, description, and all the others are "good things to do" there is one step that can be done to make it "better". Add structure! Just because the Home Page of your site is "Company Name/School Name" that does not mean that this is the best name for all the sub pages of your site... the more relevant to the page the meta data is the better the search results. For instance take the title and added a variable page description to it like "The Fight Song | Arkansas Alumni Association" see online at: http://arkalum.org/traditions/fightsong.php
You'll notice that the page description comes before the title... the reason for this is to help people find what they are after on the search engines after all they are more likely to type "razorback fight song" than Arkansas Alumni Association hoping to find that page... so show them what they are after first and then who it is by second.
You’ll also notice that it improves the readability of the results on the search engines page; although not our original intention this only helps the end over find the right page and sends more valuable clicks to your site.
So what about the home page? Well we did "Home | Arkansas Alumni Association" but that is just the option we took you could always leave the word home off too.
The same should apply to the meta data for description and key words the more relevant to the page the better the search engine will return on them for relevant searches.
If you leave the description blank most search engines will pull the best matching text for relevance to the search terms from the pages content (as shown above). This can be useful if you have a large number of unique pages with multiple content controllers.
Content is the Key:
With the basics out of the way, what is next? The most important part of any site is the Content (even more important than the graphics) since that is what the visitors are after is information or content. SEO companies will tell you that Content Optimization is KEY! Although I'll agree content is the KEY don't sacrifice quality content for SEO placement. SEO companies tells you to use the structured key terms frequently throughout the content... but they forget to tell you not to elaborate.
Get to the point quickly we all know that site visitors skim content and only read about 10% of anything written on the web... example you are probably skimming this article. So use the relevant terms within the content but don't just make it longer to say them more and more.
Keep the users perspective in mind and you'll do just fine.
Search Engine Submissions:
Wow! The fact that people actually pay for this is just shocking to me. Why pay for that which is FREE? If you want to do this just search on Google for "Search Engine Submissions" and use one of the Million FREE services offered out there or even better just search for "submit my site to $searchenginename" and submit them your self:
It really doesn't take that much time I promise and it could save you $100s.
Link Exchanges vs. Strong External Links:
Well if you haven't heard link exchanges are against almost every know search engine out there... but that doesn't mean that links back to your site are not useful. This is probably the more complicated portion of SEO these days. Avoiding link exchanges while still having other sites link back to you when appropriate.
The easiest thing to say here is that the sites that should link to you probably will anyways, but it doesn't heart to ask them to do it today (rather than tommorow). However, you shouldn't have to offer them a link back in exchange. The sites that you need to have link to you are when their visitors will benefit from it anyways thus, they will probably do it at some point anyways.
So after you find the appropriate sites (University Main Site, Department Sites, Student Sites, Industry Related, etc.) then you are in for the fun part.
Using Relevant Anchor Text for Links:
The goal here is to have the links out there pointing to your pages add to your site’s ranking and positioning. Yep more "structure" here. The search engines also value score the "text" portion of the link that is coming to your site so the more relevant it is the better your placement.
Relevant Naming Structure:
This is probably something that you’ll only get to play with part of. Site naming structures include the URL, folders and file names but, your site name is probably already set... and getting a new one is no easy task. However, you or someone will be able to control the folders and filenames.
Not only does the structure for # 3 work best for the SEO part of our design, but it also works best for any printed materials that want to reference the page or professors section.
Doing your Homework:
The only other service that SEO firms really offer is "Doing your Homework". They will research which terms are the most useful for your site and then give you the options for the ones that they believe they can make appear at the highest point on a particular search engine. Although it is very interesting to see some of the results that they come up with, when was the last time you paid someone to do your homework and felt good about it?
There are many tools out there that will help you determine which terms are the best or even better which terms are already being used. And you can probably already tell me which term you want to have used so why pay them for that?
Update: Google's SEO Starter Guide a compact guide that lists some best practices that teams within Google and external webmasters alike can follow that could improve their sites' crawlability and indexing.
Last but not least ask your friends for help. I personally offer any and all source code information from www.arkalum.org up to you to examine and change as needed for your site. Our site currently comes in #1 for "arkansas alumni" on Google so I always love getting SEO calls when they tell me to pick a word or phrase... it is nice to see them stumped when they check the phrase.
So what are some of the “good” SEO practices that can help your site today?
