PageRank no longer important?...

I keep hearing people saying that Google’s Page Rank is no longer important and X or Y is much more important. I still believe that Page Rank is one of the most important factors in a site ranking well in the Google results. Firstly, Google still include a page rank on the Google navigation tool bar – ok this is not updated immediately but I would assume this is based on infrastructure and speed issues. Secondly...

‘Black-Hat’ SEO Techniques...

The following SEO techniques are known as ‘black-hat’ SEO and should be avoided by your web site. These techniques can sometimes provide very quick search engine result improvements, but over time are known to cause sites being banned and removed from indexes altogether. Hidden Text An old technique to increase keywords on a page was to include long lists of keywords and key phrases as hidden text on a page....

SEO Part 14 – Web Based Sitemap...

A site map enables search engines to easily find all content on the site by following all the links from the sitemap page(s) With the implementation of Google sitemaps, discussed in the ‘Google webmaster tools’ section there is no longer a huge need from a Google SEO point of view for a web based sitemap. For other search engines however it would be beneficial to have a few pages on the site that linked to...

SEO Part 13 – ‘Linkbait’ Content...

In the ‘Incoming Links’ section before it is described how incoming links to the site can great improve Page Rank and therefore pages ranking higher in the search engines. The section describes how to aim for links to your site and try to aim for keywords in link text. One of the best ways to attract incoming links is to publicise content that is commonly referred to as ‘link bait’. This content...

SEO Part 12 – Valid HTML and Accessibility...

The W3 World Wide Web Consortium publicise specifications for web based content and how it should be structured for consistent representation across different platforms and browsers. W3 also develop guidelines widely regarded as international standards for web accessibility – the web accessibility initiative (WAI). If web based content conforms to W3 standards for valid HTML, XHTML, CSS and WAI then that content...

SEO Part 11 – TITLE and ALT tags...

The HTML tags TITLE and ALT are used on text and image links respectively to give a description to the link or image. ALT tags are also used describe an image. The title tag is suggesting a title for the destination source. Both tags are displayed by different browsers in different ways and also auditory browsers can read the text aloud. TITLE Tags It has long been known that some of the search engines associate ranking...

SEO Part 10 – Internal Linking...

As discussed in the external links section above, links are one the main mechanisms by which search engines find new pages and determine the relevance and importance of pages. As with external linking to your site the internal links within a site play an important role in passing on pagerank and relevance. Firstly ensure you have a very clear structure on your site such as the following: It is important to consider...

SEO Part 9 – Google Webmaster Tools (Sitemap...

Google Webmaster Tools (formerly Google Sitemaps) is a development by Google allowing webmasters to easily provide Google with more information on what pages to index, when they have been updated and generally making a site more Google-friendly for indexing and listing within Google search results. A ‘Google sitemap’ is an XML based file which Google crawlers access on a frequent basis to check for new pages...

SEO Part 8 – Robots.txt...

A robots.txt is text file that resides on the root directory of the web server.  The purpose of this file is it to indicate to visiting robots and crawlers which parts of the underlying web site should be visited for the purpose of inclusion in a search engine. More information can be obtained on the following site: http://www.robotstxt.org/ In most cases you will want the search engines to access the site and crawl...

SEO Part 7 – Page Content...

In search engine terms ‘content is king’ and content for search engine spiders and crawlers is text. In Google’s webmaster help pages the following points are made in the content guidelines section. • Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content. - Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site...