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 lamp” and Yahoo’s top 10 results for “ice cream”:

Number of validation errors for top 10 ranking websites

There are no significant results from this small sample, if W3C validation were a ranking factor then it may only be a very small one.  This applies to all the major search engines, Matt Cutts from Google said in one of his Youtube videos that validation was a slippery slope for providing the best search results from content.

If validation were a big ranking factor then many small websites would be at a dis-advantage as they are usually created by people with little knowledge of HTML.  If you were searching for “the perfect way to sew on a button” for example then you may not find the golden advice displayed on sewing blog for example.

Also the world’s programmers would have a constant worry that their site didn’t validate, imagine the amount of man hours wasted worldwide every day if validation were a ranking factor!

The job of the web browser is to spot missing tags and try and re-build the website from what’s left intelligently.  Most coding errors don’t show up when viewed in advanced web browsers such as FireFox, Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Too much badly written code can confuse web spiders though, this is why it’s best to veer away from multi-table design sites in HTML as one missing </tr> tag can ruin an entire site.  Using content managed systems such as WordPress or Joomla means that it’s near impossible to break the site layout which is why we recommend it for any client.

So the overall line is that clean HTML code does little (if nothing) to effect your search engine position; if your website looks alright in all the major browsers then it’s probably alright and you can concentrate on optimising it whilst adding valuable content.

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 considered as the same keyword as the words could have different meanings, “camp” could be used to describe a personality trait for example.

If you sold “fridges” online then you may miss out on all the people who type in the word “refrigerator” into the search engines if that word never appears on your site.  Regular blogging usually solves the problem with different spellings, if you keep writing about your website’s main subject then you’ll eventually hit on all sorts of keywords that you may have missed with 4-5 static sales pages.

The main page of your website is usually the one that has the most Page Rank and therefor appears in Google’s search results more often.  Make sure your main keywords appear at least 2-3 times on the main page with all the different variations of spellings to make sure you get every bit of traffic possible!

Unfortunately many spell checks and coding practices prefer American English instead of UK English.  If you run an international site then it may be best to use both American and English spellings of words, for example “optimized” and “optimised” are two different spellings of the same word.  If your site is UK only then please stick to the English spellings, not only does it look more professional to readers, Google’s language centers may add a little more SEO power on the site for UK searches.

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 isn’t right.  For starters you can only get NoFollow links from Twitter which don’t pass hardly any SEO power to the sites linked to.

When you create a post on your blog then tweet about it, you’d be surprised how many people search twitter for the latest tips or information and may find your blog.  Here at Real Web SEO we tweet every blog we make – take a look at our twitter profile here.  Choosing the best text to add next to you blog link is crucial, a boring title could never get clicked on whereas an exciting title like for example “10 ways to instantly make you life more exciting” may get hundreds of clicks!

So don’t use Twitter for the search engines, use it to drive traffic to your unique content.  It’s a social tool and if you have a creative skill then you could reach out to people worldwide with your talent.

Following people in your niche is the way forward too, about 30% of the people you follow will follow you back and they will see whenever you announce anything within their feed.  If you convince people in your niche to follow you then they may be truly interested in your latest project or news, what a wonderful PR tool Twitter can be!

The website TweetMeMe show you how many people have tweeted with a link to your website, it has a great plugin for WordPress and quickly shows you which posts you created have got picked up by the general public.  Real Web SEO’s record is currently 18 re-tweets, and our average post receives around 4 natural links from external sources.

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 no page is missed out when added to search engine indexes.  The XML Sitemap also notifies search engines of any new webpages that have been created, if you have a WordPress blog then make sure you have an XML Sitemap generator plugin installed on your blog for this purpose.

Another feature of robots.txt is to tell search engine spiders which pages to ignore, or at least skip out in the search engine results.  This is the same as adding the “NOINDEX” attribute in a meta tag.  Examples of using this could be on duplicate pages, pages with sensitive information such as names/addresses or sales pages full of repeated keywords.

Unfortunately it’s rather easy to set robots.txt to not index the entire website!
Just changing the line of code “Disallow:” to “Disallow: /” is all it takes to bring a whole website out of Google and all the other search engines.  This effect takes about 1-2 weeks but it has devastated many sites in the past, sometimes even deliberately.

WordPress blogs also have a habit of setting the NOINDEX attribute on sometimes when installed.  Check that WordPress isn’t blocking your website from search engines by going into the settings pictured:

If you don’t know what to do with a robots.txt file then it’s best to leave it altogether, Googlebot and other search engine spiders will happily go through the whole site if they don’t find it.  You cannot ensure that no web spider will crawl every single page of your website even when it’s completely blocked by robots.txt, if you have information that you do not wish to be seen then use passwords or don’t publish it at all!

