SEO Stuff


Basic SEO Tips

I've been working as a SEO technician for a little over 6 months now. While some things I know need to remain trade secrets, there are some things that are well known which I use all of the time.

Meta Tags

Meta tags are pretty important, and they're simple to set up. The meta description needs to be a short, one sentance, readable, and non spammy basic description about a page. Stuffing it full of keywords doesn't help, but using a couple does.
I use this description for this page. It is simple, short, and to the point. I could make it longer by adding a key word or two (such as Search Engine Optimization) but I'm not aiming for people to find this page organically.
  • Example: <meta name="description" content="SEO stuff that I've learned." />
Another meta tag is the meta keywords tag. It doesn't hold much weight with Google, but Yahoo! and MSN will use it. So it's a good idea to put it in.
  • Example: <meta name="keywords" content="resume, online portfolio, c++, c#, java, code, source, .NET, programming, seo, search engine optimization" />
I use this on all my pages, it's best to have different ones for each page though. Also don't get too spammy with the words, adding in misspelled words, different combinations ("java applet" and "applet java"), and having a million keywords is not a good thing.

Titles

Titles are just as important, especially to Google. Use a keyword that accurately describes the page, then another sub-keyword. Again spamming the title tag doesn't look good.
  • Example <title>Search Engine Optimization - SEO</title>
  • Seperate the keywords with either a dash or a | pipe.

Naming your pages

Name your pages with accurate keywords, and use the - dash instead of the _ underscore. Google reads words spaced with an underscore as a specific keyword. For example "SEO_stuff" will only show results if someone types in "SEO stuff". It won't show up if someone types in "Stuff SEO". By using the - dash, you will show up in either search, or for just one of the keywords (even if it is hundreds of pages back in Google).

Get the word out

Spread links throughout the web to your webpage. Adding comments to your signature on forums for example is a good idea. This helps you get traffic, and also get indexed quicker.

Design for users first, and Google second

Google has more information on this, so I won't repeat them. You can find out more about SEO here.

Those are my basic tips, I know there are things I'm missing. Contact me if you need any help, or if you are interested in hiring me.