Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Already have a website? Not ranking high enough in search engines? St Albans Web Design can optimise your web pages to focus on keywords important to your Hertfordshire business to boost your rank.

Top Tips for Search Engine Optimisation

  • Separate design and content. Make sure your HTML code contains (for the most part) just HTML markup, leaving design elements in the css (stylesheets) file. This makes it easier for search engines to find out what your site is about.
  • Use titles and headings intelligently. Don’t leave your page title empty. Make sure your keywords are in there. Use main headings in a similar way.
  • Get linked. Possibly the hardest step is forming relationships with relevant sites and getting them to add links pointing to your site.
  • Freshen up. Add fresh content to your site on a regular basis. Search engines judge your relevancy in part by this. Aim to add content a couple of times a week. Think of it as “feeding the spiders”.
  • Sprinkle those keywords. Make sure your chosen keywords appear several times in the page’s content. Don’t overdo it though. Your page will become hard to read and search engines are wary of this overloading technique.
  • Say it with text. Search engines can’t easily see the text you put in an image, so either use text when possible or use the image’s alt text attribute if you must use an image.
  • Use meaningful link text. Make sure the text you activate as a hyperlink has relevancy to the destination page. The words “yummy bubblegum” are a more meaningful link than “click here”.
  • Use special features sparingly — or not at all. Frames, Flash and AJAX are all problematic for search engines. These days there is little reason to use frames.
  • Manually submit your site to search engines. Using an automated “service” or software can get you penalized by search engines. St Albans Web Design can help you with this task.
  • Make page titles unique and appropriate. The same title on every page doesn’t help the search engine “learn” what your content is about. Feel free to use your company name as part of every page title though.
  • Add viral or social bookmarking components to your web site or blog – reviews, link sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.
  • Pay attention to file and folder names. When naming the images and html files on your site, use your chosen keywords whenever appropriate.
  • Use a site map. Especially for larger sites, a site map gives users and search engines access deep into your site with only two clicks.
  • Direct the robots. Create robots.txt file on your server to tell search engines what to index (and what not to).

Contact St Albans Web Design today for an estimate on optimising your site to achieve top rankings.