Top 10 SEO Tips

My Internet Marketing and SEO Blog

14 March 2009 686 views 2 Comments

Because you can never have too many tips on getting to the top of the search engine rankings, here are 10 tips to give your website an SEO boost.

1. Boldness. Locate one or two instances of each of your keywords on each of the webpages within your site and use bold tags. But whatever you do, don’t use them for every occurrence of the words.

2. Go Global. The United Kingdom and Canada both have directories of companies located in those countries. See if you can get an address for your business in one—or both—of those countries.

3. Link Deeply. Your inbound links should point to as many pages within your website as possible. This lets search engines know that you have pages and pages of relevant, high-quality, everyone-wants-to-read-it content. If all of your inbound links point to your homepage, search engines think that your site has little value or that your links were automatically generated.

4. Articles. Find ezine publishers who archive ezines. If your articles are archived, they’ll stay around awhile and give you inbound linking value for a long time.

5. Link Well. SEO experts will tell you that it simply isn’t a good idea to use images for navigational links. But if you insist, at least make sure that you also use text links, and that those text links come first within your source code. Search engines go with the first links they see and don’t follow additional links.

6. Exchange Articles. While link exchanges are little more than useless, article exchanges can actually serve you well. In an article exchange, you publish someone else’s article that includes a link back to their site. They do the same for you. Both of your sites are indexed, both of them are regarded as relevant and useful, and both of your links are given high value by the search engines.

7. Use Several Domains. Consider using more than one domain if you have topics that warrant their own websites. One reason is that search engines typically only list one page for each domain in the search results. Another reason is that directories typically accept homepages. Having more than one domain means that you can get additional directory listings.

8. Links and Titles. Give titles to your links. This can result in search engines giving higher rankings to your page, and it can help surfers with visual impairments figure out where you’re sending them.

9. Limit Anchor Text. Believe it or not, it is possible to overdo it when it comes to anchor text. If your inbound links all look the same, search engines will suspect you of automatically generating your links. Use the name of your company in some cases and your URL in others. And be creative with the others in ways that will cause search engines to rank you higher.

10. Map Your Site. Always, always, always include a site map, and provide a link to your site map on every interior page. This is not only helpful for humans who are trying to navigate your page, but it also tells search engine robots exactly where to go next when they’re crawling your page. Even if your site is small, use a navigation bar as a site map.

Of course, there’s a lot more to search engine optimization than these 10 tips, but these tips will help you get started—or help you jog your memory if you’ve gotten a little rusty in your SEO. And remember that you always have the option of consulting with an SEO expert or internet marketing professional if you need further guidance on optimizing your webpage or making SEO an integral part of your overall internet marketing strategy. Do it yourself or enlist the help of someone else…just make sure it gets done!