Principles of Search Engine Optimization

The first of my principles of Search Engine Optimization is to include Meta tags for the title, description and keywords. Many optimizers will rightly tell you that Google no longer uses the description and keyword tags; however Google only accounts for about 66% of world searches, so rather than leaving yourself blind to the other engines, just put them in.

Secondly do include alt image tags that include your sites title and whenever possible your keywords. Google can’t read an image, yet want to know what is occupying the space where the image is. So tell Google what it wants to know and that is that the sites images are related to pages they are on. Do write good content of at least 150 words, preferably more. It appears to be a fact that Google likes at least 125 words or more. I know that some sites rank high with very few words, however these sites are backed up by thousands of relevant links. Make sure your keywords do not make up more than 7% of your content otherwise Google will think you are spamming and your position in the search results will drop accordingly. Content, as the term suggests, is king, use it well and your site will benefit.

Do make sure that your keywords are placed throughout your content and not bunched up in just one area of the page. Try to make the terms fit into the text naturally. Forcing a keyword into a sentence can make it hard to read the sentence and with recent development in technology, Google will soon be able to tell when a sentence is not as it should be.

It is also important to bold your keywords, preferably just at the start and end of your text and not all the way through it. This tells Google that these words are important and need special attention.

Do make sure your site is linked to from related and clear sites, this is important as it shows Google you are an authority and any sites that link to you are in effect voting for you. Clear sites are those housed without sites such as gaming or porn sites, these can have an adverse effect on your ranking.

Keeping to these very basic principles of search engine optimization will give you some great results.

Search Engine Optimization Consultant

Instead of offering SEO Packages, in other words long term packages, I might turn myself into a Search Engine Optimization Consultant. I could then offer a short course teaching people how to do their websites and charge a nice figure of lets say £100 per hour, maybe more? I wonder how many others out... Read more »

Changes to Search Engine Optimization

We have made some changes to the website, hence the title Changes to Search Engine Optimization. Well it is only a part update as more images are needed for the site to look better, however I am happy that the first part of the Changes to Search Engine Optimization has been completed. Once images are... Read more »

Online Marketing Show

I spent the day in London at the Online Marketing Show and had a great chat to Craig Upton who runs Weblinx, the Search Engine Optimisation company based in Pendle. It is interesting when two people who have similar views on Search Engine Optimization get together to discuss possible changes within Google. The... Read more »