Heading Tags, Internal Linking, and Bold Text

There are a number of simple things you can bear in mind when creating your page content and layout. First of all, Heading Tags - use these for the headings in your content. Use them properly, use 'h1' tags for your main heading, use 'h2' tags for headings that are one level below your main heading, and use 'h3' tags for sub-headings that are one level below your 'h2' headings. As well as being search engine friendly, this will also make your source code neater and easier to read. Google appears to treat anchor text a bit differently than standard text on your website. You should have text links to any other relevant pages within your website. The text that is linked should be an accurate signpost to the page that it points to. Where your links are somewhat relevant to the current page this should mean a benefit to your SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page) position. For example, if your homepage is aimed at people looking to buy a car and you have links to other pages on your site such as 'Car Buying Tips', 'Advanced Car Search', and 'Featured Cars' - then Google will make use of the keywords in the link text when ranking your homepage. (This principle would apply to pages other than your homepage also.) Bold Text is another thing search engines may put some weight in when rating your page, I would recommend using Bold Text sensibly - just as you would in a document for printing.

The 'site:' tool on Google and Yahoo

When optimising your website it is important to keep track of the changes that you have made and when the search engines first noticed these changes. Both Google and Yahoo support the 'site:' function. Simply type 'site:www.mysite.ie' and click 'Search'. Google/Yahoo will then return all the pages it has indexed for that domain. (Be aware that some search engines use more than one 'database' so the results may vary somewhat depending on which 'database' is being queried when you run the search.) Along with every result returned you will usually see a link called 'cached'. If you click on this link you will see what version of your page the search engine is currently using to decide where you will rank for searches. On Google you will also see what date the page was indexed. If you are keeping a close eye on the position of your pages for important search terms, this tool allows you to see which changes resulted in the improvement that you see. This is important if you want to learn and improve your SEO skills.

The Alt attribute and Metatags

Search engine spiders don't process the images on your website and decide what keywords they will convey to the visitor! But you can use the Alt attribute on your images and the search engine spiders will read these. (You should also be using the Alt attribute so that browsers that do not display images can tell their users what image would ideally appear.) So use the Alt attribute on every image and use it accurately - describe your image precisely and concisely with as few words as possible. Metatags may be less important now than they were in the past but they are still used by major search engines. The Metatag Description should be a short description of the content on the page that is being optimised. Metatag Keywords may be more important - only use a few keywords; separate key words and phrases with commas; make sure that all your key words and phrases appear, word-for-word, within the content of the page. So, in an ideal situation, your most important keywords for the page would appear in the Metatag Keywords, the image Alt attributes, the Page Title, the content of the page, and the URL of the page.

Domain Names, Page Titles and URLs

Google seems to see your domain name as being very important. If you sell boats and your website is 'www.buyaboat.ie', then you shouldn't find it too difficult to appear highly in a Google search for 'buy a boat'. When reading a domain Google is able to parse the words in the domain name without hyphens. When naming URLs it is best to separate words with hyphens. Page Titles (in the Head part of your html code) are also quite important to Google . You should title each page appropriately to the content of that page. Keep it short and rich in Keywords. Keep the more important keywords near the beginning of the title. Page URLs are also important to Google. I find trying to match your URL with your Title to some extent is a good way of focusing on the correct keywords. As with the page titles, important words in your URL should be closest to the beginning. Do not make your URLs too long - keeping them as short as possible is probably the best principle.