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Search engines are constantly tuning their algorithms in order to deliver better and "cleaner" search results for the users.
Any Search Engine algorithm is their trade secret and they are not planning on sharing it with SEO companies. They generally suggest “to create a good website and let the search spiders find it”. All their guidelines and suggestions point to improving your site content and usability for an average website user. They penalize sites for using any kind of deceptive tricks. That makes perfect sense – sort of like a natural selection – the stronger and most deserving ones will survive and make it to the top. Ideally.
However, it is our job to promote our own business and help our clients who chose to employ us to “bump their site up”. We can’t help but wonder what can be done to achieve that. What is Google (or other SE) algorithm is looking at now? At the end, they are looking for well-optimized, reputable, stable and clean-coded sites to push to the top.
A lot of information available to SEOs has been around for years, e.g. building strong back-links, adding fresh content, etc. But most of it is just common sense. On a flip side, if you were a Search Engine company, what kind of criteria would you use for results placement?
SEO is about making your site the best it can be for your users. Make it informative and easy to use for a human and your search ranking will improve – this should be the long term goal for every SEO professional.
While algorithms constantly change, the guidelines stay the same year after year. Following the Guidelines works. It helps your site withstand changes
to Google's algorithms without disappearing because of tricks to attain a high ranking - and they're just basic good design principles.
Here’s some of the SEO tips we pay close attention to when we optimize websites:
- Put target keywords in the page title – most important.
- Put keywords "high" on the page and in the first paragraphs, if possible.
- Watch out for tables, which can "push" text further down the page, making keywords less relevant because they appear lower on the page. Consider using table-less designs. Tables are still OK to use of course, but they are mostly meant for tabular data.
- Use HTML text whenever possible instead of the images displaying text. If possible, replace all your image buttons with CSS formatted links.
- Expand your text references if possible – for example: don't use just "collecting" when it's a page about stamp collecting. Use both words, if possible.
- Avoid image-map-only links from the home page to inside pages. Replace them with traditional HTML links.
- Make sure all java scripts are external (using<script> tag). Otherwise the validators can pick them up as errors.
- Use header tags (H1,H2,etc.) and try to incorporate your main keywords into headers if possible. Only one H1 tag per page should be used. Multiple H1 tags in the same html document may be viewed as spam.
- Add text to Alt attribute for all of your images, but don't stuff it keywords. It may be viewed as spam. Adding visible captions to your images can also go a long way when keywords are incorporated into the text.
- HTML errors can affect your ability to be indexed, and ultimately, ranked. Validate and clean all html pages. Clean HTML is absolutely imperative for search engine indexing. Browsers are extremely forgiving when it comes to displaying pages with "unclean" HTML (unclosed tags, quotation marks, etc.) Search engine spiders are so forgiving. Even something as simple as a missing quote on an attribute (<a href="example.html>) can cause a spider to not index text or a link.
- Always use DOCTYPE Declaration. DOCTYPES are essential to the proper rendering and functioning of web documents in compliant browsers. It is also very important for the search spiders to understand and follow the coding contained on your pages. Add one DOCTYPE to every page of a site.
- Keep navigation good and clean. Make sure there’s always a link back to your home page.
- Avoid using Flash. Search engines cannot read it. If it must be used, try to keep it down to an isolated page element rather than the whole page. If you must use it for splash home pages, add some links and navigation below the fold.
- Add a site map. An old-fashioned HTML site map. It’s search spiders favorite. For larger sites, having segmented site maps is the best way to go.
- Avoid using Frames. The problem with frames – you cannot bookmark a single page or navigate to it.
- Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).
- Keep the number of images on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 15). Use CSS instead of large number of spacer images to achieve the layout you want.
- Test a site using a text only browser, which will let you see what most search engine spiders see. source:http://tinyurl.com/y9qsorw