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 scared of Google’s changes and never reach the extremely lucrative top positions so what’s the best option?

Here at Real Web SEO we do a mixture of SEO techniques, some slightly risky, some safe and back it all up with great unique content on a website’s blog.  If Google shift the goal posts and say that current SEO techniques are bad for it’s rankings you can remove that risk by doing safe techniques alongside the current work such as participating in social networks.

Again it’s the analogy of putting all your eggs into one basket, if you just do one SEO technique that currently works well you could find yourself in a sticky situation if it all goes to pot!

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 main keyword, you should hopefully get a bunch of synonyms this way.

For example:

Let’s say my main keyword is “waterproof“.  Synonyms would include “air tight”, “impermeable”, “impervious”, “rainproof”, “sealed”, “tight” and  “watertight”.  So instead of repeatedly mentioning “waterproof trousers” for instance I could say “rainproof trousers”, “sealed trousers” or even “rainproof trousers” to mix up the keywords a little whilst keeping things relevant!

So increasing your vocabulary can help a lot with content writing for SEO.  Writing content can be a chore but the results speak for themselves; you can also gain more traffic through the variations of your main keyword which is another little bonus too.

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, if the forum’s main subject was “fishing” and all people talked about was the latest World Cup news then the forum is neither fully fishing related or fully football related and this will damage SEO.

If you’re whole website is based on one subject then it’ll rank well for that subject, if it’s based on two or more unrelated subjects then it’ll rank badly for each one

So how can you get around this potential nightmare, you cannot ban your forum users from talking rubbish!?

The answer is to put your forum on a subdomain such as http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com instead of within a folder such as http://www.driftworks.com/forum/.  A subdomain (the part before the domain name) is considered as a completely different website to search engines so it’s a perfect place to put un-related content.  Subdomains are used on large sites for different languages, mail servers and apps, make sure to use one on your forum but NOT on your blog, that should be all about your main niche and will help your SEO effort no end.

Millions of people everyday on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask are all looking for answers to their questions.

If you know the answer to a simple question then try searching for it on Google, if nothing appears then you have a free traffic source which you can utilise!

Let’s say for example you were selling umbrellas on your website and you found an ingenious way to dry off a wet umbrella.  Think about what people would type into Google if they wanted to know the best way to dry off an umbrella, usually the simplest query would get the most searches perhaps “how to dry a wet umbrella” would be ideal.

Type the question into Google and see the number of results that come up: currently no-one has this phrase in a meta title or header (click to see)

If this question was placed within a page’s main header tag (H1) or was used as a blog post title then it’ll certainly appear highly in Google when searched for, this could bring in anything from 1 – 1000 extra visits per month depending on how many people search for the question.

Don’t be put off if many people have answered your question already, as your SEO efforts increase over time your site could surpass the competition.  The main aim is to make your site useful and targeted on your chosen subject, if visitors spend a long time reading your material then it’s another SEO boost (Google looks at the average time spent on a page and it’s a small ranking factor).

Juno Web Design are expanding and are looking for a PHP Developer based in Nottingham.

They are looking for a solid PHP developer that has a portfolio of his/her skill-set. The Juno team will train the candidate with insider knowledge of WordPress and Magento systems which are mainly used on ecommerce sites.

Two PHP developers will pass on skills on knowledge to the candidate so progression in the industry is guaranteed and currently Juno is a booming business.

If this is you then call Juno on 0115 9418122 or email your CV to info@junomedia.co.uk

Blogging is one of the best tools for your website as it makes your website look like it has fresh content and lots of internal linking to Google.  If you are blogging on a free WordPress or Google’s Blogger blog then STOP, you want all that content you’re writing to boost your own website not theirs!

Once you have your own blog on your own website then each time you create a new blog post you could instantly create many valuable backlinks pointing to your website.

Every blog creates a list of all the posts it’s ever made which is called an ‘RSS Feed‘.  You can submit these feeds into many other sites and social networks and they will display all of your blog posts as soon as they’re published.  Since there are 100′s of RSS submission sites and 100′s of social network sites just imagine how widely spread your blog could become!!

To find the link to your blog’s RSS feed you need to look for the orange symbol (shown at the top of the page) or look for a link with the word “feed” on your WordPress blog.

If your blog is worth shouting about then spread it across the world in seconds using your RSS Feed!!