Basic Meta Data w/ Structure:
What this means is that although having key words, a title, description, and all the others are "good things to do" there is one step that can be done to make it "better". Add structure! Just because the Home Page of your site is "Company Name/School Name" that does not mean that this is the best name for all the sub pages of your site... the more relevant to the page the meta data is the better the search results. For instance take the title and added a variable page description to it like "The Fight Song | Arkansas Alumni Association" see online at: http://arkalum.org/traditions/fightsong.php
You'll notice that the page description comes before the title... the reason for this is to help people find what they are after on the search engines after all they are more likely to type "razorback fight song" than Arkansas Alumni Association hoping to find that page... so show them what they are after first and then who it is by second.
You’ll also notice that it improves the readability of the results on the search engines page; although not our original intention this only helps the end over find the right page and sends more valuable clicks to your site.So what about the home page? Well we did "Home | Arkansas Alumni Association" but that is just the option we took you could always leave the word home off too.
The same should apply to the meta data for description and key words the more relevant to the page the better the search engine will return on them for relevant searches.
If you leave the description blank most search engines will pull the best matching text for relevance to the search terms from the pages content (as shown above). This can be useful if you have a large number of unique pages with multiple content controllers.
Content is the Key:
With the basics out of the way, what is next? The most important part of any site is the Content (even more important than the graphics) since that is what the visitors are after is information or content. SEO companies will tell you that Content Optimization is KEY! Although I'll agree content is the KEY don't sacrifice quality content for SEO placement. SEO companies tells you to use the structured key terms frequently throughout the content... but they forget to tell you not to elaborate.
Get to the point quickly we all know that site visitors skim content and only read about 10% of anything written on the web... example you are probably skimming this article. So use the relevant terms within the content but don't just make it longer to say them more and more.
Keep the users perspective in mind and you'll do just fine.
Search Engine Submissions:
Wow! The fact that people actually pay for this is just shocking to me. Why pay for that which is FREE? If you want to do this just search on Google for "Search Engine Submissions" and use one of the Million FREE services offered out there or even better just search for "submit my site to $searchenginename" and submit them your self:
It really doesn't take that much time I promise and it could save you $100s.
Link Exchanges vs. Strong External Links:
Well if you haven't heard link exchanges are against almost every know search engine out there... but that doesn't mean that links back to your site are not useful. This is probably the more complicated portion of SEO these days. Avoiding link exchanges while still having other sites link back to you when appropriate.The easiest thing to say here is that the sites that should link to you probably will anyways, but it doesn't heart to ask them to do it today (rather than tommorow). However, you shouldn't have to offer them a link back in exchange. The sites that you need to have link to you are when their visitors will benefit from it anyways thus, they will probably do it at some point anyways.
So after you find the appropriate sites (University Main Site, Department Sites, Student Sites, Industry Related, etc.) then you are in for the fun part.
Using Relevant Anchor Text for Links:
The goal here is to have the links out there pointing to your pages add to your site’s ranking and positioning. Yep more "structure" here. The search engines also value score the "text" portion of the link that is coming to your site so the more relevant it is the better your placement.
- Recently, this site wrote an article on good SEO practices. For more information, click here.
- Recently, this site wrote an article on good SEO practices. See http://larsic.blogspot.com/2008/01/search-engine-optimization-good.html for more information.
- Recently, this site wrote an article on good SEO practices.
Relevant Naming Structure:
This is probably something that you’ll only get to play with part of. Site naming structures include the URL, folders and file names but, your site name is probably already set... and getting a new one is no easy task. However, you or someone will be able to control the folders and filenames.
- http://www.uark.edu/11018.php
- http://www.uark.edu/index.php?page=profesor+dub+ashton
- http://www.uark.edu/professors/dub-ashton.php
Not only does the structure for # 3 work best for the SEO part of our design, but it also works best for any printed materials that want to reference the page or professors section.
Doing your Homework:
The only other service that SEO firms really offer is "Doing your Homework". They will research which terms are the most useful for your site and then give you the options for the ones that they believe they can make appear at the highest point on a particular search engine. Although it is very interesting to see some of the results that they come up with, when was the last time you paid someone to do your homework and felt good about it?
There are many tools out there that will help you determine which terms are the best or even better which terms are already being used. And you can probably already tell me which term you want to have used so why pay them for that?
Update: Google's SEO Starter Guide a compact guide that lists some best practices that teams within Google and external webmasters alike can follow that could improve their sites' crawlability and indexing.
Last but not least ask your friends for help. I personally offer any and all source code information from www.arkalum.org up to you to examine and change as needed for your site. Our site currently comes in #1 for "arkansas alumni" on Google so I always love getting SEO calls when they tell me to pick a word or phrase... it is nice to see them stumped when they check the phrase.