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"SEO advice (urgent?)"

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Thu 14/04/05 at 16:28
Regular
Posts: 10,364
Hi there.

I'm currently in the process of collaborating with a client on some website modifications they wish to make on their site.

One of the major things they are after is to get better rankings within the search engines.

Problem - I haven't really got a clue how to really optimise a site for search engines to pick up.

Got any ideas?
Thu 14/04/05 at 23:40
Regular
"l33t cs50r"
Posts: 2,956
Turbonutter wrote:
> Flush with cash man. Just bought a PSP

Just ordered mine. Has to be the sexiest piece of hardware I've ever played with. Was pleasently surprised when I got my hands on one last week.

> How's you? New job going well?

Not to bad. Freelancing going OK, money coming in steadlily, and plenty of it. Just about to look into contracting as I should be able to make anywhere between £200-£350/day especially if I go into consultancy on standards.

Got a job interview tomorrow for HCI/Usability Consultant with a software firm in Oxford, something I've wanted to do for ages. Less hands on coding/design, but would prefer to specialize in standrds/accessibility and usability with a focus on GUI design. Moneys bonkers too, £35,000/year (£800-ish/week).

Cacking it though, it's a 1.5hour interview!:P
Thu 14/04/05 at 21:26
Regular
Posts: 10,364
Wow, thanks people.

Turbonutter - long time no see, good to see you here.

Cheers for the links/advice, I've drawn up a response to the client in question and figured out what I plan to do.

His website is a mess however, coding wise, I might have to ask him for more money then the meager $40 he is asking for the stuff...
Thu 14/04/05 at 20:25
Regular
"Eff, you see, kay?"
Posts: 14,156
Flush with cash man. Just bought a PSP and a Helicopter :-) The SEO business is doing well for us, fortunately I work for one of the top ranked SEOs in the business so I actually get job satisfaction :-P

How's you? New job going well?
Thu 14/04/05 at 20:10
Regular
"l33t cs50r"
Posts: 2,956
From personal experience:

Correct, clean semantic mark up. Proper use of H1, H2 etc as they carry weight. Descriptive ALT tags, proper use of TITLE, well structured META data and precise structure of content, especially the first 50 lines (code + content).

The top 50 lines is the golden rule with Google. Discovered this after working with them at BPL. We spent ages working on why Bibliographies on academic sites wern't being indexed only to discover that Google misses them due to their natural place being at the end of the page. Obvious answer was to code with CSS positioning, though due to our position at the time we a) invested in a Google Box and b) worked with google on new ways for indexing academic website.

Also replace B and I with STRONG and EM as these have a descriptive meaning and add weight to the words contained between them.

Reduce as much redundant code as possible. This is possibly the strongest plus for using CSS layouts. No inline styles, as few table nests as possible if any at all and no depricated cr@p such as FONT etc.

All javascript should be externalised too.

The TITLE of the homepage... DO NOT PUT "WELOME" FIRST. Always place the company name before anything else.

Keywords are good too, I have a Fleet Insurance client who's "organic" rankings a very good from well placed keywords in the content of each page specfic to their trade/company.

They rank 3rd on Google just on organic population based on my initial code with no external SEO involved. Not bad for a firm only in existence since last November. (Their other rankings are paid for, the one ranked 3rd is just the sites URL)

This is a good "novice" guide by ALA [URL]http://www.alistapart.com/articles/seo/[/URL]

I personally hate the whole SEO thing at the moment purley as it's the "Buzz" word of the last 12 months. I also hate all these firms who make a killing out of supposedly improving your SEO (not slating them all, but worked with a few who were total tards) by doing thing that your code monkey should have done in the first place. Correctly written well structured code to standards using proper mark up.

On a different note.

Rob, hows life m8. Nice to see you about.
Thu 14/04/05 at 19:04
Regular
"Eff, you see, kay?"
Posts: 14,156
threadwatch.org, seobook.com, I work for an SEO company so I can give you all the links. The most important things are a high keyword density, clear site structure, regular fresh content and good CSS.

Another good tip is to put your navigation at the bottom of the file then use CSS to position it wherever you want - that way you won't get hit for duplicate content on the navigation of your page.

Ultimately we get contracts in the order of £20,000 for a small-scale SEO, which kinda illustrates how hard the SEO business is.

What keywords are you attempting to rank for?
Thu 14/04/05 at 17:38
Moderator
"Are you sure?"
Posts: 5,000
I see you own site (in your profile) isn't even listed in Google - so I ask myself do your clients know what they've let themselves in for ! ;¬)

I suggest starting somewhere like [URL]http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/[/URL] and get reading...
Thu 14/04/05 at 16:36
Regular
"NULL"
Posts: 1,384
There is masses and masses of information out there, but the key is to be specific.

Say your client sells windows, for arguments sake. If you type windows into google, you get 378 million hits. Chances are, a lot of people searching for windows won't be looking for your client.

Instead be specific. Use your meta tags (description and keywords) to focus in on particular searchphrases - maybe "double glazed pvc windows london". Just try to think what you want people to search for to find your site.

Once you've done this, search for it - see what comes up number 1. Then look at their site and use their page for reference - what keywords have they used, how many times, what is their description/title, etc etc.

Also, try to make sure the site is search engine friendly - as in a search engine can get everywhere you want it to.

There's loads more things to try (far too many to write here), so try googling for "search engine optimisation".
Thu 14/04/05 at 16:28
Regular
Posts: 10,364
Hi there.

I'm currently in the process of collaborating with a client on some website modifications they wish to make on their site.

One of the major things they are after is to get better rankings within the search engines.

Problem - I haven't really got a clue how to really optimise a site for search engines to pick up.

Got any ideas?

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