Posts Tagged ‘on page seo’

SEO tips – Avoid hidden text

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

SEO tips – Avoid hidden text

Using similar colours for backgrounds and text can lead to problems of hidden text. You should avoid the risk altogether by using colours high contrast. Black and white is the format that we have become most familiar with from books, newspapers etc. That is not to say that it is the only options but care should be taken to ensure that you content can be read by everyone.

From a search engine point of view. Hidden text used to be a way of stuffing a page with keywords / links that could not be seen by the viewer but could be read search engines. As a result search engines are highly tuned to specifically omit content where it finds or suspects that hidden text is present.

So if you want to use white with off white or grey on grey for design purposes make sure it is an image to avoid being penalised.

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SEO tips – Page titles

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

SEO tips – Page titles

Good page title tags are essential. We often find that title tags are neglected creating an “untitled page” or that the same page title is used for all pages.

Search engines use title tags to display page info in search results.

As such title tags are essential and must reflect the content of each page and use appropriate keywords.

Title tags go into your <head> section of the web page between <title></title>. i.e. <title>your page title goes here</title>

Title tags should be a short summary of the pages content and include your keyword.  When you see a list of results from a search engine the first line on each result is based on the title tag.

Title tag length should be limited to around 65 characters, including spaces, this is not a definite number but is the maximum that will be displayed so to get your message across concisely do it in 65 characters.

See also meta descripton

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Website validation and SEO

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

Website validation and SEO

Is validation important or even a consideration to Google? No it is not. In fact Google itself does not validate. Google is only concerned with content.

So is validation important? Yes it means that your website will work and look the same regardless technology. It does not matter whether someone is using the latest PC running the latest browsers or someone using the oldest. Both will get exactly same user experience.

It also means that those who need to customise their browsers, i.e. use large fonts for easier reading, can and your website will maintain appearance.

Another major consideration is mobile devices. More and more people use mobile devices to access the Internet. To look good on theses devices your code needs to validate. If your website does not look good or is difficult to navigate visitors will just move on. This will increase your bounce rate and therefore lower your chances of being found in search results.

You can check your website pages at http://validator.w3.org/

If your page fails you will be given details on how to fix your code. If you need help we do this as part of our “optimisation service“.

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SEO tips – meta descriptions

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

SEO tips Meta descriptions

Google, amongst others, use meta descriptions.  The meta tag is created in the <head> section of your website.  Normally it goes under your page title

To create a meta tag is fairly simple.  Just copy the code below, change the wording between the speech marks and paste it underneath your page title in your html. The meta description helps to reinforce your page title and associated content.

———————————–

<!– meta description courtesy of http://www.cirencester-website-design.co.uk/index.html –>

<meta name=”description” content=”Your meta description goes here” />

———————————–
Your meta description should include your keywords for each page and give a brief summary of the content of the page.

That is all you need do. This summary usually appears in search results under the page title.

There are other meta tags but mostly these are ignored by search engines with one or two exceptions but these are, or will be, discussed in other posts.

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