20 Guidelines for Mastering SEO on Websites

by joepue on 2008-08-25 22:58:44

In the industry, there are many successful SEO practical cases that can help businesses run their websites and set up indexing and search methods in major search engines. Despite the fact that SEO practices continue to evolve with rapidly advancing technology, its fundamental concepts remain unchanged.

How do you judge whether the current site's adopted SEO optimization strategy is good or bad? Let’s start by answering some of the following questions:

— Are your keywords closely related to the content of your website?

— Are the keywords you have chosen commonly used terms in search engine queries?

— Does the page's title attribute begin with a keyword?

— Does your website use H1 heading tags for main content?

— Is the content of your website consistent throughout and rich in keywords?

— Do text links containing keywords lead users to your website?

— In your website's image navigation, do you use CSS images instead?

— Do the images on your website have descriptive captions, and are the keywords beneficial to users?

— Does your website have a text-based site map?

— Are dynamic URLs concise and converted into static address formats?

— Is your website listed in open directories?

— Have you listed your website in other trusted online directories?

— Do all pages of your site have sufficient keywords in meta tags?

— Does your website have custom error pages?

— Do filenames and directory names on your website include keywords?

— Can your website avoid using popup menus?

— Is the content presented to users and search engine crawlers consistent?

— Can your website avoid random linking?

If you answered yes to all or most of these questions, then your website meets most of the elements of SEO best practices. If you're unsure about some of them, you need to delve deeper into the following information.

There is no unified standard for measuring rarely used keywords or keyword groups. If you're uncertain about how to position your website's keywords, check your relevant logs or web analytics data, then determine which keywords can bring significant traffic to your website.

If you cannot access log files and search-related data, use tagged keywords to obtain some virtual data and see how search engines annotate your web pages. You might be surprised to discover which parts of your website content have been optimized. Most subscription-based keyword analysis tools offer free trial periods. You can use popular tools like WordTracker, KeywordDiscovery, and Yahoo's Keyword Selection Tool to compare popular keywords and decide which phrases can bring significant traffic to your search engine selection.

Although some individual words are very popular, based on the content of each webpage, it's still necessary to determine at least two to three phrases. Because most webpages indexed by mainstream search engines strive for first or second place rankings on SERP (Search Engine Results Pages), focusing on just one keyword has been forgotten. It has been proven that trying to win multiple user groups through a single keyword doesn't work. Of course, selecting keywords related to your business and website content remains effective. Fixed webpage text content should include at least two to three keywords, or even more depending on the industry. At the very least, enter 250 keywords into key directory pages.

Undoubtedly, the network structure plays an important role in website content indexing. Search engine technology has made great progress in indexing dynamic URLs, but static URL structures are easier to arrange. The application of Flash and AJAX technologies further enhances the functionality of search engines.

If you have a fully Flash-based website and have completely implemented links to visible text, then you should reconsider your conclusions. Use the Control-A function in the browser to view which texts on the page are valid, or use Zippy software for in-depth analysis to understand what special webpages or websites can achieve optimal search results.

Better keyword search rankings require better links. Obtaining better ranking navigation links is an art, and it is the constant goal of every website. If you follow common sense, once your website is ranked in search engines like DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, Gimpsy, JoeAnt, etc., you should continue to improve the level of navigation links, enhance vertical directories, local listing services, seek more business partners, etc.

By effectively implementing these 20 optimization strategies (or most of them) and avoiding basic mistakes, your website will stand out in mainstream search engines and achieve better search results.