Search Articles

June 2006- 25 Hints on Improving Your Website Performance
by Ron Skruzny

SEO Hints and techniques

Introduction

There is much material available about optimizing your web site to make it search engine friendly. However it often appears to be fragmented and does not cover a broad range of potential activity.

The following techniques have been broken down into 5 key areas of your web site. Each of these have 5 hints and/or techniques to help ensure that you get the best possible chance of being search engine friendly and maximise your presence on the web. I hope that you find this information useful.

Keywords

Keywords are an essential part of your website if you want to have search engines refer traffic to you. The following hints and techniques can help improve your search engine friendliness and may also help you to discover other opportunities for your business.

1. Don’t chase after the keywords that are much in demand. Initially you will likely end up on page 150 or worse in any search engine listings. There is too much competition. Look for the keywords where you are more likely to succeed, at least initially.

2. The long tail theory is currently in vogue. It’s best to chase after multiple smaller traffic swarms that you have greater chances of success instead of going after the larger swarm that you are competing with by too many other players.

3. Aggregate a number of similar themed keywords together e.g. anti-cancer vegetables could include broccoli, Brussels sprouts and turnips.

4. Look at websites that are number one for that keyword. Investigate each of the factors that helped them to get a high ranking. Then either copy of improve on the way that they do things. You can often do better than the current webpage.

5. Tools

1. www.goodkeywords.com will help you to select keywords related to your main keyword
2. Overture.com will tell you how many searches there were over the past month for that keyword
3. Google.com – will tell you how many websites relate to the keyword

Getting a high ranking using web site techniques

Once you have selected your theme, you will need to plan out your site.

6. Choose a great site domain name that reflects the focus of your site. This will impact the initial credibility of site visitors. It’s best not to use a domain name such as www.johnsmithwidgets.com. A preferable name which is easier to remember might be www.bestwidgets.com. However if you are only operating locally and have been for many years then you can leverage off your name.

7. Internal consistency to make the pages look good. You want to make the browsing experience as pleasant as possible. If there is consistency between pages, then potential clients don’t have a hard time browsing through your site. Use CSS style sheets where possible as an aid.

8. Use of site maps to aid in navigation not only for visitors but also for the search engines. With different types of web sites e.g. HTML, HTM and PHP, as well as many different niches that you may be targeting, it may be difficult to navigate and find all of the relevant pages. A site map can be a useful aid to link all of the sites together. Once the search engine spider finds the site map, it can then follow the links to all of your other pages on that site.

9. Adopt the long tail approach i.e. look for the related niche keywords that still support the main theme but may present a slightly different perspective. You will capture the interest of a small amount of people. But if you target 20 different niches on the same topic then you will have 20 times a small amount of interested people. You can then expand that to 50 or 100 niches of highly interested people instead of competing for 1,000 unfocussed people with 1000s of other web sites.

10. Use of anchor texts in links between sites. If you are (and you should) requesting other sites to link to you, then offer your own anchor texts that relate to your topic e.g. “great rose information” that will enable the search engines to relate your site to a particular theme. Use keywords where possible. Avoid ‘click here’ as search engines can’t interpret it. Getting a high ranking using on-page techniques Once you have your theme, your list of keywords and a broad site structure, how do you set up your individual web page?

11. Use plenty of content. Content is king. If a user likes your content he will come back for more. Where possible, keep it refreshed so that users come back looking to see what has changed. On every page make sure that the visitor’s quest “WIIFM” is satisfied i.e. what’s in it for me?

12. Use the web page at the top level rather then buried deep in the web site. If you are targeting a particular topic, then ensure that the main entry point is at the domain name level ie. www.mybusiness.com and not www.mybusiness.com/level2/level3/interest

13. Use the main keyword in the title tag. Ensure that the Title tag has at least your main keyword in it.

14. Use h1 header tags, preferably with only your main keyword within those tags. This is your main heading.

15. Use h2 and h3 header tags with the secondary key words. These are your sub-headings. Getting a high ranking using Off-page techniques

16. Which websites link to you? Do they have a high Google page rank? Are they considered authoritative?

17. The number of websites linking to you is important with the more the merrier. However low quality sites can lower your rating e.g. on-line casino sites

18. The anchor text used in the link linking to you, it should be relevant to your theme. In addition anchor texts from multiple sources should not be all the same.

19. Become active in forums and leave your signature

20. write articles for article banks and leave your signature, i.e. a link back to your own site.

Getting noticed by the search engines

21. Link swapping with other sites that are already noticed. Just ask them for a link exchange or there is software or service providers that will do that for you.

22. Links from one or more of your own theme-related related sites

23. Write up an article with your web signature and submit it to two or more article banks, the more the better

24. Tagging – putting up a paid appearance on a high traffic website

25. Become an active participant in one or more forums, leave your signature

About the Author

Ron Skruzny is the Director of Critical Mass Pty Ltd. The website http://www.criticalmass.biz is devoted to search engine optimization techniques.

Note: These articles do not represent the advice or opinions of Apollo Hosting. They represent the thoughts, advice and opinions of the individual authors.