SEO

From NewHaven Software Wiki

Revision as of 21:13, 3 September 2010

About

What is SEO? Wikipedia defines it as 'Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a web site or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.'[1] In simpler terms it means to modify or design your site in a way that is more friendly to search engines. Good SEO is not about tricks or tactics to manipulate the search engines into returning better results for your site, but rather presenting your content in consistent and optimized format.

One important thing to note is that search engines use powerful algorithms to search, classify, and index content. These algorithms are unique to each search provider and are invaluable to them, therefore the actual inner workings of all the major search engines is a closely guarded secret. Be aware of this if someone or some site is claiming to be an expert in a particular search engine or has definitive answers in how specific search functions work. This means that most of what has been learned about how a search engine functions has been through trial and error, testing, and a little black magic.

SEO Basics

There are three main components to increasing search engine traffic to your site:

Technical

Is your site written with valid HTML and CSS? Are there proper <title> and header tags? Do you have a valid sitemap? Are portions of your site invisible unless using Flash or JavaScript?

Some common suggestions that may help your site be indexed correctly by a search engine.

• Validation -- Does your site validate? Are all of your tags closed? Are you using bad tags? While having a validated site will not increase your search rankings it will help to ensure that your site can be read by more search engines. You can use the W3C Validation Service to check your site's HTML. You can also check for dead links and validate your CSS

• Title Tags -- Does your page have accurate and unique title tags? To read about what makes up a good title tag see title tag facts on seologic.com.

• Header Tags -- Header tags are a way to show prominence to content, like titles to an article or section, category names, etc. Proper header tags help each page get indexed more accurately based on the keywords you provide. For more on header tags see SEO Header Tags

• Product/Category URLs -- Do your product pages still look like http://www.mysite.com/category/1983/67? If so you should read this article and give your products/categories proper url-names.

• Meta Data --

• Image Alt Tags --

• Site Maps --

• Broken Links --

Content

Content is still king. The first thing you should always remember when discussing how well your site ranks is content. If your site has little or no quality content it is unlikely that users will return link to your site much less link to it. Does your site have good content? Do your products contain descriptive information that would help a user find your products using a search engine? Are you using quality keywords that would attract a user to click on your site if it was returned by a search engine?

Marketing

Are you linking to quality sites and are they linking to you in turn? Have you promoted your site to blogs or other sites in your industry? Are you using ads to target

Some handy resources:

• SEOmoz.org - Long considered one of the best sites on the site to learn about SEO. There are must read guides for the beginner and great lists of free tools.

• Search Engine Land - One of, if not the most popular sites for news and information about the search industry. Great set of beginners guides