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Posted by mariam.shariff on May 14th, 2010

Here are some basic 10 tips to improve a website’s search engine rankings through simple optimisation SEO techniques:

1. Neat and attractive
2. title tags and meta tags. Optimise the meta tags utilising the keywords in the descriptions as well as the keywords. Even though these are not said to be very effective these days they are still a key element of optimisation.
3. Implementation of the header tags; H1, H2, H3 are key elements a webpage source code where keyphrases can be effectively utilised.
4. Optimise the alt tags to include meaningful descriptions of the image while using the keyphrase smartly
5. Use the title tag of the image to display the keyphrase. Remember this is text that is visible so needs to make sense to the visitor who may hover over the image.
6. Sensible navigation; place the navigation at the top and in the side of the web page layout. Including some basic navigation at the bottom is also very effective. The more ways in which the search engine can find your web pages the better.
7. Include a html sitemap which contains links to all the webpages of the site. This way a search engine robot can easily crawl through all the pages of the site and no webpage is lost!
8. Neat URLs – have neat web addresses to each webpage. A web address with keywords separated by hyphens is much more presentable and easily crawlable than a webpage that contains odd characters like ? / & …. . You can use url rewrite tools to change any nasty urls into neat and concise ones.
9. Use the robot.txt file to block any unwanted duplicate content as this can be detrimental to the rankings of the website.
10. Keep the focus of the webpage content around your keyphrase chosen for that webpage. While this may seem obvious it is often overlooked while optimising. Your web copy must include the keyphrase enough to show the search engine robot the relevance of the webpage.
11. Include an XML sitemap; a very effective strategy that notifies  search engine robots which pages to crawl within a website.

Mariam Shariff.

Search Engine Optimisation, Midlands