In this weeks SEO video tutorial, Nick from the Creare Group explains how to best optimise your Google Places listing to try and improve the rate of impressions.

With the SEO industry expanding their are lots of companies that can offer their services, Creare included. Some websites perform better in search engines than others, this is often due to the sites architecture. Static pages, domain age, backward links and domain name can all help towards an SEO campaign. I have complied a list below of things that will set you in good shape for an SEO campaign as well as things that may mean that your website will need to be re-build from your search engine optimisation company.

Things to look for:

• ? marks in URL’s, This means that the page is a DB (database) query and can often restrict the performance of your site, Google and other major search engines do not rank these types of pages very highly. This can be fixed by converting them to permalinked (SEO friendly) extension. Most developers would provide this functionality, but otherwise it may have to be a rebuild.
• Automated Meta Data & Page Titles, If your site automatically generates Meta data via a CMS (content management system) it can often cause issues, Search engines will see them as unusable and not accurate. This can also be fixed via certain development techniques.
• Domain Age, if you have a brand new site and you want to optimise for a hugely competitive phrase you can often run the risk of the ‘sandbox‘. If Google thinks a site has been unnatural with its development and growth (i.e. an SEO company building pages and links) you can be removed from the search results. The older the domain the better, but nothing is impossible you just have to consider the time scales.
• Flash Websites, flash websites can look great but the content will not be correctly read by search engines, you firstly have to ensure that your flash website is coded properly and that google can find a text based version of your site, otherwise it will not find anything. Also flash websites are usually based on 1 page, meaning as far as Google can see your site has no depth or additional content.
• Frames, if you have a HTML site (not flash) and you browse through your site you can usually see the URL extension changing as you go, if it remains the root URL on everypage, the site has been set up using frames and the search engine will not be able to define your specified sitemap.
• Domain names, A keyword rich domain name is great, but a domain that is 100 characters long full of keywords isn’t.

There are many factors (white hat - web page content and global HTML tags, natural links) that can significantly help promote organic rankings with a website and there is of course many factors (black hat - spamming, link bombing, duplicate content, cloaking etc etc.) that will hinder your site. With poor optimisation and black hat techniques a site can even remain in a form of quarantine for weeks or even months (sandbox).

Therefore there is a need to make your site not only looks good and performs well for the visitor it also has to be search engine friendly. In the search for good factors that contribute to good SEO practise with search engine ranking algorithms (secret formula - that search engines use to determine results page and position ranking) the following list could be used.

1. HTML PAGE title. This is probably the most important factor in an internal SEO strategy. The unique HTML title is the first friendly port the ‘search engine robots’ (crawlers or spiders) analyze. Get this right and every individual page of your website will be indexed faster resulting in higher listing.
2. Visible HTML text on the page. Content, content and more content with quality keyword density (250 to 1000 words per page with 5% target keywords).
3. Inbound links. Good quality inbound links, the more the better (helps bring authority to the site, quality over quantity).
4. Anchor text that links text internally (on site) and externally (off site) directories, topical community and social book marking sites.
5. Age of Domain. The older the site the more authority or history it has.
6. Meta tags and image ALT tags (coding see * page source - download google toolbar for firefox) can also influence the ratings.

There are of course additional factors that can influence the rankings of a site. These factors would include careful analysis and specialist SEO strategy that use a variety of resources that take time and patience to implement.

For best results in SEO you must start with a cleanly coded website. The search engine spiders will find it easier to crawl and index your site if the code is clean.

There are other benefits of validating your code, these include:

• Cross browser compatibility
• Increased accessibility
• Faster loading times

You will probably find your site will start to climb the rankings once you ensure the site complies with the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) web standards. It is important to check each page validates, and every new page you add to your website should be checked.

Validate your code

Use the W3C HTML validator to check your HTML code. The vaildator will give you prompts to help you fix any bugs it finds.

Use the W3C CSS validator to check your CSS. Again, the validator will help you fix any problems it finds.

By making sure your site validates for both HTML and CSS you are ‘future-proofing’ your site, ensuring long term success.

As in previous posts, we are going to look at positive strategies for increasing traffic to your web site. In this brief article we will look at the areas of concern and the separate sections of your web site which need to be optimised.

* In site Optimisation
* External Backward Links
* RSS Feeds
* News Articles
* Forums

- In Site Optimisation -

1. This area covers internal key phrase rich links to pages within your web site, you should link key phrases to the page your working on, a related product page, external related sites and contact pages.
2. Headings are also important and should replicate you page title almost, Only one H1 tag on each site is also important.
3. Meta Tags (description, Keywords) should be individual for each optimised page and removed from un-optimised pages.
4. The content within you site is highly important and remember that ‘content is king’.
5. Layout out within sites is also very important, use div classes if possible and replace images with classes where possible.

- External Backward Links -

1. Create Key phrase rich backward links from your customers as you probably have control on the phrases returned more than ever.
2. Directory sites, whether this be in a general directory site or one specific to your industry.
3. Related sites - this could be a product manufacture that your company supplies, they usually have larger PR and will be glad to have a distribution center for their products linked on their site.

- RSS Feeds -

1. RSS feeds offer the chance for interested users to subscribe to the content that you post on your web site.
2. Also provides search engine friendly articles that can be traced back to your site.
3. Give the user something worth reading and they will read it, again content is king, if they like what they read then they will return time after time.

- Forums -

1. Forums are a great way of sharing industry news, with colleges and other industry buffs.
2. A way for starters in an industry to ask questions of the professionals and also gives a sense of realisum for the web site user, not just a robot.

Search Engine optimisation & search engine marketing by First Search SEO