SEO Goofs
Posted by admin on February, 25th 2011Every now and then we see SEO mistakes from catastrophic errors to minor mishaps; here’s a list of goofs to look out for on your own site…
Robots.txt
The robots.txt file tells search engines which page not to bother crawling on your website (not that all of them will listen to it). Less widely used now it still has the potential to easily block off an entire website to ALL the search engines with just one mis-guided line of code! If you are going to create a robots.txt file then it’s best to steal one off another website that ... (Read more)
SEO Debate: Do English skills count as a ranking factor?
Posted by admin on January, 10th 2011
Do your English skills count as a ranking factor in SEO or is your general content more important?
Say you were building a brand new search engine, what are the advantages and disadvantages of checking and ranking for grammar and spelling?
Advantages of ranking well written content highly
- If grammar and spelling are correct the content is more likely to be of good quality
- No software would be required to correct spellings or grammar, it would be much quicker to process
- All keywords would be clear and a generic theme can be ... (Read more)
Keyword Optimisation – When to Quit
Posted by admin on October, 14th 2010When optimising a website some people aim for keywords with the largest amount of traffic which are usually the shortest and most generic keywords describing their target niche.
Whereas it would be nice to rank for the biggest keyword out there is it what you should really be focusing on? When should you quit and target smaller keywords?
Cost of SEO
Let’s say for example you sold “Used Cars” on your website and you plan to be number 1 for the massive keyword “Cars”. There are hundreds of other websites targeting the keyword “Cars”, some with literally millions of backlinks, millions ... (Read more)
How Clean HTML Code Effects SEO
Posted by admin on August, 9th 2010
How clean is your HTML coding? Place your link into the W3C Validator right now to check…
If you have passed the W3C validation then well done! If you have failed then perhaps you don’t need to worry as much as you think… keep reading.
Let’s look at the number of validation errors for the top 10 results in Bing for the keyword “slippers”, we have no experience in “slipper” websites so it will be an un-biased keyword. Also included is Google’s top 10 results for “lava ... (Read more)
Read moreDifferent spellings of the same keywords
Posted by admin on July, 29th 2010
How many different ways can you use the word “Amaze”? You could have “Amaze”, “Amazed”, “Amazing” and “Amazes”.
Do any of your main keywords have alternative spellings? If you sold “fridges” online for example then “refrigerators” would be an example.
Missing out on alternative spellings of your main keyword could lower your traffic levels. On-site SEO should include the main variations of keywords; Google seems to count the multiples of words as the same word so for example “tent” would be counted equally as “tents”. Major differences such as “camp” and “camping” will not be ... (Read more)
Read moreTwitter as an SEO tool
Posted by admin on July, 27th 2010
People are tweeting at an exponential rate and Google now indexes Twitter in real time using it’s new Google Caffeine software.
Twitter comprises of short messages that are under 150 characters long, any big gossip, news or viral gets ‘tweeted’ by thousands and quickly spreads across the globe. Twitter is mostly used for self-promotion due to the fact that you can stick advertisements and links directly into the feeds of people that follow you.
Twitter can be used as an SEO tool, but beware, some SEO companies are using Twitter alone for SEO which ... (Read more)
Read morerobots.txt – What not to do
Posted by admin on July, 16th 2010
Warning – the “robots.txt” file can destroy whole website’s search rankings!
The “robots.txt” file is a small text file on a website’s main root that tells search engine spiders how to interact with the site. Our “robots.txt” file allows any search engine spider (from Google, Bing, AOL, Yahoo etc.) to crawl every webpage of our site and use the pages in the search engine results. Also the file importantly tells spiders where to find a website’s XML Sitemap; this is a list of all the URL’s on a site and makes sure ... (Read more)
Read moreRemoving Future Risk in SEO
Posted by admin on July, 15th 2010
Google shifts and changes it’s search engine algorithm on a daily basis, most changes are minute but now and then upto 10% of websites see massive changes in their rankings and some businesses are crippled by it. Some people get understandably very angry if they lose 90% of their traffic whereas others say they deserved the punishment by Google due to borderline SEO and copyright practices.
Without really going hard on SEO it’s impossible to achieve number 1 rankings without an amazing (and usually expensive) PR or viral effort. You can be too ... (Read more)
Read moreUsing Synonyms for SEO
Posted by admin on July, 12th 2010
When thinking about the main keywords you want to aim for with SEO you should also consider synonyms.
Synonyms are words that relate to other words; these related words can sometimes be inter-changeable. Google loves related content but can spot an obviously keyword stuffed webpage which keeps mentioning the same word again and again and again in an un-natural fashion.
You can use synonyms to make sure a webpage is targeted around your main keyword without flagging up the page for any spam reports.
Firstly open up a Thesaurus and enter your ... (Read more)
Read moreThe Perils of Forums
Posted by admin on June, 30th 2010
Forums can be an amazing source of traffic whether it be a forum about saving money or a forum about drift cars. These two examples get many thousands of people discussing subjects and things they are passionate about which means the site has many repeat visitors and can make a lot of money from advertising.
Forums can also be a curse on a website when members start chatting about un-related subjects. Too much chitter-chatter on the latest news or gossip starts mixing up the subject matter on a forum, ... (Read more)
Read more