Beginner-seo.com http://beginner-seo.com A simple guide to SEO Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:19:38 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Seo strategyhttp://beginner-seo.com/seo-strategy/ http://beginner-seo.com/seo-strategy/#comments Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:18:34 +0000 Seo beginner http://beginner-seo.com/?page_id=198 Continue reading →]]> What kind of strategy have you got for your website?

It’s a simple set of rules or  guidelines that you can follow. All search-engines work in similar ways so you can easely optimize you website for all search-engines all at once.

]]> http://beginner-seo.com/seo-strategy/feed/ 0 Seo search engine optimizationhttp://beginner-seo.com/seo-search-engine-optimization/ http://beginner-seo.com/seo-search-engine-optimization/#comments Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:28:14 +0000 Seo beginner http://beginner-seo.com/ Continue reading →]]> 10 very basic SEO tips. Simple and fast…

Follow the steps written below to start optimizing you website!

Step 1 – Domain name and page titles

It’s a good thing to have a clean, nice and relevant domain-name. Search engines take the name into account when showing search results. If you want visitors to find your site thru the search term “beginner seo” it can be a good idea to register the domain http://www.beginner-seo.com

Url

It’s also important that all pages of your website have a nice URLs. If a page is going to be called “Seo firms” then the url should be: http://beginner-seo.com/seo-firms/. Make sure to use your keywords in the URLs.

Page title

As a suggestion the page title can be Seo firms | Beginner-seo.com

Html:
<head>
<title>Seo firms | Beginner-seo.com</title>
</head>

CMS?

If your building you website in a CMS, like drupal, wordpress, magento, you can usually customize titles and urls so that they are nice and clean.

Do NOT use URLs like: www.beginner-seo.com?s=13245
Make sure your URLs are: www.beginner-seo.com/easy-seo/ (or similar)

Step 2 – Meta description

All of your pages should have unique descriptions. Try to write descriptive and interesting text that are relevant to the page. The Meta description should preferably be kept under 155 characters.

Meta description html:

<head>
<meta name=”description” content=”Here you should write your description” />
</head>

Make sure to include keywords in your description as well!

Step 3 – Site structure

A solid and simple structure is important. It has to be easy for spiders to crawl and yet very attractive and understandable to your visitors. A search engine reads you web page kind of like humans read. It starts at the top left, continues to read across and then moves down…

The most important thing you should consider is what you place near the top of your page.

Step 4 – Optimization with keywords

Now you need your list of important keywords. To simplify it a little: the content of your page should include the selected keywords. Do not overdo it!

The term keyword density refers to the percentage of your content that is made up of your targeted keywords. SEO-experts advice differently about keyword density. You can find suggested keyword density from about 4% to 12%.

I usually don’t think about it too much. If you write texts that includes your keywords but still are comfortable and nice to read for your visitors your text is probably going to have a nice keyword density.

Matt Cutts – Google about keyword density:


Step 5 – Internal links

If you want your website to get fully indexed you should make sure that all spiders have an easy path through you entire website. You can use both images and text links here. If you in your text for example describe how you should make internal links you should make the text a link. In this case I set the links to “Step 5 – Internal links”  with the title attribute saying: Learn how to do internal linking.

It’s easy if you think in a visitors point of view. Maybe you read something on your website and all of a sudden a part of the text is a link advising you to read more about something else that is ALSO interesting. Usually you click on the link and read the text, which contains a link getting you to read more…

Step 6 – Speed of your website

This can be a tricky part but it’s both for the search engines AND the human visitors that it’s important to have a fast website.

It often varies a bit on different web-hostings but this can be hard to know beforehand. Other than this there are different things that matter:

Static html (asp, php…) pages or dynamic pages

Do you use dynamic pages with database connections (like mysql)? Static pages are faster. If you have a dynamic website you can usually find plugins that will cache your website into a static site.

Do you have clean code?

Try to keep your coding as nice and clean as possible!

The number of scripts (javascript etc.)

You can always try and speed up your website by placing your script tags at the bottom, before the closing </body> tag.

Size of images

Try to compress your images as much as possible.

Compress css and javascript files

There are usually plugins for this. If you use wordpress there is a plugin called minify for example.

