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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Gasman Design, Inc. specializes in helping companies with Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the continuous practice of improving search engine position of a website. We build websites that will increasing traffic to your site.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "organic" or un-paid search results. In general, the earlier (or higher on the page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine.
Search Engine Optimization Advice Straight from Google
Information form Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
By create unique, accurate page titles:
A title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is. Ideally, you should create a unique title for each page on your site. With Drupal this is easily accomplished because you can have your URL path set to automatic create aliases.
Good practices for page title tags:
– Accurately describe the page's content
– Choose a title that effectively communicates the topic of the page's content.
Avoid:
– choosing a title that has no relation to the content on the page
– using default or vague titles like "Untitled" or "New Page 1"
– Create unique title tags for each page - Each of your pages should ideally have a unique title tag, which helps Google know how the page is distinct from the others on your site.
Avoid:
– using a single title tag across all of your site's pages or a large group of pages
– Use brief, but descriptive titles - Titles can be both short and informative. If the title is too long, Google will show only a portion of it in the search result.
Avoid:
– using extremely lengthy titles that are unhelpful to users
– stuffing unneeded keywords in your title tags
Good practices for URL structure
– Use words in URLs
– URLs with words that are relevant to your site's content and structure are friendlier for visitors navigating your site. Visitors remember them better and might be more willing to link to them.
Make your site easier to navigate
The navigation of a website is important in helping visitors quickly find the content they want. It can also help search engines understand what content the webmaster thinks is important. Although Google's search results are provided at a page level, Google also likes to have a sense of what role a page plays in the bigger picture of the site.
All sites have a home or "root" page, which is usually the most frequented page on the site and the starting place of navigation for many visitors. Unless your site has only a handful of pages, you should think about how visitors will go from a general page (your root page) to a page containing more specific content. Do you have enough pages around a specific topic area that it would make sense to create a page describing these related pages (e.g. root page -> related topic listing -> specific topic)? Do you have hundreds of different products that need to be classified under multiple category and subcategory pages?
Create a sitemap
A sitemap (lower-case) is a simple page on your site that displays the structure of your website, and usually consists of a hierarchical listing of the pages on your site. Visitors may visit this page if they are having problems finding pages on your site. While search engines will also visit this page, getting good crawl coverage of the pages on your site, it's mainly aimed at human visitors.
Good practices for site navigation
– Create a naturally flowing hierarchy
– Make it as easy as possible for users to go from general content to the more specific content they want on your site. Add navigation pages when it makes sense and effectively work these into your internal link structure.
Avoid:
– creating complex webs of navigation links, e.g. linking every page on your site to every other page
– going overboard with slicing and dicing your content (it takes twenty clicks to get to deep content)
– Use mostly text for navigation – Controlling most of the navigation from page to page on your site through text links makes it easier for search engines to crawl and understand your site. Many users also prefer this over other approaches, especially on some devices that might not handle Flash or JavaScript.
Avoid:
– having a navigation based entirely on drop-down menus, images, or animations (many, but not all, search engines can discover such links on a site, but if a user can reach all pages on a site via normal text links, this will improve the accessibility of your site; more on how Google deals with non-text files)
– Use "breadcrumb" navigation - A breadcrumb is a row of internal links at the top or bottom of the page that allows visitors to quickly navigate back to a previous section or the root page. Many breadcrumbs have the most general page (usually the root page) as the first, left-most link and list the more specific sections out to the right.
Offer quality content and services
Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here. Users know good content when they see it and will likely want to direct other users to it. This could be through blog posts, social media services, email, forums, or other means. Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site's reputation with both users and Google, and it rarely comes without quality content.
Good practices for content
– Write easy-to-read text – Users enjoy content that is well written and easy to follow.
Avoid:
– writing sloppy text with many spelling and grammatical mistakes
– embedding text in images for textual content (users may want to copy and paste the text and search engines can't read it)
– Stay organized around the topic – It's always beneficial to organize your content so that visitors have a good sense of where one content topic begins and another ends. Breaking your content up into logical chunks or divisions helps users find the content they want faster.
Avoid:
– dumping large amounts of text on varying topics onto a page without paragraph, subheading, or layout separation
– Use relevant language – Think about the words that a user might search for to find a piece of your content. Users who know a lot about the topic might use different keywords in their search queries than someone who is new to the topic. For example, a long-time baseball fan might search for [nlcs], an acronym for the National League Championship Series, while a new fan might use a more general query like [baseball playoffs]. Anticipating these differences in search behavior and accounting for them while writing your content (using a good mix of keyword phrases) could produce positive results. Google AdWords provides a handy Keyword Tool that helps you discover new keyword variations and see the approximate search volume for each keyword. Also, Google Webmaster Tools provides you with the top search queries your site appears for and the ones that led the most users to your site.
– Create fresh, unique content – New content will not only keep your existing visitor base coming back, but also bring in new visitors.