There’s a whole lot hype inside the SEO industry probably because it is a techno field plus is very competitive so everyone is endeavoring to eyebrow everyone else and get the upper edge.
Being in my antiquated 40’s - hippy 1965 baby to be exact - I have been around the IT industry well before most of the current players were out of diapers. I was there in our computer room when they unveiled the latest hard drive - it looked like a modern day top-loader washer and was the same size! All up it held a ‘breath-taking’ 40 Meg of data. Yes 886lv is right 40 Meg! When we saw the new micro PC’s come out we felt they would never take off (we must have had IBM blood in us!) and the IT journey went on from there.
Today my ‘long teeth’ dip in my beer and my eyeballs roll back in their sockets when I hear some of the hype plastered around the SEO playing field.
Yes SEO can be specialized but only usually while you got it completely wrong at the start - your website that is. If you did not hire a good Search engine optimization advisor to give you the run down BEFORE you started building then you most definitely finished up with a website punctured with a trillion Search engine optimization holes. Websites like these normally takes some fixing without a doubt. The majority of web designers do not know anything about Search engine optimisation and what they do know they hardly ever implement simply because they aren’t requested to by you! Not hiring a good Search engine optimisation advisor is like constructing a three storey property without having an architect and engineer and expecting the contractor to get it right - no way.
I come across a great Search engine optimisation site once in every 100 websites. This is a very poor track record for web-developers. Nearly every other single web site is a ship filled with holes sinking in the lower zones of page 196 of Google!
So apart from adding some colorful pros to this piece I guess I should add some substance. Well here it is - short and simple (well maybe not that short!)
Content is King
Google makes use of back links a lot right now to judge a sites popularity. However, it is now a breeze to create back-links of high quality in large amounts to unbalance the ranking game. Google knows it has to find the right way to balance this out. When it does, most people’s ranking will come crashing towards the ground overnight.
On the other hand, Google always wants Top quality content material - the best it can show. If you have this, then because content is the only reason why we have search engines in the first place, your site will usually flourish regardless of what twists and turns Google puts its search engine algorithms through.
In no way ever forget that content is king within the SEO jungle. Forget at your peril.
We fought to get content on clients web sites for so long until we built it into our Search engine optimization ranking packages. We now offer a content and back-linking service (SEO.SIMPLE.) that solves this inherent problem. Now our clients get fresh unique content on their web sites weekly and gain ranking results from it seeing it is Search engine optimisation optimised as well.
Your content delivery engines needs to be well tuned
Don’t imagine that you can merely add content to a webpage and miss out on the platform you are adding it to. Google wants to ensure that the content material is not just the best for the search term requested, but it also delivers the very best user experience. So ensure you cross your T’s and dot your Search engine optimization eyes when it comes to making certain your site delivers the very best experience such as doing these :
Make sure your server is quick - Google a short while ago added this one - upgrade right now if it takes too long to download your web pages
Be sure ALL images have ALT tags WITH meaningful content
Make sure every page has a UNIQUE page title relevant to the content of the page
Fix Canonical issues (were http://www.yoursite.com and http://yoursite.com and http://www.yoursite.com/index.php etc all resolve to the same page but have different addresses. Instead they should all redirect to a single page and that page should be utilised throughout the site in all links. If you are on a UNIX based server this can be fixed quickly usually through the htaccess file)
Make sure there are a minimum of 300 words of meaningful text on any page - the more the better for Google
Make sure that if you are utilizing a CMS that the URL’s are fixed so only words appear (and preferably keywords) and not funny programming expressions and numbers
Whenever you create a link use a keyword(s) and not the notorious ‘click here’ as the anchor text
If you cannot add content to your website (maybe you have a flash site), then at the least add a blog attached to your internet site - this helps a lot
When you next renew your domain, renew not less than three years - of course longevity shows maturity and improves trust
Back-links and more back links
And lastly don’t stop back-linking. Right now it is the powerhouse for Search engine optimisation but don’t rely on this for the long term.
So I hope this has helped ‘de-hype’ some of the SEO materials out there and helped you along the SEO road a bit further.
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