1. Quality Content
When we first started looking at SEO as a separate entity to website build there was one phrase that we would continually hear, “content is King”, and it’s true. There is nothing more valuable you can do to optimize your site for search engines than offer unique well written content. A search engines aim is to serve up what it believes to be the most appropriate website for any given search to the end user.
Imagine we are the end user and we are searching for a portable air conditioner for hire. We go to our favorite search engine and search for the phrase “portable air conditioner hire”.
In this imaginary scenario let’s assume there are only 2 websites that target that phrase,
Website 1
Website 1 consists of a single page with 3 paragraphs of text. The text tells us that the company does portable air conditioning hire and give us a phone number to call.
Website 2
Website 2 contains 30 plus pages all focusing on various portable air conditioning units that we can hire, costs and technical explanations of how portable air conditioning units work.
Which website do you think the search engine is likely to offer to the user first? It’s a rather obvious example but it illustrates the importance of good content so your priority should be good quality content.
2. Use Structural (Semantic) Mark Up and Separate Content from Presentation
Semantically structuring your mark up helps search engines understand the content of your webpage which is of course a good thing. Making proper use of heading elements is essential because search engines give more weight
to the content within the heading elements.
Using CSS to separate the design elements from the content makes for much leaner code and makes it easier for search engines to find what they’re looking for, which is content. Remember content is king!
3. Titles and Meta Data
Providing pages with proper titles and meta data is essential. As discussed in the top black hat SEO techniques section the meta description and meta keywords elements have been so misused in the past that Search
Engines now regard them as less important, it’s still important to use them and use them properly. Titles however still carry a lot of weight and when we think of semantic mark up it is obvious why. The title of anything is a declaration as to what the content might be, so make sure your page titles are a true representation of the content of the page.
4. Keyword Research and Effective Keyword Use
Create your website with keywords and key phrases in mind. Research keywords and key phrases you think people might use to find your site. Single words are not always the most effective target, try multi-word phrases that are much more specific to your product/service and you’ll be targeting end users that are much more likely to want what you are offering.
Use the keywords and key phrases you’ve identified effectively throughout your website. Assign each page 2-3 of the keywords you’ve identified and use the keywords throughout all the important elements of the page. Those are,
Title
Meta Description
Meta Keywords
Heading Elements
<H1>
<H2>
<H2>
Text
Alt Tag
Title Tag
Links
Meta Description
Meta Keywords
Heading Elements
<H1>
<H2>
<H2>
Text
Alt Tag
Title Tag
Links
5. Quality Inbound Links
Having inbound links to your website can be likened to having a vote for the good but there are good links and bad links so therefore votes for the good and votes that are bad. Good links are links from other web pages
that are regarded highly by the search engines and are contextually relevant to the content of your page. Bad links are links from web pages that aren’t regarded highly or potentially banned by search engines and have no relevance to the content of your page.
For example:
Imagine we have a website that sells telephones.
Link A: Link on the homepage of the British Telecoms website. = Good
Link B: Link on John Smiths Beer and Ale appreciation links page = Bad
The amount of quality inbound links to your site therefore have some relevance on how high up the search engine your site is placed. When sourcing links you should be thinking of quality over quantity and deep linking to pages within your website not just the home page.
