Is your website coded for SEO?

Follow these tips below to make sure your website is coded properly for SEO:

1. Optimize images: Always use the alt tag to describe every image. It is helpful if one of your keywords describes the image.

2. Use Headers (H1, H2 etc...): Use the header tag to add importance to a phrase or a word. Again, including a keyword in a header tag is helpful.

3. Keep your styles external: Use external CSS and JS Style Sheets.

4. Meta Tags: Use Meta Tag descriptions in the head of all your pages. As a rule, go from general descriptors to specific ones.

5. Clean code: Avoid iframes, complicated javascript and messy code.

6. Validate: Validate code with W3 standards.



If you are unsure if your code is optimized for search engines, 3 Olive Studios offers a FREE analysis of your code. You can contact us at info@3olivestudios.com.



www.3olivestudios.com

Things that will hurt your SEO

There are many ways to increase your SEO and subsequently get more traffic to your site. BUT there are also ways that can hurt it resulting in lower page rankings.

Make sure you (or your web designer or online marketer) are NOT doing the following:

1. DO NOT Build the site using Tables. This structure makes it harder for search engines to find your relevant content.
2. DO NOT Build the site using a lot of frames
3. DO NOT Over-optimize a page for keywords (Google will pick up on "keyword stuffing" and not index your site)
4. DO NOT Repeat content on different HTML pages.
5. DO NOT Use text colors that are similar to their background colors.
Google may interpret your text as being cloaked (as in, trying to trick the search engine into seeing something that the user does not see).
6. DO NOT use inline styles. Make sure that your javascript and css are in external style sheets, so that the search engines can find your relevant content more easily.
7. DO NOT use automated-programs, such as Web Position Gold to help with your SEO. Google specifically reccomends that you do NOT use these programs in their web master guidelines. On that note, make sure your webmaster has read Google’s Web Master Guidelines.

Keyword suggestions

Quick, easy and FREE way to find keywords:

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

http://www.trafficzap.com/keysug.php

Here is a "do-it-yourself" way to find your keywords. They may not be the most in depth analysis but it is quick, easy and FREE and will get you on the right track.

Web Analytics: 5 Sites to visit

1. Webtrends.com
2. Hitslink.com
3. Omniture.com
4. Clicktracks.com


And 3 Olive Studio's favorite:

5. Google Analytics

All of these sites offer information on tracking and analyzing your web traffic. Some offer free code to put into your website.

3 Olive Studios Quick Tip: Improve your page rank

3 Olive Studios presents to you: TOP 5 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GOOGLE PAGE RANK

1. KEYWORDS: Not only do you want informative and helpful content on your website, you also want to make sure that it contains your specific keywords. By keywords, we mean the words that your target audience might type into the search engine to find you. You want to match those same words in the content of your site, the description of your site, and in the metatags (more on this below). For a free keyword generator follow this link: Keyword generator

2. URL SUBMISSION: Submit your URL to the Open Directory Project. Follow this link to submit http://www.dmoz.org/. This is a free service. There are many other directories that you can submit your website to. Some are free and others cost money. Yahoo, Business.com, and Bestoftheweb.com are a few paid directories to consider.

3. SITE DESIGN: Make sure your site is designed by a professional who understands the importance of SEO and how the search engines crawl through and index your site. For basic advice, you should follow the rule of thumb that the navigation is either across the top or to the left. Include a sitemap if possible. For more information contact us at 3 Olive Studios | Contact.

4. CODING: When coding your site, make sure you or your website designer include Meta description tags, meta keyword tags and page title tags. The Meta description tag is the bit of information that shows up in the Search Engine under your name. For example: 3 Olive Studios includes this in the meta description tag: 3 Olive Studios is a web design, graphic design, and marketing company in Boston. So when you search for "3 Olive Studios" you will find the sentence above under the title. The Meta keyword tags is where you enter the keywords that we referred to in tip #1. And finally the title tag describes which page you are on in the website. All of these tags are located in the head of each html page.

5. BUILDING INBOUND LINKS: Building inbound links takes time and persistence. You want to find companies that are in your field but not your competition and suggest a link exchange. Writing press releases and quality articles that will benefit others in the field is helpful as well. Stay away from the link farms because they will just end up getting you banned from the search engines.

3 Olive Studios Quick Tip: Google Toolbar

3 Olive Studios uses Google Toolbar for numerous SEO techniques, such as finding out page ranking, number of inbound links, and how many pages are indexed. The google toolbar is free to add. Follow these steps below to become more informed on the search engine optimization of your website:

1. Go to the google home page and click on more
2. When the list of everything google offers appears, go to toolbar and download it (follow the instructions until it pops up on your browser)
3. Once the google toolbar is on your browser go to the + symbol to add more tools. Add the Google Search Tool.
4. Once the Google Search Tool appears (the signature google G icon), click on it and enter your url.

Check back soon for ways to improve your ranking!

More SEO... TAGS

USe meta keyword tags, meta description tags, and title tags in the head area of your HTML document. And do not overlook the use of the alt tags to describe your images!

SEO tips

Use h1 tags in the html to add more importance to a word or phrase. Include your keywords in your h1 tags.

Quick tip: free keyword generator

Google's free keyword tool shows you advertiser competition: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Happy Easter

Quick tip: SEO- site analysis

Use www.linkvendor.com to receive a free site analysis. It will tell you how optimized your site is for free!

Another service that does site analysis is Traffic Blazer. Traffic Blazer costs $29.99/year.

Quick tip: link building

In search engine optimization, one of the most important steps is link building. Here are some tips on how to get other sites to link back to your own.



1. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Yahoo! Answers and provide links to relevant resources.

2. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources.

3. If you run a fairly reputable company, create a page about it in the Wikipedia or in topic specific wikis. If it is hard to list your site directly, try to add links to other pages that link to your site.

4. It takes about 15 minutes to set up a topical Squidoo page, which you can use to look like an industry expert. Link to expert documents and popular useful tools in your fields, and also create a link back to your site.

5. Submit a story to Digg that links to an article on your site. You can also submit other content and have some of its link authority flow back to your profile page.

6. If you publish an RSS feed and your content is useful and regularly updated, some people will syndicate your RSS content.

7. Most forums allow members to leave signature links or personal profile links. If you make quality contributions some people will follow these links and potentially read your site, link at your site, and/or buy your products.

8. Review relevant products on Amazon.com. We have seen this draw in direct customer enquiries and secondary links.

9. Start a blog. Not just for the sake of having one. Post regularly and post great content. Good execution is what gets the links.

10. Depending on your category and offer, you will find Craigslist to be a cheap or free classified service.



For more tips go to:

http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml

Article: SEO

Great article about Search Engine Optimization

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2010.htm