Expert Google SEO Tips & Advice

• Check Website Navigation - to ensure that all pages of your web site can be found and indexed by Google. We recommend using the SEO Chat link analyser tool which simulates how a search engine spider crawls your site. Select "internal links" under "type of links to return" and enter your homepage URL, then click Show Links.
  
  Then ensure that all internal links which are accessible from your homepage are listed in the tool's results. If crawling problems are evident (I.E. some or all of the internal links from your homepage are not found), contact KSL Consulting for expert help to redesign your web site navigation system to make it more search engine friendly. Problems with website navigation and internal linking can adversely effect SEO and lead to much reduced website traffic.

• Avoid JavaScript Web Navigation Systems - The use of JavaScript navigation systems can cause problems by preventing search engine spiders from fully indexing (crawling) the content of your website. If your website uses JavaScript DHTML navigation system, ensure that you implement a static text link sitemap to allow full website access to search engine spiders, allowing them to find and index all your content.

• Avoid Frames - As a Google expert, I continually advise clients to avoid using Frames based web design. There's no doubt that Frames make for bad SEO by causing website accessibility and usability problems. Even a well optimised web site design will struggle to achieve a high search engine ranking, compared to a non Frames web site design, even with proper use of the <NOFRAMES> tag for alternative content. Consider an example of where the navigation system of a website is in Frame A and the page content is in Frame B.

  In the example (right) the Page Content Frame (B) is now search engine indexed as a totally different page to the Navigation Frame (A). Hence when visitor's reach the content Frame from organic search results they are left without any website navigation as the Frameset is not constructed properly. This is a website accessibility disaster and Frames prove little better for SEO either!

• Avoid Dynamically Generated Content - Dynamically generated page URL's are much harder for some search engines to index. When choosing an database driven Online Shop or Content Management System (CMS) try to pick one which creates static HTML pages like content.htm, content.html, content.asp, content.php or similar, rather than dynamic URLs like the one below: http://mysite.com/?product=21
  
  Incidentally, if your online shop creates dynamic pages, it is still possible to use Mod re-write on an Apache web server to convert these pages to search engine friendly URL's. Contact us for more advice on this.

• Importance of Valid HTML Code - Implementing valid HTML code will improve search engine friendliness, reducing the likelihood of website crawling and indexing problems. It's always worth validating HTML code on the most influential pages of your website using the W3C validator tool. Whilst some HTML errors may not affect the ability of search engine spiders to crawl and index your website; some errors can stop Googlebot in its tracks and cause serious problems including partial website indexing.

• Avoid Search Engine Spam Penalties - to combat keyword stuffing many search engines have implemented spam penalties and filters. Excessive repetition of exact keyword terms, can trigger a keyword stuffing spam penalty. In reality, this is likely to result in the webpage not ranking for the target keyword term, but it can also reduce the Google trust of the website as a whole. Keyword density, as a rule should be kept below 6%. Even 2 - 3% works well in Google if the website concerned has built up sufficient trust through acquiring quality links.

• Target Website Content - A search engine spider has milliseconds to decide what a web page is about. It is therefore essential that each website page has a well written HTML title (64 characters maximum including spaces) and Meta description (maximum length of 250 characters). The Meta description should read well and be designed to attract visitors, not just a list of keywords or spam! The Meta description should depict what the page is about and use the main target keywords in a grammatically correct sentence.

• Quality Website Copywriting - The more original and useful the content of a webpage, the higher it will likely rank in Google. Search engines assess the quality of website copywriting in a number of ways, including the time spent by visitors on a webpage after it has been selected from the SERPS results. In addition, quality original content attracts natural links from other websites to your website which can significantly boost search engine visibility and traffic.

• Text Link Sitemap - Implement a sitemap using static text links (hyperlinks) and link to it using a static hyperlink from your homepage. The sitemap should contain a categorised list of all pages contained in your web site using static text links. The anchor text used for each link should accurately reflect the content of the page concerned using one or two relevant keywords.

• Create a Google Sitemap - We recommend implementing a Google sitemap to inform Google about the relative importance of your content on a page by page basis and how often your website is updated, with a view to encouraging Googlebot to visit your website more often and in a more predictable manner.
  
  If you're not an XML expert, a Google sitemap can be generated quickly and easily by visiting http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ and entering your homepage URL. You'll then need to save the compressed sitemap.xml.gz file to the root directory of your ISP web space. You'll then need to set up a Google Webmaster Tools Account from which you can submit your sitemap to Google.
  
  Submitting a Google sitemap will assist with the Google indexing of your web site. A Google sitemap lets you inform Google which of your web pages are most important (by setting a <priority> value of between 0.0 and 1.0 for each URL; where 1.0 is the most important) and how often your content is updated by means of the <changefreq> tag. This helps to facilitate a smarter Googlebot crawl of your domain and to achieve a fresher Google cache of your URLs. In practice, Googlebot seems to be a bit of a law unto itself and doesn't always seem to act upon the Google Sitemap <changefreq> entry to increase crawling rate, especially where the site concerned has few inbound links!

• Avoid automatic redirects - Avoid a Google penalty by using a 301 re-direct if you intend redirecting visitors to another web site domain. Never use automated Meta Refresh redirects or JavaScript to redirect traffic as Google may incorrectly determine that you are using doorway pages and ban your domain.

• Website duplicate content - Wherever possible, try to avoid duplicate content on other website domains, duplicate pages (including multiple pages on the same domain with extremely similar content) or mirror sites as these can cause problems with Supplemental Results in Google.

• Read Google Webmaster Guidelines - To improve Google ranking and avoid a Google penalty, new web sites should adhere to Google Webmaster Guidelines.

• What are quality links? - In general, quality links are one way links (non reciprocated links) from websites which are leaders in their particular field. Authority sites will usually have a top Google ranking and often a high Page Rank (5 or more) due to the strength of their inbound links. Authority websites typically have a high Google Trust Rank, as websites which offer original niche content and in some cases Web 2.0 functionality.

• Cornell University Authoritative Website article

• Links from authority websites - It has been shown that a free listing in the Google directory http://www.dmoz.org can dramatically boost Google visibility, as can acquiring links from Google trusted websites such as .edu and .gov sites. The links below will help you find free directories and article submission sites to assist in the promotion of your website:-

• Free web directories
• High PR top web directories
• Directory of best article submission sites

• Backlink anchor text link analyser SEO tool

• Avoiding excessive keyword repetition and all forms of keyword stuffing in page content and image ALT tags
• Avoiding keyword spam and over search engine optimised page content until "out of the Google Sandbox" (read our Google Sandbox article for further Google SEO advice)
• Writing a descriptive HTML title of 64 characters maximum
• Writing a well written Meta Description of around 200 - 250 characters long including spaces
• Avoiding the use of more than one <H1> tag and any form of keyword stuffing in <H2> titles
• Keeping keyword density down to below 5% as a rough rule. Check using Ranks.nl SEO tools

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