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Step 1 : How to SEO your domain name
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What
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Your domain name is something like www.nameyouchoose.com
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How & Why
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If
you haven't registered a domain yet look for one that contains at least one
of the keywords you want to rank for.
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Avoid Exact match domain names.
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If
you already have a website established consider skipping this, it's only for
an ideal world.
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Example
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www.bicyclesmytown.com
is better than www.franksbicycles.com
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More
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Step 2 : How to SEO your URLs
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What
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A URL might be something like
www.yoursite.com/thepageiwanttorank.html. The part we are talking about
is thepageiwanttorank.html.
In WordPress it is known as the 'permalink'.
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How & Why
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Your
purpose is to help search engines understand the content of the page because
they place weight on the content of the URL and to make your
page look more attractive in the search engine results.
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Your
URL should match the page title but you can strip 'dead words' out of it such
as "and", "or", "the".
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Example
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Good
example: If your page title is 'bicycles for sale in mytown' your URL might
be bicycles-for-sale-mytown.html.
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Bad
Example: A URL like page.php?product=bicycles&town=anytown&transaction=forsale.
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More
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Step 3 : How to SEO your page titles
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What
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Each page has one title and this can be
found:
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within
your HTML code tags <title> and </title>
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are
usually the post title in WordPress but can be edited if you have a plugin
such as SEO for WordPress by Yoast.
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How & Why
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Your
page title tells search engines what your content is about (and they will
believe you if the content matches) so you should be looking to get one or
two of the keywords you want to rank for in here.
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The
page title is also the blue text users click on in the search results of
Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. so it should be interesting and engaging to
encourage visitors to click through.
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Every
page on your site should have a unique title of no more than 70 characters
(or it won't show fully in the search results).
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Example
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example:
If you were trying to rank for "successful website" then the
title 10 steps to a successful website would be better
than Things to make your site more popular because the
former a) contains your keywords and b) is more attractive to users when seen
in the search results.
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More
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Step 4 : How to SEO your meta description
tag
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What
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Each page has one meta description tag.
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In
the HTML code it looks like this: <meta description="The description
of the page" />.
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In
WordPress the first 170 or so characters are taken from the post but you can
edit this if you use a plugin such as SEO for Wordpress by Yoast.
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How & Why
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Every
page should have a unique meta description of up to 190 characters which
provides a summary of the page.
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Meta
descriptions often show as the black text in search results so they should be
attractive and motivate internet users to click through.
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Meta
descriptions are ignored by search engines but as they can appear in the
search results optimizing them is essential.
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If
in doubt use the first 190 characters from the pages visible content (not
including the title).
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Do
not list keywords or go far over the 190 character limit.
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Example
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Sticking
with our 'bicycle shop in anytown' the home page meta description might be:
"We stock a wide range of bicycles for sale and we're open 7am to 7pm
daily. Find us on the High Street, anytown, call us on 0800-1975-765 or order
online 24/7/365. Low prices guaranteed".
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More
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For more detail skip to how to SEO your meta tags.
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Step 5 : How to SEO (or not) your meta
keyword tag
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What
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If you have these you will find them on each
page:
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within
your HTML written as <meta name="keywords" content="keyword
one, keyword two, keyword three" />.
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in
WordPress there is often a field called "keywords" for each post or
static page.
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How & Why
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If you have keyword meta tags get rid of
them. They are ignored by search engines and only assist your competitors in
knowing what you are trying to rank for.
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Example
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None - don't do it!
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More
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For more detail skip
to how to SEO your meta
tags
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Step 6 : How to SEO your keyword density
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What
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Your keyword density is the percentage of
times the keyword (or phrase) that you are trying to rank for shows in each
page.
So if one of your keyword phrase is
'bicycles' and this appears twice in 100 words of content your density is 2%.
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How & Why
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Keep
your keyword density for each word or phrase between 2 and 6% in order not to
appear spammy and to ensure your text is easy to read.
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Be
aware that the major search engines understand different words that have the
same meanings such as 'car' and 'automobile'.
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Make
sure your keywords appear naturally within the main text content of the page.
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Example
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More
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Note that in the field of SEO keyword
density is a hotly debated topic ranging from those who see it as essential
to those who believe it is of no importance.
See the blog post Does keyword density matter in 2013? for more information.
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Step 7 : How to SEO your internal links
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What
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Internal links are any links within your
website that take the user to another page within your website.
The text within the link is known as anchor
text. For example <a href="myotherpage.html">This is the
anchor text</a>
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How & Why
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Whenever
possible make your link text (rather than a graphic) and make that text
descriptive (see examples below).
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Where
you have no choice but to use 'click here' or 'see more' consider changing
them into graphics so their text is ignored and then use the title tag within
the link code to be descriptive.
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Example
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If
you are linking to a page about 'bicycle wheels' use 'bicycle wheels' as the
text of the link, not (for example), 'click here'.
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If
you look in the box below I have not used click here as the link, instead
I've used the title of the page I'm linking to.
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More
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For more detail skip to How unhelpful code affects your SEO.
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Step 8 : How to SEO your code
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What
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Websites with poorly written code undermine
the confidence search engines have in them because they will not be sure your
pages will display correctly in all the different browsers such as Internet
Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.
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How & Why
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For
websites written in code before HTML5 use the W3C Validator service.
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For
websites written in HTML 5 use validator.nu.
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Note
you may not be able to reduce your errors to zero (some additions such as
Facebook can cause issues) but you should look to minimise any mistakes
within your control.
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Example
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More
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For more detail skip to How unhelpful code affects your SEO.
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Step 9 : How to SEO your visitor behaviour
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What
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What your visitors do has a direct bearing
on your organic rankings so you'll need to understand what makes them stay
... and what makes them leave.
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How & Why
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Make
sure you have Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools set up correctly
for your website.
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Learn
to analyse the successful pages and the not so successful pages by
considering the click through rates, bounce rates, time on site, exit pages,
visitor flow, etc.
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Example
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More
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For more detail skip to User Behaviour and SEO.
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Step 10 : How to SEO with link building
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What
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Links from other websites to yours tell the
search engines you are popular so long as they are quality links from quality
websites.
Ideally the content you create should
persuade others naturally to link to you or share your content on social
media platforms such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc. so always
consider your content as your number one link building tool.
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How & Why
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Do
not engage in any link building 'programmes' or software. These are the
fastest way to getting you banned from Google.
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Think
quality, not quantity. One good link is worth 1,000 poor quality ones.
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Remember
links from social media such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc. count so
make it easy for your visitors to share your content.
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