SEO
1. Use good meta tags.
<meta name=”keywords” content=”beno, beno.id.au, html, weather, radar, Australian weather, Ubuntu hints and tips” />
2. Use a good site description.
<meta name=”description” content=”Bens web site is about providing quick access to weather data for Temecula, Buninyong, Smythes Creek and Uranquinty.” />
A lot of search engines will use your site description verbatim on their search results description.
Thus be brief. 25 words or less.
3. Use headings to your (SEO) advantage.
SE’s dont just crawl your meta tags, they look at your entire page, so everything has to fit, this way they can rank your page with some confidence.
H1 headings are one of the ways they do this. The headings and supporting text on the page must agree.
For example <H1>Weather</H1> is not going to help, where as <H1>Uranquinty Weather</H1>, along with my meta tag and some text on the page and we will really get up there in the rankings.
3.1 Be bold. Use the <b> </b> tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.
4. As already mentioned. Use the same keywords in your meta, headings and body text.
5. Keep your URL’s short and to the point.
6. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.
7. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines. Even if this means you go into your site ever month or so and move a few paragraphs around. (See point 12).
8. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link…. Speaking of ‘click here’, don’t ever, ever, ever, ever use that term.
9. Focus on search phrases, not just single keywords.
10. Tough to do, but give link love, get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you. Make sure you are linked to from quality sites. Not spam sites.
11. Even if it means you have to break apart your current site a bit, give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once. A few more well written pages will help better than one page that covers everything will rank better (Some comment about a rife shot rather than a shotgun blast serves as a good example of what I am trying to say here).
12. Consider a blog. Search engines just love the things. (Yeah, I know this is a big task to take on, but its a sure way to get more traffic to your site, talk about the things on your site often and people (and SE’s) will find the conversation compelling).
So, putting all this together, here is some HTML sample code;
<html> <body> <head> <meta name="keywords" content="beno, beno.id.au, html, weather, radar, Catchy Town" /> <meta name="description" content="Bens web site is about providing quick access to weather data for Catchy Town" /> <title>Catchy Town weather</title> </head> <h1>Weather information for Catchy Town.</h1> <p>My first paragraph.</p> Some text about Catchy Town weather. Make sure your images have good names and 'alt' text. <a href="http://somegreatsite.com">Link Name</a> is a link to another nifty weather site. </body> </html>