Tired of adverts getting in your way? Ad breaks in your favourite series, ads in the middle of the magazine article you’re reading, ads popping up in the middle of your favourite freeware game and even ads on signposts blocking your view of the road? Well, it seems that Google agrees.

Technology today allows us to fast-forward through the ads on TV, so why should we still have to scroll through them to get to the info we are looking for on a website. Google has decided to change their algorithm that is used to rank websites. Websites with too many adverts on the top of the page, thus causing users to scroll down in order to get to actual content, will be penalised in their rankings.

Google states:

“We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page. This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads.

This algorithmic change noticeably affects less than 1% of searches globally.”  Read the post here.

This has resulted in many people questioning whether or not Google will penalise themselves as their results pages have so many ads. Seriously?! Google’s ads are not really ads in the traditional sense. When you use Google, you are looking for links to sites with relevant information; Google’s ads are mostly links to relevant information. People are so worried about what is fair; wonder if while they sit writing or reading these blogs on their iPad or laptop they consider the children in underdeveloped countries who can’t even get a book to read. Such a fuss made over a possible 1% of searches that may be affected. I say go for it Google!

In Part 4 of this series, I’d like to discuss the importance of making the links on your website, “seo-friendly”.

It’s important to make sure that your links also contain the keywords that you want to optimise your website for.

What does an HTML link look like ?

<a href=”www.afridesign.com” title=”web design“>click here for more info about web design</a>

The text contained within the <a> </a> tags can be edited. Notice that we can included a keyword “web design” both in the “title” of our link and within the text of our link.

It is very simple to implement this and it will help with regards to your SEO.

Linking to other websites?

Make sure you do not link to “bad neighborhoods”!

What are “bad neighborhoods” ? They are websites that Google thinks are suspicious, they are usually link farms. Only link to websites you trust and know.

Also look at the website’s Google PAGE rank. This is a rating out of 10 that Google gives a website. It is not always possible, but try to link to websites that have a higher page rank.

One last thing, you need to see your links as precious. Linking to another website means that you are giving your approval to or “endorsing” these sites. So make sure that they add value to your website and please do not give too many away.

In Part 3, we are focusing on a couple of important, keyword considerations that you can use to optimise your website for improved site rankings on Google &  other search engines.

Keyword Density:

“Keyword density” relates to the ratio of high-traffic, relevant keywords in relation to the rest of your content. For optimum results you need to be looking at achieving around +/5.5%. Remember your keywords need to flow naturally within your content, as well as the fact that your content should be original and well-written.

NB! Do not go over 7% – 10%  or you might be penalized for KEYWORD STUFFING. Do not go below 3% or Google won’t deem your website content as important.

There are some really helpful tools on the net which will help you to reach a suitable keyword density ratio within your content. The keyword tools found on SEOmoz are the first ones that come to mind.

Heading Tags:

Make sure your heading tags contain the keywords that you are trying to optimize for.

<h1>Professional Web Design</h1>

<h2>The importance of web design can not be underestimated</h2>

How can you see what your heading tags are ? Click anywhere on your page and right click your mouse. Select view source and then it will display the “source code of your website”. Within that text document search for <h1> or <h2> or <h3>. The content contained in-between the <h1> …. </h1> is what Google will look at.

Keywords at the beginning of your “source code”:

Make sure the keywords that you are trying to optimize for the search engines, are at the top of your “source code”. Just because visually your keywords might appear at the top of your website, it does not mean that they actually are. View your source code, and then search for your keyword that you want people to find you on, then see how close to the top of the document it is.

Images:

This is a very under-utilized strategy that most people do not pay any attention to. Images have an “alt” tag that explains to the search engines what that image is about.  If you leave it blank, the search engines will not know what that image is about.

The source code of an image tag looks something like this:

<img src=”images/test.jpg” height=”10″ width=”60″ alt=”this is a test image” />

The info between alt=”…” is not only very important and but also an easy way to improve your search engine rankings.

Side Note: Have you ever thought about the fact that Google allows you to get search results for just images? Now, if your website is selling a specific product by putting an alt tag onto the image for it, you increase the chances of it been picked up within the search results, and then that could lead to somebody viewing that image and then clicking through to your website to find out more info.

