It’s true, there are many tricks to search engine optimisation and building links. Here are some of the main things that you can influence:
- Use keyword rich ‘anchor text’ in both internal and external links (where you can).
- Optimise your page titles metatag according to that page’s main content. E.g. Write ‘chocolate bars’ not ‘Cadburys’.
- Write a great metatag description, especially for pages that may not have a lot of keyword content (when Google is more likely to use yours).
- Comment on other relevant industry blogs, whereby they allow a link back to your website.
Anchor Text
You might be wondering what anchor text is. Here is a great article all about it: What is anchor text and why is it so darn important for SEO
Basically you should delete all the internal links on your website saying “click here” or “about us” and rename them with some keywords that could possibly be searched for. Your SEO-savvy copywriter should do this for you (say hello to Power of Words).
When commenting, don’t forget to use your main keywords, but still remember to add some value to the post’s topic.
Text Beats Graphics
If you just remember the phrase “text beats graphics”, it will remind you to not have a java language page, Shockwave Flash entry, or jpeg image as the main viewable graphic of your visitors. Hey, I love creativity. But when you have to sacrifice real interested visitors to be creative, that’s when any marketing objectives have gone bye-bye. (Image headers are OK and can always have a textual ‘alt tag’).
Robots like plain text and text-based links. So always have an alternative to your pull-down menus and your images, and use ‘alt’ image tags and keyword rich hyperlinks. It also helps us humans get quickly to where we want to go.
Last year I advised an accountant at Snelleman Tom that using Java meant that their website was impenetrable to searchers. I see they’ve made a new website with much better architecture and visibility. No need to thank me, that’s OK.