Seo tips

1: Title

This might seem a simple one, but make sure your site has a <title> tag. This tag should be a good descriptive title for the actual page and not the site as a whole. It should include keywords for that page, be unique and should not be longer than 70 characters.

2: Description

The description should not just describe the page, it should also sell the page. When scanning through search results this is one of the firsts introductions a vistor will have to you and your site. This should again include all keywords, be unique for each page and be no longer than 155 characters.

<meta name="description" content="">

3: Hierarchy

If you have already built your site then the hierarcy should already be ok. The main page title should be in a <h1> (not the name of the site, the name of the page), then all sub headings in <h2>, sub sub headings in <h3> etc. Search engines take all of these into account when looking for the important items on thr page.

4: Author / Publisher

Google is the number one search engine, but Google+ is not the number one social network. Although Google+ is the social network that you and your company needs to be on. Adding an author and publisher link within the head of the page will allow Google to tie the page of you site to a Google+ account. This allows author and publisher information and avatars from the Google+ profile to be displayed in search results.

<link rel="author" href="https://plus.google.com/112785318169610930599">
<link rel="publisher" href="http://plus.google.com/105559728573291365462">

5: Microdata

There are a few different formats for meta data such as microformats and RDF, although the one that Google likes best is microdata. With microdata you can define an organisation, a person, a product and more. Items such as dates, reviews and job titles can be highlighted in search results. More info about microdata

6: Internal links

Internal links linking to your pages is often just as important as external linkign to your pages. All pages indexed on Google have a page rank, this page rank is offered to each link on the page that doesn't have rel="nofollow". Therefore if you have links to your own pages, then they will get some of this "link juice".

7: Sitemap

A sitemap is a file in XML format that tells the search engines all of the pages on your site, their priority and how often they get updated. This can then be submitted to the search engines, usually through the webmaster tools interface.

8: Duplicate data and canonical link

Pages with duplicate content is one of the worst things for your site from an SEO point of view. There fore each page should only have one domain pointing to it and one URL. If a page has an old and a new URL a 301 redirect should be put in place to tell the search engine that it's moved.

To inform the search engine of the URL that you wish to use for a page, a canonical like can be added within the HEAD. Then if the search engine finds the page but ewith a different URL or query string appended, it will know with URL it should be using.

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.millwoodonline.co.uk/blog/how-to-seo-10-top-tips" />

9: Webmaster tools

Google, Bing and some of the other search engines have a webmaster tools interface to allow you to see information about your site. Who links to it, what search terms return your site, where they rank in the index and any possible issues with indexing your site. Sign up for these services and keep an eye on it.

10: Write great content

Even with all of these other tip, the most important is the content. The content should not be jammed with keywords, but should have enough that the search engines can pick them up, whilst still allowing the content to be readable. Also, the better your content is, the more Likely great sites will link to you and flow over some of their link juice.