Here are some very basic things that ANY site should do, regardless of how aggressive your marketing is, or what your strategy is. Maybe you’re doing all of these things already, but most sites don’t. Here we go:


1. Make a site map.

This one sounds fairly obvious, but how many sites honestly have them? Your site should contain an XML site map for Google and Yahoo, as well as a “browser view” site map for humans. Aside from the search engine value, a site map is a great navigation asset for your visitors as well. I find myself frequently hitting a site map to quickly find something.

2. Clean up your HTML.

This one is pretty simple. Just because it looks good to us, doesn’t mean it looks good to googlebot. Clean html will ensure that spiders get your content, and crawl your entire site properly. I should emphasize, however that focusing too hard on how the bot views your page should never compromise what the viewer sees. After all, humans are still the target.

3. Vary your title tags and keyword them.

Title tags will not make or break you, like they did a few years ago. But the fact is, if you have 30 pages on your site, all with the same title tag, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Make sure they are all different, and reflect what’s on the page. For instance “ACME Inc - Contact us” on your contact page is much better than just Acme Inc on every page.

4. Keywords!

Like title tags, keyword density will no longer make you, but it may break you. Not enough keyword density does not equal complete failure. But too much keyword density will. Remember that part of Google’s algorithms involve natural speech patterns, and detection for spam. If you are using the same keyword 15% of the time in your article, it’s not natural speech. A good rule of thumb: Would you read your site’s copy out loud in front a group? If you would feel silly doing so, then why are you putting it on your website?

5. Proper Semantics.

How does your site flow? How are your headings? As a general rule, you should have 1 <h1> tag that outlines the primary purpose of the page. Then use <h2> and <h3> tags accordingly for subheadings. I’ll touch more on this later. For more reading on this, check out this article.

6. Don’t buy or sell links.

This is a hot topic right now. The last algorithm change ostensibly de-ranked sites that buy and sell links. Why would they care? You might ask. The answer is, its seen as manipulating rankings. Google does not want to rank the site that can afford to buy the most links, they want to rank the best sites. Critics say it’s because they want to push adwords more. There may be truth in that also, but either way don’t expect this rule to go away anytime soon.

7. Keep your content unique

This is fairly self explanatory. This also applies to web marketing in general, if you’re offering a commodity product, you can’t expect demand to be the same as it is for unique sites. Keep it as fresh and unique as possible.

8. Update Often.

Again, fairly simple concept. Update often. That’s the rule. Even if you choose not to have a blog on your site, upload photos, create event pages, special deals, etc. The more often a page is updated, the better it will rank in google. Stale sites tend to slip down to the bottom.

9. Keyword rich URLs and file names.

This may seem spammy at first, but as long as you don’t abuse it, it’s a good tactic. Name your page contact-acme.htm instead of just contact. Or even how-to-contact-acme.htm isn’t too much of a stretch. The customer rarely notices. Don’t go too crazy with this (ie. free-pictures-of-britney-spears-with-no-top-on.htm) because not only does it look tacky, it may raise flags.

10. Submit!

Submit your site everywhere! Technorati, delicious, digg, and other social bookmarking sites will bring in fresh new traffic. But also submit it to niche-specific directories if possible. You’d be surprised how many “sheetrock installer usa” type directories exist out there. This brings in new traffic, and creates inbound links.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the article. More to come later!

Categories: Search Engine Optimization
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