Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Tips & Tools

Okay, you want to optimise your website yourself. While the rules and boundaries are constantly changing, here are some SEO tips that have remained constant over the years - and some useful and proven SEO tools that make the optimisation job a lot easier (of course you could just hire me instead seo-services).

 

Standard Web Site Optimsation Techinques

There are standard rules when putting together a web page. These have stood the test of time, and are proven:

• Name your web pages using keywords. So for example, if your webpage promotes red widgets, name the page red-widgets.html (or php whatever).

• Use the same and related keywords in the:

  • Title tags - The text that you can read at the top of a browser.

  • Description metatags - This is the text that some search engines will use when they list your site in the search results. Make it exciting and enticing, using keywords and related keywords.

  • Heading tags - When you put together a web page, you can use heading tags, they look like <h1>; <h2>; <h3>. You should always be using heading tags on your pages, and incorporate your main keywords in to them.

  • Image file names - Try to have any images on your page named as keywords and related keyword.

• Use keyword links - Whenever you have links on your site, from one important page to another, use keywords as the link. For example, "Red widgets not for you, we also have blue widgets here".

• Use sitemap pages - Always have sitemap pages. An HTML one for site visitors, a Text one for Yahoo, an XML one for Google.

• Create a RSS feed - Making a RSS feed for your site is easy, and opens out a whole range of new sites to promote your site to.

These are some of the basic rules, rules that many successful websites always follow. There are other things to make certain you have, such as fast loading pages, clear navigation, content orientation ... but that would be spilling too many beans.

 

Search Engine Optimisation Tools

Following on from the SEO tips above:

Build a RSS feed for your website: RSS Feed Generator

Submit your RSS feed to free online RSS feed sites: RSS Feed Submitter

Build an XML sitemap for Google: XML Sitemap Generator

Check you standings with Google and the web: Website Rank Checker

Check your website loading times: Web Page Analyser

Check your website for correct markup code (HTML, XML etc): Markup Validation