There are many different factors to work on in order to ensure that SEO is effective. It is a difficult process; one minor error affects the entire website’s search performance. However by following a few simple rules, this situation is easily avoidable:
Hidden errors
A website often contains unnecessary errors that prevent the search engine spiders from crawling it.
- The web server should return a ‘200 OK’ code when visited by the spiders; if an error code is returned it will not be indexed.
- The HTML code must be error free; some HTML errors can prevent your site from being indexed.
Images and Flash animation
The main content of a website should be shown through text. Although images and flash animation improve the website’s appearance, search engine spiders do not understand them. Additionally, flash does not work on the new Apple software (Ipads and Iphones).
Content
Avoid including articles or affiliate links that can be found on other websites. A website’s content should be distinctive and trustworthy; if you know a lot about a particular topic, write detailed facts about it. This will make the spiders believe that your website is the best place to visit for information on that topic.
Site planning
The site’s architecture should be carefully planned. If there are a group of web pages that are all related, it shows the search engines that the website is more than just a random collection of web pages.
Keywords
Top listings in Google are achieved by using specific and effective keywords.
- Longer keywords are more search engine friendly. Specificity is crucial; specific keywords direct more potential customers to your website.
- Shorter keywords are less likely to direct a potential customer, and are far more competitive.
Link building
Back links guarantee a high search engine rank. Links have a great deal of impact, and the more targeted the link, the better.
SEO: Search Engine Optimisation
Search Engine Spider: A computer program deployed by the search engines to collect data from the internet.
Keyword: A word or phrase associated with your company that web users type into the search engines.
Back links: Links that web users make to your website from other websites.