Search Engine Optimization Tips And Tricks
December 7th, 2007, by Vittorio BosioAs we saw in a previous article, SEO consists of two main activities: on-site and off-site optimization. Today I am starting an article series that will give you tips and tricks on how to do on-site optimization, which is the easiest and least time consuming of the two.
Domain Name
If you don’t have a domain name yet, pick one that contains your main keyword.
The ideal would be to have a domain like “mainkeyword.com”, but it is going to be very hard to find it available nowadays. You can try with “yourmainkeyword.com” or “mainkeyword4you.com”, though.
People tend to trust (and remember) .com domains better. If you really can’t find the right fit in a .com, you can still go with a .net, if you want.
Having your main keyword in your domain name will help you because:
- websites with the main keyword in their domain name tend to perform better
- the keyword will be shown in bold in the search results, thus making your listing stand out
- since it is important to have your keyword in the anchor text (clickable text) of the links pointing to your website, a keyword-rich domain will help you even in those cases where people link to you with your domain as the link anchor text.
Do you already have a domain name? Even if it doesn’t contain your main keyword, you can still benefit from it. Google tends to like older domains, because it feels those are “real businesses”, that are there to stay. It is not uncommon to see remarkable ranking improvements with just some on-site optimization, in these cases. Just follow the tips I am about to give you.
Navigation
The technology you use for your website navigation has an impact on how many pages the search engine will index. Search engines can only follow standard html links.
If your website navigation is based on a flash animation, the search engines won’t be able to spider your pages. The same holds true for Javascript.
Page Names
It doesn’t matter the technology you use to create your pages. Google will index .htm, .asp, .php, .aspx pages and many other formats (including word documents and pdf files, for example).
The way you name your pages, though, can have an influence on your rankings. Having keywords in your page names can help you from an SEO perspective.
Instead of “yourwebsite.com/page.php?id=bluewidgets”, use something like “yourwebsite.com/blue-widgets.php”. Separate the words in the page name with a dash, so that Google knows where every word starts and ends.
More To Come
The list of on-page optimization tricks is not over. Wait for my next article to find out more. If you have any questions or comments on what you just read, please leave a comment below.
About the author: If you are interested in video tutorials and articles that can teach how to increase your web site traffic and build a list of targeted prospects for your business, you are going to like what Vittorio Bosio is saying on his blog: www.TechSavvyMarketer.com.
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December 7th, 2007 at 7:22 am
Nice issue!
I can recommend you use seodigger.com for keyword tracking, just trace your best competitors keywords and positions in SERP, they’ve done all the work allready :-). And try SeoQuake, seo toolbar. It can analyze anything you may need including keyword density on a page. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3036/ - for Firefox. seoquake.com - for IE.
December 10th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
And on the subject of Domain Name optimization, there’s a simple, but really effective tool called Nemeas (www.Nemeas.com).
Basically, if you have a list of possible domains and a keyword you’re looking to optimize for, it quickly takes your list and ranks each name based on a built in database of high and low ranking domains and URLs. Awesome for people who buy in bulk, or if you’re just looking to get started off on the right foot.
Looking forward to reading more.
December 10th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Hey guys,
thanks for your comments.
I found out recently about seodigger.com and love it. Instead of SeoQuake, I use SEO For Firefox, created by Aaron Wall. They are both excellent extensions.
I never heard of Nemeas before. Thanks for pointing that out!
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Great tips. Thanks for sharing. I need to find the subscribe button
January 7th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Hi,
I was going to write about Nemeas software but looks like there someone already pointed it out. It really is a effective tool for domain name optimization.
Thanks for the great tips in this issue (both parts).
On an ending note, I just loved your blogs. Its given me great tips for my own work (I am a freelance technical writer). Will definitely be back.
Have a great day.
February 17th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Excellent article.
I personally use IBP, that compares your pages with the first 10 in the serps giving you great hints on how to optimise a page, and SEO For Firefox, a really nice tool.
I will check out seodigger.com which I didn’t know. Thank you for pointing it out.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:58 am
Great advise, Will be back often and read more interesting thoughts.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Good article. We have noticed definate changes in the Serps when we optimize our page titles and descriptions. We still fight the jumbled _20_ characters in some of our interior page names but we are working on that. We have not used flash or java for a while now. It slows the site down and the spiders just dont like it.