Title Tags! Title Tags! Title Tags!

Yes, it is extremely important that your title tags are properly optimised. This is the most common mistake people make on their websites and it is probably the easiest to rectify, or even to just get right in the first place.

1. Make sure each page on your website has a unqiue title.
2. Make sure your title is descriptive and does not just simple say “Welcome to X”

Your title is an opportunity to let Google know straight away what your company / website is about.

How do I see what my website title is ?

1. Open your browser, then type in your website address.
2. Anywhere on your website, preferably where there is a blank spot, click the right button on your mouse. It will open a small menu, click on “View source”.
3. This will open a text file with a lot of scary code – DON’T BE AFRAID
4. You are going to look for the following text <title> . You can do a search on the document if you cannot see it straight away.
5. The text between your title tags: <title> text here </title> is your website title. This is what Google will most likely list on the search result for your company. So you can see why it is important not only to Google but also to the searcher.

How do I change the <title> tag?

This can be done by  a web designer, if you have one in the closet If you do not have a web designer hanging around then this is what you need to do:

1. You need to download a FTP program – If you do a search for FileZilla on Google this will be your best bet,  great little program and it is free.
2. Once you have downloaded and installed FileZilla on your machine you will need to contact your hosting company. Your hosting company have your FTP details. Your FTP details are basically a URL / Web Address, username and password that allows you to “talk” directly to the server. PS. by “talk” I don’t actually mean “physically talking to the machine”. I mean that you are able to make changes to documents and files on the server that you would not ordinarily have been able to do without these details. You might need your hosting company to guide you through setting up the FTP.
3. Once FileZilla has been setup with the correct FTP details, you will now have access to the files on the server. Be careful, if you delete files on the server, they are gone. Always make a backup of the file you are editing on your local machine.
4. The homepage of your website will most likely be called something like “index.htm / index.html / index.php / default.asp / default.html”
5. Once you have copied a “backup” of the file (create a new folder call backup), and the one you want to edit, right click on the file, then select “edit with” –  you can use “Windows Note Pad” to edit the file or there are a bunch of free HTML editors out there, but for the purpose of this exercise you can just use Windows Note Pad. (Others editors included NotePad ++ & PSPad)
6. Once your file has been opened in Note Pad you will see a bunch of content and info on the page, might look scary but remember we are only looking for the following tag <title>
7. Have you found it ? Now make sure you edit only the text between <title> </title>. It is important that those tags not be changed, only the info between them needs to be changed.
8. Now change the <title> tag to something more descriptive than “Welcome to X”
9. Once you have changed it, save the document, then upload the changes to the server. This can be done for all the pages on your website.
10. Please be careful when editing your site, if in doubt speak to somebody who has SEO or web design experience.

There are two factors which affect how a website is ranked on Google and on other search engines: “On Page Factors” &  ”Off Site Factors”.

On Page Factors:

On Page Factors attribute roughly 25% of your website’s ranking for a targeted keyword. On Page Factors include the following: your title tags, content, hyperlinks, and a whole lot more. On Page Factors are things that you are in direct control of, they are things that either you or your web developer can change.

Off Site Factors:

Off Site Factors attribute roughly 75% of your website’s ranking for a targerted keyword. Off Site factors are tricky because you do not have control over them (most of the time). They include things like links from other websites, the quality of these links, what these links include, and more.

The upcoming articles in this series will cover On Page Factors, focusing on what Google is looking for with regards to SEO. We will try to keep them simple so that you can start implementing the necessary changes to your website right away.

Firefox is a great browser to use when working on web development projects. You can find some really useful tools which will save you a whole lot of time, pain and effort.

2 Firefox Add-ons that I have come across recently, are really helpful for anyone that is starting out either in web development, or SEO.

(more…)

Who needs SEO?

Anyone that owns a website & wants it’s to appear within the first 10 search engine results pages (SERP’s) needs SEO.

What is SEO?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, is the process whereby a website is optimized, by improving it’s on-page, as well as off-page factors, in order to drive more traffic to the website from the search engines.

(more…)