SEO Advice

I was asked the other day for advice for a new web site trying to get established in the search engines. I thought I would share them with you as I think they are valuable for all new web sites:

Focus on great content, less on useability
Don’t get me wrong, useability is important but great web sites that are popular with users and search engines alike are usually because they have good content. You can always tweak and enhance useability later on. Initially, you won’t have many visitors or traffic so it will be important to build out your site with as much targetted keyword content as possible.

Simple and clean, no fancy graphics
Keep the site clean and simple, use the kiss principle. Most successful sites on the web have a simple and clean design.

Lots of internal links
Make sure your web pages are well linked internally; you want to make it as easy as possible for spiders to crawl your web site. As well, a well internally linked web site has a better chance of registering its own pages as backlinks. Make sure you have a site map that includes a link to every page on your site. If you can, link to every single page from each page within your web site.

Register your domain for several years
Not only does an extended registration length protect your brand and identity but its also a positive sign from Google that you are serious about your web site and can improve your Pagerank.

Bribe a webmaster to link to your site who has related content with a good PR (pagerank) and backlinks
OK, we are not actually condoning bribery, but simply making a point (tongue in cheek) that having an established site point to your web site is so important. The link will be followed by all the big search engine spiders and start to index your web site without having to manually add your url to their index. As well, it will count as a vote or the linking web site vouching for your new site and give you some instant credibility.

Remember, making a good site that is ranked well and gets search engine traffic is not easy and doesn’t happen over night. Keep adding great content and continue working at it day in and day out and it will eventually pay off.