Posts tagged SEO tips

Some Common Mistakes to Avoid in Effort to Improve Site Rating

by Irmin J. Roybal

In a process of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), i.e. when humans are flirting with robots, some caution could be a plus. Young and restless webmasters tend to make site rating better than it really should be, and, as a result, the rating instead of increase cab get a sudden reduction. Several common errors of this type are discussed below.

Graphic Header It is standard and tasty to have a bitmap with a nice graphics on top of your page view. Logo, smiling faces or something else really eye-catching depending on the nature of the site is always nice to have there, your visitors would like it and expect it to be there. Unfortunately, SE robots has a different point. They assign highest value to all words at the top of the page, especially to those which are set under h1 tag. Best tactics: before giving this valuable space to wordless pics (words within graphic file are still graphics), to post h1 heading with crucial keywords above the graphic header.

Hidden Text Seem like a smart idea to stuff the site with a thousand of keywords, make them white on white (or place them in no script areas of the code), so humans will not see them, but robots will swallow them all to their complete satisfaction and great rating for the site. Even smarter idea: avoid anything that can be even considered as this type of spamdexing, it may cost the site its reputation.

Excessive use of h1 tag All text under heading 1 (h1) tag is getting higher rating, so one may tend to use text under h1 excessively. Better approach is to use h1 tag only once, a repetitive use of h1 is punishable. For the rest of the headings h2 and h3 tags can be used repetitively, the limitations on usage of these tags are much less restrictive.

Final Tip. The advice given here is for SEO only. So, please, dont forget that your site is supposed to serve people (hopefully), not web spiders. Besides, SEO is one of the major, but still not the only way of making your site visible. It is not a good idea to base your traffic on SEO only: a change in SE algorithms can cost you a substantial part of traffic. It is much better and safer to combine all possible means for attracting visitors to your site.

Good luck!

Typical Mistakes Made by Webmasters Seeking Better Site Rating

by Irmin J. Roybal

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a bit tricky business and some webmasters especially at the beginning of their web career are trying to take a shortcut. Here are several typical errors, which can be made in attempt to improve site rating fast, but usually leading to just opposite results.

Graphic Header It is always nice to have a catchy graphic piece on top of the page picturing the logo and crowds of satisfied customers. Yes, humans tend to react positively to a vision of smiling faces, so nice graphic heading is always inviting. SE crawler may have a different vision, though. It looks for heading with h1 tag and keywords, or better for both at the very top of the page. If it will not find it there because of a space taken by the graphics, it may leave the site with a different (comparing to human visitor) idea about site quality. To avoid such nuisance, it is good to have h1-tagged title with the keywords before the graphics.

Hidden Text Seem like a smart idea to stuff the site with a thousand of keywords, make them white on white (or place them in no script areas of the code), so humans will not see them, but robots will swallow them all to their complete satisfaction and great rating for the site. Even smarter idea: avoid anything that can be even considered as this type of spamdexing, it may cost the site its reputation.

Repeating h1 tag Text under h1 (heading 1) tag is getting higher priority in some search systems. For this reason some web masters may attempt to use h1 more than once. Bad idea, SE can punish for this too. It is better to use h1 just once, and use h2 and h3 repeatedly for the rest of all necessary headings.

Final Tip. The advice given here is for SEO only. So, please, dont forget that your site is supposed to serve people (hopefully), not web spiders. Besides, SEO is one of the major, but still not the only way of making your site visible. It is not a good idea to base your traffic on SEO only: a change in SE algorithms can cost you a substantial part of traffic. It is much better and safer to combine all possible means for attracting visitors to your site.

Good luck!