Top 8 SEO Tips

Search engine optimization can make or break your site when it comes to driving visitors to it.  There is definitely no instant success when it comes to high rankings but there are a few tips to make it a little easier.  Some of these tips are easy though the most rewarding can be very time consuming, it is up to some diligent work to get listed highly in the world of SEO.

Create a Sitemap

A site map, index of pages making up your site, can ease the process of spiders searching your site.  Keep this updated regularly or if your site is large you can possibly use a script to automate the process.

Whatever you can do to make sure all of your pages are found by spiders and indexed the better!  Having a site map just lessens the time a search engine has to search for individual pages.

Unique Content

Without content is there any reason for visitors to come to your site?  No, not in nearly any case as content is one of the most important parts of your site.  Not only is it important to have content but even more important that this content is unique.

There is no good that will come from copy and pasting content from other sites especially if this content is already indexed by a search engine.  Most likely it will be just ignored and passed by for the original.

Pay Attention to Statistics

Keep up with how your site is being viewed and how it is being navigated.  Sign up for Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools as these are helpful resources when it comes to your sites statistics.  With Analytics you can view how visitors find your site, what keywords were used, and even what page they leave on.

Statistics are very important as this will tell you what future changes are needed and how to go about them.  There are many useful tools on the web to assist you though it is up to you to find them.

Develop Strategic Keywords

Competing for keywords can be difficult, especially if sites that are ranking on it have been around for a while.  The key to getting ranked with a keyword is to go for a phrase that does not have high competition.  Instead of trying to rank for “SEO”, rank for “Top SEO Tips” instead.

It is all about strategy, and there is much completion out there.  The key is to find what others are doing and just do it better than they are!  It can be time consuming to research but the results can be well worth the time.

Search-Engine Friendly URLs

Some search engines love to see keywords in the URL bar.  Whether it is in the name of the site or just in the folder the index file is in.  Pay attention to how you structure your site and be sure to use friendly URLs when using scripting languages like PHP.  Search engines much prefer to see “somesite.com/articles/seotips” rather than “somesite.com/index.php?seotips32343893” or so on.

Internal Linking

Linking between pages of your site can tell search engines what is important and what is not.  Be sure to link all important pages together through a navigation menu.  This does not mean link irrelevant pages to your navigation just so it will be seen as more important because this will just frustrate your visitors if it is unnecessary.

The key is to create a navigation that flows with your page and helps your visitors to find relevant content.  If you do this correctly then search engines will rank it appropriately.

Deep Linking

External links coming into your site is one of the most important strategies when it comes to higher rankings in SEO.  Link building is also one of the most tedious and aggravating parts of SEO too.  Sites that link to your content deeply give your site reputation with search engines.  So it is important that not all links come straight into your main page.

The best way to acquire deep linking from other sites is by posting content that is interesting enough for sites to post a link back to it.  There are lots of schemes out there to build links, most all are scams and should be avoided.  There is no easy way to build links but that is why it is the best way to increase your rankings as not everyone can do it.

Use More Text, as Images and Flash Can Hurt Rankings

Text, text, text!!!  It’s all about the text as search engines are unable to tell what images or flash says. Sure it can be visually appealing to have flash splashed all over your site but it is useless when trying to achieve higher search engine rankings. The same goes for images unless you use the “alt” text when embedding images.