[SEO] What should I be reading?

Conrad11

Conrad11

Conrad11

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Joined
12 Jun 2005
Posts
5,361
Hi there,

I want to learn about SEO and how to make my sites, good for all the bots to search and have the best possible chance of getting high listings, for instance on Google, the main Search engine.

I did a quick search on OCUK first and came across the following threads, which I am going to read:

SEO Optimisation Sticky
Anchor Titles - Still don't really understand what and where this is?
Spelling of Keywords
For Comedy? - Beansprout, any reason it links to disney?
Tags - Are <h1> and <h2> tags that important?

All those being good an all, I would like some more information on how to actually structure the site...TAGS...complience, meta tags?, key words?....links?

Also would like some extra SEO tips which help the site get listed higher. I have heard something about robots.txt (no idea what this is). Information on actually submitting the sites?

Does anyone have any good articles they suggest?

Thanks...
 
One tip:

Content is king.

It doesn't matter how many good links you have, it doesn't matter how well your pages are marked up. If your content is weak and irrelevant, you will not succeed well in SEO.

Content is what drives a site, make sure you fill yours to the brim with useful, well written and relevant copy.
 
iCraig said:
Content is what drives a site, make sure you fill yours to the brim with useful, well written and relevant copy.
Click to expand...

So do you have any tips for this. Include lots of keywords, that would be typed into the search engine? Should you give images keyword names?
 
Conrad11 said:
All those being good an all, I would like some more information on how to actually structure the site...TAGS...complience, meta tags?, key words?....links?

Also would like some extra SEO tips which help the site get listed higher. I have heard something about robots.txt (no idea what this is). Information on actually submitting the sites?
Click to expand...
Just make sure you structure your code semantically. Separate content from style, keep non-contextual images out of your HTML, give anchor tags and contextual images relevant titles and alternative text. Use correct headers, lay content out in paragraphs, and lists of items (navigation, for instance) as (un)ordered lists.

There is no real secret to SEO optimization. You can mess around with robots.txt and spam links to your site all over the shop all day, but at the end of the day it's writing clean code and useful content which matters. Whatever you do, don't buy into the rubbish about hiding blocks of keywords all over your website and stuff.

In the great words of Summer Redstone, "content is king" :)
 
Conrad11 said:
So do you have any tips for this. Include lots of keywords, that would be typed into the search engine? Should you give images keyword names?
Click to expand...

Write your content properly. For example on a page that explains what your company does. Write in well structured English what it is exactly that you do. Include relevant key words and make sure your copy has hierarchy in it's presentation.

Titles, headers, sub-headings and paragraphs allow you to show the search engines (and your readers) how your document flows.
 
 
just some tips in no particular order:

no point having keywords that are not mentioned anywhere on your page - write your page first then write your keywords around them. OR make sure you set out to write good quality english text that contain your keywords without becoming spam.

Google (is there any other search engine...?! :) ) likes you to have links back to your page from other relevent pages. For example, a link back from Disney.com to your site would be worth more if your site sells plush toys and mickey mouse ears than lowriders and gangster rims. Granted, its very hard to get high quality sites to link back to newbie sites.

Be patient, search engines take ages to list you relevently.

Put a site map link on your primary index page, which will help google et al know what order your site is supposed to be in.

Link back every page to your home page, which will help boost PR.

Hope they help!
 
MossyUK said:
Link back every page to your home page, which will help boost PR.
Click to expand...
Aha, the so called "fan" theme. Tt's not just an SEO concept...it's a common sense web design and usability factor :)

Talking of SEs...this page makes for some really geeky (if not terribly useful in the real world) reading about search engine spiders and their habits :)
 
I'd still use meta tags. They're still used, even if they're not immediately apparently useful. Gives the SEs something to say about your site if they don't know what else to show :)
 
It doesn't matter if I have all pages on includes via one page with a switch (PHP) right? As the php outputs HTML which is read by the spiders?

What i mean is, is it at any disadvantage, from an SEO point of view, to have something like this to display all the pages:

Code: 
<?php

if(!empty($_GET['p'])){
	$page = preg_replace('/\W/si', '', $_GET['p']);
	include('./'.$p.'.php');
}else{
	include('./main.php');
}

?>
 
Search engines should see and index pages with differing parameters each as individual pages, yes.

But the whole 'one huge file which I then use to include things based on a parameter' is a method I really dislike...if you must do that on the backend, mod_rewrite it to make it pretty to the user :)
 
Ah ok cheers.

Another question:

Do SiteMaps help with SEO at all? If so do you have an article which shows how to create a good site map and what should be included.

Does anyone know what Google SiteMaps actually does? and if it helps.
 
if you have dynamic content (php or asp) then sitemap is really useful. and also , if you have javascript or flash menus.

you just have to setout a new page, linked from the homepage, which includes html links to all your major content pages.
 
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