Skip to main content

Advanced SEO Techniques

Advanced SEO Techniques

Alt attributes are a way to describe images to search spiders simply because
search spiders cannot see them. It is not only an opportunity to add more
content (with keywords) to your site, but it also helps your images to be
searchable on Google. For best results, all images should also have distinct
filenames.

Alt tags were originally designed to be displayed as an alternative text to
an image in cases when an image cannot be displayed in a browser. Also, alt
tags are displayed when users rest their mouse on the image.

2. Title Tags

A title tag describes an online document and has the most SEO power for
establishing keyword relevance on the page. The Title tag appears at the
very top of a browser or tab window, in search result pages, and external
websites.

At 59 characters or less (including spaces), the title tag should include a
few relevant keywords and a company or brand name. Important keywords should
be placed at the beginning of the title tag. It is recommended to avoid
using stop words such as "the," "is," "can," "and," "but," "while," "that,"
"we," etc. that have no keyword value.

3. Meta Descriptions

Meta tags give search spiders a summary of what the page is about. Meta
descriptions play an important role in search results and gaining users
click-through. Google sometimes uses this summary to display in search
result pages (SERPs) and highlights keywords relevant to the search query.

The optimal length of meta description is between 159 characters and should
include keywords that are relevant to the title tag and content. Consider
this an opportunity to advertise the content of your page to searchers.

Ideally, each page should be optimized around one main key phrase that
should be included in your title tag, meta description, and content.

4. Sitemap.xml

Google uses Sitemaps to learn about a website's structure, which allows a
better crawling of your site. Creating a Sitemap ensures that search spiders
know all the pages of your site that may not be discoverable through the
normal crawling process.

Sitemaps are also used to provide metadata about specific types of content
on your site such as video, images, mobile, and news. Sitemap.xml files
reside in the website main directory and have to be submitted to Google
using Google Webmaster Tools.

5. Robots.txt

In addition to Sitemaps, a robots.txt file is used to instruct search engine
robots about access to your site. Before accessing pages of a site, search
spiders check the robots.txt file to see if it restricts them from accessing
certain pages. You only need a robots.txt file if the directory of your site
includes content that you don't want search engines to index. The robots.txt
file resides in the main directory of your site.

6. Rich Snippets and Microdata

High ranking on the search engine result pages (SERPs) is no longer the only
problem to solve with website optimization. When searchers glimpse through
result pages they look for additional relevant information to their query
before they click-through. Rich snippets provide searchers with that
information and help them quickly decide if the content that exists on a web
page is relevant.

To implement rich snippets web developers have to add additional HTML markup
to a website. One of the most used markups is microdata. Using simple HTML
tag microdata allows you to indicate specific type of information: reviews,
people, products, businesses and organizations, recipes, events, music and
video content.

7. Code Restructuring

Though search algorithms have changed dramatically since their original
inception, search spiders still don't search deep into a site and don't
spend much time on any given page. With this in mind, code restructuring of
some pages is still a valid addition to any advanced SEO techniques. Web
developers restructure a page (without affecting a page layout) in a way
that places content higher in the code. This helps spiders quickly find
relevant information.

The above advanced SEO techniques will significantly improve your website's
online visibility, but that's not the limit of SEO optimization that can be
done to a website. A website can be further optimized for better usability
with accesskeys (use of keyboard shortcuts), tabindex (use of tab key to
navigate through a page), and web accessibility for people with
disabilities. It might sound like unnecessary optimization, but everything
that makes a website more human friendly is highly valued by search engines.

If you have any questions or comments please contact me.

Regards Gerald

Website: http://www.webcraft.ws
E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws
Twitter: WebcraftGuru
Facebook: Webcraft Guru


I'm protected by SpamBrave
http://www.spambrave.com/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Is Internet Website Content?

What Is Internet Website Content? Content is made up of multiple elements, and is primarily the; * On-page visible text * Images and image Alt text * Anchor text in hyperlinks to internal or external pages * Hyperlink titles in links and menus * The descriptive Title and Description meta-data In the context of Google, a picture is NOT worth a thousand words! Moreover, words must be accessible, not embedded in images or Flash movies, JavaScript, slide shows etc. In 15 years as an SEO consultant, if there's one common denominator evident on websites, it's that there is a profound reluctance to expend time, money, and creative energy on unique text content. Brevity is the watchword - economical use of words is encouraged by design, branding and marketing advisers! * The branding gurus want you to use the textual equivalent of sound bites - bullet points and short sentences! * The website designers want the entire content of the page to be above ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to Write Web Copy

Actionable tips for software developers writing web copy. Scan Web site visitors read websites very differently than they might read a book or a newspaper. Web visitors scan the text, rather than reading each and every word. As a result, the web copy should be designed to be easily scannable. That is not to say the copy should not be well written, but it should be broken into small "chunks" so that the visitor can easily scan it and take away the main idea. White Space Avoid dense copy. Copy should be broken into readable, digestible "chunks" and surrounded by a good amount of white space. Font Type Font size matters. Avoid using micro fonts. Studies have shown that the easiest type faces to read on the Internet are san serif fonts. Popular sans fonts include Helvetica, Avant Garde, and Arial. Popular serif fonts include Times Roman, Courier, and Palatino. Sans-serif fonts have become the de facto standard for "body" text on-screen, because monitors pr...
Post a Comment
Read more

The REAL Value of Keywords

An important question in SEO is how much intrinsic value resides in a specific keyword and, whether SEO has the potential to take everybody on a fool's errand? When it comes to bigger companies, for instance, can a massive SEO investment in trying to achieve top ranking for almost-generic, ultra-competitive keywords be worth all the disappointment and soul-searching? Surely, in so many cases, there has to be a better way? At the other end of the scale are smaller companies with a limited marketing budget, particularly in the business-to-business sphere. There is often a fine balance to achieve when it comes to investing in SEO for what can only be low-traffic keywords in niche sectors, even where higher gross margins per sale indicate otherwise. Realizing this, many companies will skip the on-line sales dance, or resign themselves to having a website that is little more than an 'on-line brochure' presence or a support mechanism for Pay-Per-Click or social media activities. ...
Post a Comment
Read more