SEO Techniques

Clients often ask about SEO linking services and other SEO techniques.

Search Engines don't want to be scammed and have their results show irrelevant data, so they are known for changing their algorithms to prevent this from happening. This means it is hard or nearly impossible to know for 100% certain what will up your rankings.

This is a good thing. Imagine how useful you would find search engines to be if your searches for "clove oranges" resulted in listings for adult-themed chocolate molds.

There are, however, some things that are valuable for search engine optimization and will remain so. First, as with filmmaking, storytelling, journalism, and anything else: CONTENT IS KING.

I've written about some other best practices below. Hopefully this is helpful as you write your content. Feel free to use the comments below to ask questions and/or add your own tips!

Best Practices in Markup

Alt Tags in Images:

Images should always have an ALT tag. Alt tags:
- tell search engines about the content of the image
- replace broken images with text if image is unavailable
- are what screen readers use

If the image is a spacer graphic, the alt tag should be an empty space:
alt=" "

Example use of alt tag in markup:
<img src="URL-of-image" alt="the alternate language with info about image content" />

If your image is actually being used as a header for content, wrap it in header tags (see more detail below), like so:
<h2><img src="URL-of-image" alt="the alternate language with info about image content" /></h2>

Headers:

Headers are a way of subdividing content visually. They also carry a lot of weight with search engine optimization.

Header tags block out text as titles (or headers). General header use goes to H6 (header level 6), while main titles on a page are usually H1 (header level 1).

H1 is given twice as much importance in rankings as H2, which is twice as important as H3, and on down the chain until you get to your actual copy (which is in paragraphs and divs).

Note that on this page, the main title "SEO Techniques" is an H1, the secondary headers such as "Best Practices in Markup" are H2, and the smaller titles such as "Alt Tags in Images" are H3.

Examples:
<h2>A title of super-importance</h2>
<h4>A title of 1/4 the importance of h2</h4>

Your Actual Copy

First, your copy must be natural. If you are trying to trick the search engines, you'll probably eventually be penalized.

That said, when you write your copy, think about how you want to be found and categorized. If "Wedding photographer" and "journalistic" are super important to you and how you want to be found, those words should occur as often as possible in your content (without becoming weird writing). They should begin sentences when possible, and on occasion, they should even begin paragraphs!

The most important words should also be properly used in header tags (see above).

You should place your keywords into the copy on the relevant pages only. For example, my site has pages about photography, pages about web development, and pages about Drupal. "Wedding photographer" is a word I would prioritize on the photography pages, where "standards compliance" is a phrase I would prioritize on the web development pages. Don't try to prioritize irrelevant keywords on pages where they don't belong - you'll water down your efforts.

Your Domain Name & Other Practical Things

Domain Registration:

The length of time for which your domain is registered may actually make a difference. Common wisdom says that a domain name registered for five or more years will rank higher than one registered for one or two, as the search engines know that a commitment to longevity has been made on the domain, and therefore the site is more legitimate.

Standards Compliance:

Standards Compliance will help to improve your ranking because a lot of the markup indicators used by Search Engines are the same indicators used by screen readers. If the content on the site is properly broken down and correctly represented, it has a better shot at being found properly as well.

Outside Links To You

An important part of search engine ranking is who links to you, the language of those links, the quality of those links, and how often those links are clicked.

SunRain does not recommend that you pay for a link service. These will not be quality links. Reach out to sites/groups/etc. on your own that can logically link to you, where the link will be of quality.

It's unclear at this time if this is true, but it appears that false or poor quality links will actually hurt your rankings, not help.

If your site is linked to from Salon.com, and 100 people click on that link and end up on your site, but leave your site immediately because they aren't interested (called "bounce"), then you are more likely to be penalized for those clicks than rewarded, therefore dropping your site relevance and rank. You are much better off getting 10 hits from users who stick around on your site than 100 hits from users who bounce.

So, links should go where users who click them will actually want to stick around.

Additionally, the status and overall rank of the site that links to you is relevant to how much it helps your rank. A link from www.nytimes.com will have a lot more impact than a link from www.rainbreaw.com.

Finally, the language of the link is important. If you want to be found by "Glendale Drupal Developer," then links to your site saying "Web Developer based in Los Angeles" won't be as effective as "Drupal Developer based in Glendale." The order of the words may have an impact as well.

Twitter

Keep tweets small, simple and reliable, and employ your keywords in smart ways where applicable.

Your goals here:
- establish a personality
- establish a history/reliability
- give people a reason to follow you

Additionally, for now, don't tweet too often (more than once or twice a day) or people may stop following you!

An example tweet:

Websitename post of the day: Everything takes longer than we want it to, but if you keep persisting, eventually you'll succeed.

Additional things to use:

If you see a tweet from someone that fits your tone, it is wise to re-tweet. This fosters good-will and encourages the individuals you re-tweet to get others to follow you.  A re-tweet might be something like this: 

RT @rainbreaw Inspirational quote from Mark Twain: "You cannot depend on your eyes if your imagination is out of focus."

There is also something called a hash-tag, which categorizes your tweets. These are good to use because some people have specific interests and use hash-tags to get all tweets related to that interest.  For example, during the fires, people who were tweeting information about the fires used the following hash tags:

#glendale #stationfire

Here is an example tweet that uses hash tags and references other tweeters (from @sunrainprods during drupalcamp):

#drupalchix conversation highlights audio file available http://bit.ly/TTmPr @ladrupal @ccg @brenda003 @nbluto @lauras #foss #dxla #women

Hash Tags are the best way to get your keywords represented in your tweets.

So, tweeting can be quite simple and effective with just three things:

1. tweet
2. re-tweet where it makes sense
3. use hash tags to categorize where it makes sense

Don't tweet things that don't make sense for your twitter personality (e.g. a non-profit raising money for cancer research wouldn't want to tweet "can't wait to see the abs everyone's talking about in New Moon" or "the woman at the grocery counter was hogging all the space").  Remain consistent, reliable, and give people a reason to follow you.

Link to actual online pages, not to PDFs or other downloadable materials. Visitors may shy away from clicking on your tweet links if they are sent to PDFs / downloadable items, as malware is usually passed through downloads.