Inline or external?

CSS and Javascript should always be removed from the page and placed in their own external files, if possible.

Step 7 – Html headings

Make sure to use HTML headings. Do not use them as a design technique, like making the text big or bold.

Headings are important for search engines and they use headings to determine both content and structure of you website. It’s also important for visitors as headings work like headlines.

  1. <h1>Main heading</h1>
  2. <h2>Less important heading</h2>
  3. <h3>Even less important heading</h3>
  4. <h4>And so on…</h4>

Step 8 – Sitemaps, xml and html

Create sitemaps. They make it easier for spiders to search your website. Make sure to have both xml and html-sitemaps.

This is a site where you can create you xml-sitemap: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Step 9 – Images

Spiders can’t search images, only text. Make sure to include an “ALT” tag when you publish images. All images should have an “ALT” containing a description for the image. Use your keywords in the description.

It also matters what you name the file. For example: images-and-seo.jpg

The text around your images are also of value for search engines.

Step 10 – Test your website

Now you have done quite a lot to improve your websites ranking in search engines. Maybe you only have adjusted one or a few of the seo-tips suggested? Anyhow, I always recommend testing your site.

Human testing

Find one person (or several) who has never seen your website before. Ask them to find something specific on you site. Watch them look around and watch wich links they click on. Observe and talk to them. Make sure not to make too many suggestions but let them look around in peace. I usually ask someone quite inexperienced in computers and surfing the Internet (like my mother). You can usually learn a lot on these tests.

Testing SEO

I always test my site on website analysis tools. I would recommend Woorank. They test your page and lists all the thing that are good and bad about your search engine optimization. You can easily what you’ve done good and not…

Remember that it takes a while for Google and search engines to crawl your website and pick up possible changes. SEO is usually not a quick fix and you have to give it some time if you’d like to see your website climb in ranking.

Good luck!

]]> http://beginner-seo.com/seo-search-engine-optimization/feed/ 0 Step 10 – Test your websitehttp://beginner-seo.com/step-10-test-your-website/ http://beginner-seo.com/step-10-test-your-website/#comments Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:35:30 +0000 Seo beginner http://beginner-seo.com/?p=97 Continue reading →]]> Now you have done quite a lot to improve your websites ranking in search engines. Maybe you only have adjusted one or a few of the seo-tips suggested? Anyhow, I always recommend testing your site.

Human testing

Find one person (or several) who has never seen your website before. Ask them to find something specific on you site. Watch them look around and watch wich links they click on. Observe and talk to them. Make sure not to make too many suggestions but let them look around in peace. I usually ask someone quite inexperienced in computers and surfing the Internet (like my mother). You can usually learn a lot on these tests.

Testing SEO

I always test my site on website analysis tools. I would recommend Woorank. They test your page and lists all the thing that are good and bad about your search engine optimization. You can easily what you’ve done good and not…

Remember that it takes a while for Google and search engines to crawl your website and pick up possible changes. SEO is usually not a quick fix and you have to give it some time if you’d like to see your website climb in ranking.

Good luck!

]]> http://beginner-seo.com/step-10-test-your-website/feed/ 0 Step 9 – Imageshttp://beginner-seo.com/step-9-images/ http://beginner-seo.com/step-9-images/#comments Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:10:03 +0000 Seo beginner http://beginner-seo.com/?p=95 Continue reading →]]> Spiders can’t search images, only text. Make sure to include an “ALT” tag when you publish images. All images should have an “ALT” containing a description for the image. Use your keywords in the description.

It also matters what you name the file. For example: images-and-seo.jpg

The text around your images are also of value for search engines.

]]> http://beginner-seo.com/step-9-images/feed/ 0 Step 8 – Sitemaps, xml and htmlhttp://beginner-seo.com/step-8-sitemaps-xml-and-html/ http://beginner-seo.com/step-8-sitemaps-xml-and-html/#comments Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:09:09 +0000 Seo beginner http://beginner-seo.com/?p=93 Create sitemaps. They make it easier for spiders to search your website. Make sure to have both xml and html-sitemaps.

