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...

Ranking 31st Position on Google...

I (RichyP) took part in an interesting discussion over on the searchenginewatch forums the other day: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?p=94871Â A web site owner was experiencing a ranking with Google that was always 31st position. It seemed whatever the search term the site always came in on page 4 of Google results. The main domain had a PR of 6 so I thought this was strange that they didn’t...

SEO Part 6 – H1 Tags & Keywords...

H1 heading tags have traditionally been used to identify the main heading on a page and therefore give an indication of the pages subject matter.  For this reason it is a good idea to try to include keywords for that page in a H1 heading title.

SEO Part 5 – Keywords in Meta Tags...

As with the browser title importance – the META tags should also include keywords and/or phrases. The following SEO related META tags are ones you should include in your HEAD tags. meta name=”Title” content=”…” meta name=”Description” content=”…” meta name=”Keywords” content=”…” meta name=”ROBOTS” content=”INDEX,FOLLOW” The...

SEO Part 4 – Directory Listings...

DMOZ The directory site DMOZ (http://www.dmoz.org) is the structure behind the Google directory (http://www.google.com.au/dirhp?hl=en). Sites listed within DMOZ generally obtain a higher pagerank (depends on category pagerank though) and are also looked upon favourably by Google as DMOZ is human edited for quality control. You should target DMOZ categories for links to your homepage and any important pages within your...

SEO Part 3 – Browser Titles...

The web browser title is the main identifier of the content on that page or website (if on a homepage). It is therefore important to get keywords or key phrases on the title and ensure that they are unique to that page. The more text used on the title the more diluted the description for that page becomes and therefore harder match against search term keywords. For underlying pages on your site it is beneficial to create...

SEO Part 2 – Incoming Links...

One of the biggest indicators of a popular site is how many incoming links it has. This serves as an indication that the site has value and so other webmasters and content creators have referenced it and linked to that site. External Link Text One very important factor is the text that external sites link to USC with. Search engines view this text as a factor on what the target page relates to. The more external...

SEO Part 1 – Keywords...

A list of keywords and phrases that is going to be targeted for SEO should be a number one priority. These keywords & phrases will then be what we you can judge the SEO effectiveness over time. The keywords should be typical words that a user is expected to type into a search engine and find your given website. The phrases should include the keywords and maybe only a few other words. In choosing keywords you should...