Six SEO Top Tips

Are you giving your website the best chance to climb the search engines and rank well?

Here are six simple SEO tips that can have a big impact on your website. Try them today.

1) Make sure all of your pages have a unique title and description meta tag. Also make sure that the keywords for the page are included in both of these tags. This is one simple change that can really make a big difference on your search engine placement.

2) Use consistent keyword focused links between your own web pages. When linking from one page to another within your site make sure that the link text contains the keywords for the page you are linking to. If you can use the title for that page then that is ideal. Don't use words like "Click here".

3) Go for quality links to your website. Avoid the temptation to list your site on every directory you can find. Concentrate on getting links from quality sites that already have a good standing with the search engines. Also avoid link farms or link partnering schemes. Ultimately the value of these links is usually low and the search engines don't like it.

4) Write some articles about your type of business and submit then to the article submission sites. Make sure you include your website address in the "About the Author" section of your article. People are always looking for content for their websites, so your article (if it's interesting and relevant) will get picked up and published on other sites ensuring you links back to your site.

5) Join newsgroups and forums for your business community. Participate actively in these groups and offer valuable input. People will soon see you as an authority and they may well link to your website. If you include your website address in your signature text for your posts then you will also get links from all your posts.

6) Check your site frequently for broken links. The search engines hate sites with broken links. Not only can they not index your site properly but it also suggests that the website is not being properly maintained and so they might not want to send traffic to you. There is lots of software on the market for checking your site. Google's Webmaster free service will tell you if it finds any broken links.

40-40-20 of SEO

SEO, as we all know, is Search Engine Optimization. There are so many factors of SEO that it is impossible to fulfill all the factors and achieve a 100% in SEO. There is no such thing as "perfect" SEO. Regardless, what we can do is take note of the more important factors, and achieve that as best as we can. And a major part of it is the "40:40:20 ".

According to the analysis of numerous sites, the "40:40:20 " seems to be rather accurate across major search engines like Google and Yahoo!. So what exactly is the "40:40:20"? The "40:40:20" is actually a ratio between "on-page" factors, "off-page" factors and page URLs, with 40% of search engine rankings dependent on on-page factors, 40% on off-page factors and the final 20% on page URLs. However, do note that the exact percentage ratio varies between search engines, though only slightly.

Keywords belong in on-page factors. You will need to have keywords, for every main page in your website, in the right places and with the right density. There should be keywords in the title, description and META keywords. An acceptable keyword density is about 2% to 5%. Some sites use a density as high as 7%, which is not advisable. An overly high keyword density is known as "keyword stuffing". Keyword stuffing might have a negative effect on a website's ranking with the search engines.

Off-page factors center mainly on links; links from within your site's pages and backlinks, which are links from other sites, that link to yours. It is a rule of thumb that to rank well, backlinks are a must. It is however, probably the most difficult to achieve. It is necessary to constantly get new backlinks, or your ranking might drop! One of the methods most used would be article marketing.

Your website and its pages' URL take up the last 20% of the ratio. Webpages with keywords in the URL rank better on search engines. Try putting your key search terms in the page's URL. This will have a significant effect on ranking.