This is a site where you can create you xml-sitemap: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

]]> http://beginner-seo.com/step-8-sitemaps-xml-and-html/feed/ 0 Step 7 – Html headingshttp://beginner-seo.com/step-7-html-headings/ http://beginner-seo.com/step-7-html-headings/#comments Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:07:55 +0000 Seo beginner http://beginner-seo.com/?p=91 Continue reading →]]> Make sure to use HTML headings. Do not use them as a design technique, like making the text big or bold.

Headings are important for search engines and they use headings to determine both content and structure of you website. It’s also important for visitors as headings work like headlines.

  1. <h1>Main heading</h1>
  2. <h2>Less important heading</h2>
  3. <h3>Even less important heading</h3>
  4. <h4>And so on…</h4>
]]> http://beginner-seo.com/step-7-html-headings/feed/ 0 Step 6 – Speed of your websitehttp://beginner-seo.com/step-6-speed-of-your-website/ http://beginner-seo.com/step-6-speed-of-your-website/#comments Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:54:48 +0000 Seo beginner http://beginner-seo.com/?p=86 Continue reading →]]> This can be a tricky part but it’s both for the search engines AND the human visitors that it’s important to have a fast website.

It often varies a bit on different web-hostings but this can be hard to know beforehand. Other than this there are different things that matter:

Static html (asp, php…) pages or dynamic pages

Do you use dynamic pages with database connections (like mysql)? Static pages are faster. If you have a dynamic website you can usually find plugins that will cache your website into a static site.

Do you have clean code?

Try to keep your coding as nice and clean as possible!

The number of scripts (javascript etc.)

You can always try and speed up your website by placing your script tags at the bottom, before the closing </body> tag.

Size of images

Try to compress your images as much as possible.

Compress css and javascript files

There are usually plugins for this. If you use wordpress there is a plugin called minify for example.

Inline or external?

CSS and Javascript should always be removed from the page and placed in their own external files, if possible.

]]> http://beginner-seo.com/step-6-speed-of-your-website/feed/ 0 Step 5 – Internal linkshttp://beginner-seo.com/step-5-internal-links/ http://beginner-seo.com/step-5-internal-links/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:57:09 +0000 Seo beginner http://beginner-seo.com/?p=79 Continue reading →]]> If you want your website to get fully indexed you should make sure that all spiders have an easy path through you entire website. You can use both images and text links here. If you in your text for example describe how you should make internal links you should make the text a link. In this case I set the links to “Step 5 – Internal links”  with the title attribute saying: Learn how to do internal linking.

It’s easy if you think in a visitors point of view. Maybe you read something on your website and all of a sudden a part of the text is a link advising you to read more about something else that is ALSO interesting. Usually you click on the link and read the text, which contains a link getting you to read more…

]]> http://beginner-seo.com/step-5-internal-links/feed/ 0 Step 4 – Optimization with keywordshttp://beginner-seo.com/step-4-optimization-with-keywords/ http://beginner-seo.com/step-4-optimization-with-keywords/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:28:15 +0000 Seo beginner http://beginner-seo.com/?p=76 Continue reading →]]> Now you need your list of important keywords. To simplify it a little: the content of your page should include the selected keywords. Do not overdo it!

The term keyword density refers to the percentage of your content that is made up of your targeted keywords. SEO-experts advice differently about keyword density. You can find suggested keyword density from about 4% to 12%.

I usually don’t think about it too much. If you write texts that includes your keywords but still are comfortable and nice to read for your visitors your text is probably going to have a nice keyword density.

Matt Cutts – Google about keyword density:


]]> http://beginner-seo.com/step-4-optimization-with-keywords/feed/ 0 Step 3 – Site structurehttp://beginner-seo.com/step-3-site-structure/ http://beginner-seo.com/step-3-site-structure/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:06:30 +0000 Seo beginner http://beginner-seo.com/?p=74 Continue reading →]]> A solid and simple structure is important. It has to be easy for spiders to crawl and yet very attractive and understandable to your visitors. A search engine reads you web page kind of like humans read. It starts at the top left, continues to read across and then moves down…

The most important thing you should consider is what you place near the top of your page.

]]> http://beginner-seo.com/step-3-site-structure/feed/ 0