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Optimise your site for better rankings!
So you want to get your website higher on the search engines?
Doesn't everybody? Unfortunately for you and me, that means that you are competing against a lot of people for that high spot in the search engine rankings. By reading this guide though, it gives you the upper hand in the fight for the high rankings. I cannot promise to get you top, or even on the first page, but it can give you a start at least. Remember SEO is not just a one time thing, and a lot of effort has to be put in on your part to get your website higher in the rankings. That said, most things are quite simple.
Firstly, your website's history...
Search engines like to see that your websites have a history connected with them. The longer your website has been around, the better, right? Well, its obvious. If your web design site (for instance) has been a web design site for 2 years, obviously you must be doing something right. If you can upkeep a website for 2 years you must be getting enough traffic for you to bother. Search Engines know this, and will favour your site over a new(ish) site that is not as easy to analyse due to its age. Connected with this is...
Changes
As you have just read, search engines like a website with history. Whats even better that that, is a website with lots of history. Search engines only bother with content, so changing the design of the website doesn't really matter to search engines, but changing the content regularly can really help. Firstly, a website with regularly changing content will get visited more often by spiders and secondly a search engine likes fresh content. If your website's content hasn't changed for a while then a search engine dictates that its content is probably old and irrelevant now. There is a way round this though, because you don't want to have to go back every day and change the content. RSS feeds provide new content almost every day, and you don't have to upkeep them. Unfortunately spiders don't read javascript, so you will have to parse the RSS feed in a Server Side Script such as PHP before outputting it as HTML.
The more pages the better The more pages your website has the better. A one page website is not as good as a multipage website. Search Engines want to direct their users to high content websites that will be better for them and will have more information. Link density is also key with websites. If your website has only a few pages, you don't want hundreds of link out of your website, or search engines will view it as more of a "portal" (as in a thouroughfare, rather than phpNuke or something) and its value will be less. Again, search engines don't want to send their users to websites where they have to click through again, they will just index all the websites you have links to and send their visitors straight to those.
Links to your website
This is a tricky area. You want links to your website, as search engines like more links to your site, and therefore more popularity, but then again if a search engine thinks that you are "link farming" then it may go as far a completely removing your website from their index. What you have to remember when getting links to your site is:
* Does the site linking to you have the same/similar content as your website?
If the content is different then you obviously aren't looking to get traffic through that link, or at least not targeted traffic, and therefore search engines will come to the conclusion that you are merely using the link to get placed higher in their rankings. This is bad, and will in fact bring you down in their lists. Link farming is having your link on multiple unrelated websites, and this could get you removed from their listings.
* Do you have a link back?
Although not really that bad, a reciprocal link is less valuable than a link to your website on its own. A sole link to your website shows popularity and that people are actively thinking about your website, whereas a reciprocal link tells the search engine that you, or the other party instigated the link, and therefore it makes it less valuable. It is the same with links on link directories.
A personal reccomendation is that you get links with your main keywords in the link text. So instead of Six Search you would be better off with Search the Web with Six Search, the keywords being "Search" and "Web" (or "Search the Web").
Links throughout your website
Your homepage is the most important page on the website. You should always have the most links (to other pages of your website) on there. The more links spiders have to follow to get to content the worse it is for your website. You want clear and quick navigation throughout your website. On HouseHuntUk for instance links to EVERY page on the website can be found on the right hand side. Another important point is to always have a link back to your homepage on every page.
Lastly... site map Having a site map = easy and concise navigation. Link to your site map from every page. This is less important if you link to every page on every other page, such as HouseHuntUk above. However, if your navigation is complicated or spread throughout a lot of pages, eg: if you have on the homepage categories, such as "Articles" or "User Testimonials" which then have links to their own content. That is fine, but a site map just keeps all the links in one place.
About The Author
Six Search is Taz Martin's primary venture. It is a fantastic up and coming search engine with a superb design and even better searches. Video and Domain searches included as standard along with the usual Web, Image, News and Local searches.
Previously on SearchEngineChannel
- No Follow Tags: Double-Edged Sword?
- How to Get the Highest Search Engine Rankings
- Yahoo! Search Marketing's Dirty Little Budgeting Secret
- Google analytics for better search engine marketing
- 10 Ways to Improve Link Popularity
- Goals and Key Word Research
- Can Your Customers Find You Online?
- How to Improve Your Directory Submission Acceptance Rate?
- What You Should Expect From A SEO Professional
- Get The Most Out Of Your SEO Professional
