Key Points to Consider for SEO “LOW PRIORITY”
Register a separate domain instead of a sub-domain (LOW PRIORITY)
Subdomains
are a nice way to create new websites without needing to register a new
domain. This site is a subdomain of About.com – webdesign.about.com.
But subdomains are not as recognized by search engines (or customers for
that matter) as separate sites. For example, most people who link to my
site link to it with a title of “About.com.” But if you were to go to
www.example.com, you’d get a very different impression of my site than
the true URL of webdesign.about.com. The other problem with subdomains
is that most people think that URLs should start with “www”. Sometimes
www.subdomain.example.com will work, but sometimes it won’t. If you can,
you should move all sites that are on a subdomain onto a real domain
name of their own.
Register a .com domain over a .biz or .us domain (LOW PRIORITY)
Trying
to find a good domain name can be challenging, especially on the .com
top-level domain (TLD). But finding a good .com domain will rank higher
than a similar domain on the .biz or .us TLDs. And if you can get a .edu
domain (because you’re a school or university) your site will have more
credibility instantly. Some SEO services feel that a .org TLD is better
than a .com, but they aren’t any more difficult (in general) to get
than a .com domain, and while search engines might give them some
priority now, they will probably lessen that as .org domains become more
common.
Use hyphens to separate words in domains (LOW PRIORITY)
When
you’re putting keywords in your domain and URLs, you should consider
separating them with hyphens (-) rather than mashing them all together
or using underscores (_). Search engine spiders can’t tell where a word
ends and begins without cues like hyphens, and most computers recognize
hyphens as the end of a word, but see underscores as part of the word.
Use hyphens or underscores to separate words in URLs (LOW PRIORITY)
Just
like your domains, you should separate words in your URLs with hyphens
(-) or underscores (_). Hyphens are better, but outside of the domain,
underscores can work. Hyphens work better because many search engine
spiders recognize hyphens as the end of a word, but see underscores as
part of the word. Also, underscores can be seen as a space by your
customers (because the underline of the link and the underscore merge
together), and they will then get frustrated if they try to type the URL
with a space and can’t get to the page.
Write short pages (LOW PRIORITY)
The
shorter your page is, the fewer times you need to repeat your keyword
phrase and keep the density just right. Plus, short pages load more
quickly, and so your readers will appreciate it. Keep pages under 30KB
in size. Split long pages into multiple pages and optimize each page.
Use JavaScript with care (LOW PRIORITY)
As
long as your scripts are valid and don’t break your HTML, most search
engines will ignore them. But don’t rely on JavaScript to improve your
rankings – most search engines ignore content inside JavaScript.
Include text transcripts of podcasts and sound files (LOW PRIORITY)
Like
images and Flash, search engines can’t index the content of sound files
including podcasts. By including a transcript of your sound files and
podcasts, you give search engines more text to index.
Keep your pages close to the root directory (LOW PRIORITY)
The
higher your pages are in your sub-directories, the better they will
rank in search engines. This is because pages that are listed right off
the root directory are typically more important than pages that are
found four or five levels deep in the site.
Use the meta keywords tag and include your keyword phrase (LOW PRIORITY)
Meta
tags are a very popular way to improve search engine results, but the
fact of the matter is that some major search engines don’t use them at
all, and others only use them a little. It won’t hurt to include your
keyword phrase and any secondary keywords in the meta keywords tag, but
don’t expect it to work wonders.
Keep your keywords together (LOW PRIORITY)
Search
engines rank keywords in pages regardless of where they are found. But
if you’re trying to rank well for a specific keyword phrase, keeping the
keywords together will insure that the search engines recognize that
they are related.
Use your keyword phrase in your meta description (LOW PRIORITY)
Most
search engines use the meta description field as the description in
their search results. So it’s important to have a good description.
Including your keyword phrase in the meta description tag is one more
place that the search engines can see your keywords. This isn’t a magic
bullet, but it is a good idea.
Set your language meta keyword (LOW PRIORITY)
If
your page is in a language other than English, you should set the
language meta tag so that search engines (and other user agents) know
what language it’s in. Most search engines have other ways of telling
what language the page is written in, but they do use that tag, and it
could help you rank higher in searches in that language.
Optimize for a few secondary keywords (LOW PRIORITY)
Once
you have a keyword phrase, you can choose one or two other keywords to
optimize for as well. But be careful with these – make sure that the
density of your secondary keywords is no more than 1-2%. Any higher and
you risk confusing the search engine and diluting the power of your
primary keyword phrase.
Use your keyword phrase in named anchors (LOW PRIORITY)
A
named anchor (also called a bookmark) is a useful tool for creating
navigation within a Web page. But for search engines, it also indicates
that the text defined by and following the anchor has more significance.
If you use your keyword phrase in some of your named anchors, that will
give that text more prominence.
Use different forms of words for your keyword phrase (LOW PRIORITY)
This
is also called stemming. Most search engines recognize that one word
stemmed from another is really the same word. For example, plural
versions of nouns (dog and dogs), gerunds and active verbs (dig and
digging), and so on. By using different forms of your keywords, you can
make your page more interesting for your readers, while still optimizing
for search engines.
Use synonyms for your keywords (LOW PRIORITY)
Synonyms,
like keyword stemming is another way to mix up your text for your
readers while still optimizing for search. Most modern search engines
have a powerful synonym library and so recognize that words like “dog”
and “canine” mean the same thing. Be careful using this technique on
non-English pages, however. Most search engines were developed in
English-speaking countries, and have more extensive English vocabularies
than other languages. Also, you should remember that tools like keyword
density readers often don’t recognize synonyms, so your page may be
denser in keywords than they report if you use a lot of synonyms.
