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SEO top tips that I’ve learnt on the bus

Back to school means back on the bus

With the kids back to school this week, it’s meant that the car has been requisitioned once again and I’m back on the bus.

That’s actually not so bad, because I get a lot of my reading done on the bus.

Most of what I pass on in this blog is gleaned whilst eating my morning bowl of porridge or during my short ride to and from work.

I’m currently reading Search Engine Optimization for Dummies by Peter Kent which is proving to be a very worthwhile purchase.

I’ve already warned that it’s serious SEO time, and I’ll be passing on the tips I’ve learned step-by-step as I work through this book.

So let’s get started with what I’ve found out so far.

My ‘back of a bus’ top ten SEO tips

Tip 1: Ditch the fancy flash intro on you website.

They’re an irritation to visitors, and usually just an excuse for designers to pose.

They’re rubbish for SEO though because search engines like things to read, like text.

Any text in a flash animation can’t be read … so don’t do it!

For the same reason use embedded video sparingly.

Tip 2: Don’t use .gifs, .jpgs or .pngs for that matter as part of your site navigation.

Use text where you can, not images.

In fact, don’t replace text for text embedded within images at all.

Once again, the search engines like stuff to read and if you do this, they can’t read your stuff.

So click here for my blog is better than a button like the one below:

The rule of thumb is to avoid embedding text into images, create lots of readable text instead.

Tip 3: Don’t use frames.

Browsers struggle to read frames, which means you’re going to miss out on SEO opportunities.

And they’re just plain nasty too.

Browsers need to read a website’s source code.

Find a website made with frames, then using the toolbar at the top of your browser select ‘View’ then ‘Source’ … see what I mean?

Internet Explorer shows you the frame-definition document, the pages within the internal frames tend to become orphaned.

Tip 4: Add a sitemap to your website.

Let the search engines know where they should be looking.

You should also produce a visual sitemap that your web users can read, also known as a table of contents.

See more on sitemaps elsewhere in this blog.

Tip 5: When you create links on your pages, make them descriptive as you can.

Apparently, usability testing indicates that people like long link text ie links which describe what they’re taking you to.

So rather than me writing click here or more, it would appear that website users would prefer something like find out more about my IT blog and in addition, the search engines like it too!

Tip 6: Create error pages with links to other areas of your website, perhaps even a sitemap or table of contents.

You can read about creating error pages elsewhere on this site, but the key concept with this SEO tip is that your web users, and the searchbots, won’t reach a dead end on your website, even if they end up somewhere they shouldn’t really be,

Tip 7: Search engines like simple.

At it’s most basic interpretation, that means black text on a white background.

The fancier and more complicated your webpages are, the harder it is for the search engines to work out what they’re about.

Think ‘words’ whenever you’re working on your website … words are clues for search engines and help them to index your site correctly.

Tip 8: Much has been written about the Google sandbox, but what is certain is that the longer a domain has been registered, and the longer a site has been active, the better.

Register domains as soon as possible, get a few pages and some links pointing to you as quickly as you can and you’ll start that long, slow haul to the top straight away.

Tip 9: When selecting keywords, make sure you remember ‘the search tail’.

These are the phrases which are not right at the the top of a search list, but which go on to represent a very high percentage of the total searched-for keywords.

Peter Kent recommends that you don’t aim for the top, where it’s overcrowded, but for the search tail.

He says if you only focus on a primary term, you’re missing most of the action.

Tip 10: Use your text carefully

Without overdoing it, here are some text-based tips for making your pages more easily readable by search engines:

- Use particularly important words -the sorts of things people will be searching for in your particular field - at the top of the page

- Use bold and italic keywords

- Put keywords in bulleted lists

- Use keywords multiple times on a page … but not too often!

Next bus stop?

I’m only up to chapter 5, and you can see how much useful information I’m extracting from Search Engine Optimization for Dummies by Peter Kent already.

There’s more to come in future posts, and please pass on your own tips via the comments form at the bottom of this page.