Tuesday 16 September 2014
Major Key Points to Consider for SEO - Low Priority
Register a separate domain instead of a sub-domain
Subdomains are a nice way to create new websites without needing to register a new domain. This site is a subdomain of blogger.com - seoax.blogspot.com. But subdomains are not as recognized by search engines (or customers for that matter) as separate sites. For example, most people who link to my site link to it with a title of "blogger.com." But if you were to go to www.example.com, you'd get a very different impression of my site than the true URL of seoax.blogspot.com. The other problem with subdomains is that most people think that URLs should start with "www". Sometimes www.subdomain.example.com will work, but sometimes it won't. If you can, you should move all sites that are on a subdomain onto a real domain name of their own.
Register a .com domain over a .biz or .us domain
Trying to find a good domain name can be challenging, especially on the .com top-level domain (TLD). But finding a good .com domain will rank higher than a similar domain on the .biz or .us TLDs. And if you can get a .edu domain (because you're a school or university) your site will have more credibility instantly. Some SEO services feel that a .org TLD is better than a .com, but they aren't any more difficult (in general) to get than a .com domain, and while search engines might give them some priority now, they will probably lessen that as .org domains become more common.
Use hyphens to separate words in domains
When you're putting keywords in your domain and URLs, you should consider separating them with hyphens (-) rather than mashing them all together or using underscores (_). Search engine spiders can't tell where a word ends and begins without cues like hyphens, and most computers recognize hyphens as the end of a word, but see underscores as part of the word.
Use hyphens or underscores to separate words in URLs
Just like your domains, you should separate words in your URLs with hyphens (-) or underscores (_). Hyphens are better, but outside of the domain, underscores can work. Hyphens work better because many search engine spiders recognize hyphens as the end of a word, but see underscores as part of the word. Also, underscores can be seen as a space by your customers (because the underline of the link and the underscore merge together), and they will then get frustrated if they try to type the URL with a space and can't get to the page.
Write short pages
The shorter your page is, the fewer times you need to repeat your keyword phrase and keep the density just right. Plus, short pages load more quickly, and so your readers will appreciate it. Keep pages under 30KB in size. Split long pages into multiple pages and optimize each page.
Use JavaScript with care
As long as your scripts are valid and don't break your HTML, most search engines will ignore them. But don't rely on JavaScript to improve your rankings - most search engines ignore content inside JavaScript.
Include text transcripts of podcasts and sound files
Like images and Flash, search engines can't index the content of sound files including podcasts. By including a transcript of your sound files and podcasts, you give search engines more text to index.
Keep your pages close to the root directory
The higher your pages are in your sub-directories, the better they will rank in search engines. This is because pages that are listed right off the root directory are typically more important than pages that are found four or five levels deep in the site.
Use the meta keywords tag and include your keyword phrase
Meta tags are a very popular way to improve search engine results, but the fact of the matter is that some major search engines don't use them at all, and others only use them a little. It won't hurt to include your keyword phrase and any secondary keywords in the meta keywords tag, but don't expect it to work wonders.
Keep your keywords together
Search engines rank keywords in pages regardless of where they are found. But if you're trying to rank well for a specific keyword phrase, keeping the keywords together will insure that the search engines recognize that they are related.
Use your keyword phrase in your meta description
Most search engines use the meta description field as the description in their search results. So it's important to have a good description. Including your keyword phrase in the meta description tag is one more place that the search engines can see your keywords. This isn't a magic bullet, but it is a good idea.
Set your language meta keyword
If your page is in a language other than English, you should set the language meta tag so that search engines (and other user agents) know what language it's in. Most search engines have other ways of telling what language the page is written in, but they do use that tag, and it could help you rank higher in searches in that language.
Optimize for a few secondary keywords
Once you have a keyword phrase, you can choose one or two other keywords to optimize for as well. But be careful with these - make sure that the density of your secondary keywords is no more than 1-2%. Any higher and you risk confusing the search engine and diluting the power of your primary keyword phrase.
Use your keyword phrase in named anchors
A named anchor (also called a bookmark) is a useful tool for creating navigation within a Web page. But for search engines, it also indicates that the text defined by and following the anchor has more significance. If you use your keyword phrase in some of your named anchors, that will give that text more prominence.
Use different forms of words for your keyword phrase
This is also called stemming. Most search engines recognize that one word stemmed from another is really the same word. For example, plural versions of nouns (dog and dogs), gerunds and active verbs (dig and digging), and so on. By using different forms of your keywords, you can make your page more interesting for your readers, while still optimizing for search engines.
Use synonyms for your keywords
Synonyms, like keyword stemming is another way to mix up your text for your readers while still optimizing for search. Most modern search engines have a powerful synonym library and so recognize that words like "dog" and "canine" mean the same thing. Be careful using this technique on non-English pages, however. Most search engines were developed in English-speaking countries, and have more extensive English vocabularies than other languages. Also, you should remember that tools like keyword density readers often don't recognize synonyms, so your page may be denser in keywords than they report if you use a lot of synonyms.
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