Top tips for SEO, ranked

[alan@onlybowls.]

I've spent a fair amount of time reading the various threads on SEO (by which we mainly mean GO). I am an ex-web designer now running a sports shop, so I understand most of what is being said. I certainly understand that we are designing our websites to be used by, to sell to, Joe Public, and that we are not designing them to be used exclusively by search engines.

However, the primary suggestions - spend lots of time learning how to do SEO, or pay for an SEO specialist - don't apply to me as I don't have that sort of time and the business doesn't have spare cash. I want to spend my effort on the things which will have most impact, and to be honest I'm not sure what they are. The bottom line is - I want to get more people visiting and buying from our website.

So, can someone give the various available techniques a rating between one star and five stars?

* Don't do this, it makes things worse
** A waste of time - don't bother
*** Worthwhile - do when you can
**** Make time to do this soon
***** Work late tonight and do this

Here are a few of the possible tips - I'm sure there are others -

• Meaningful page title with keywords in it on every html page
• Meaningful meta description with keywords in it on every html page
• Meta kewords on every html page
• Eliminating acatalog and putting all html in the public root folder
• Where it would make sense, single product per page
• Good descriptions for each product
• Submit to googlebase
• Have a Google xml sitemap
• Keep the layout simple - never more complicated than section, sub-section, sub-sub-section (no more than three clicks to find the product from anywhere in your site)
• Have a link to an html sitemap (should it have a particular name?) at the top of each html page
• Use Adwords (this appears to improve ranking - I can't otherwise explain why one of our competitors always ranks higher than us)

Thanks.

[gabrielcrowe]

re: adwords
I'd also like to piggyback this onto the request for starrage, could you add these to your list so i can delete mine?

- adwords link deeply
- adwords have fewer keywords, in more adverts
- adwords have more specific keywords
- adwords needs as much money as you can pump into it
- adwords should have lots of campaigns
- adwords needs cleverly worded ads
- adwords needs analytics
- use the desktop application
- adwords needs someone working on it 24/7

[Mark H]

Might also be worth adding for starrage:

• Use .co.uk in the UK, not .com
• Use a UK hosting service
• Regularly changing text at least on the index page (and elsewhere if possible)

[leehack]

No starrers giving starrage yet? I would do but I have stars in my eyes sorry and can't see.

[acompton]

Here's my ha'penceworth

SEO
(I'm not an expert my any means, this is just from reading the forum regularly,
I will edit it if there is a concensus of opinion)
**** Meaningful page title with keywords in it on every html page
*** Meaningful meta description with keywords in it on every html page
*** Meta kewords on every html page
** Eliminating acatalog and putting all html in the public root folder
**** Where it would make sense, single product per page
**** Good descriptions for each product
*** Submit to googlebase
*** Have a Google xml sitemap (use with caution)
*** Keep the layout simple - never more complicated than section, sub-section, sub-sub-section
? Have a link to an html sitemap at the top of each html page
? Use Adwords
**** Use .co.uk in the UK, not .com (if mainly selling to the UK)
**** Use a UK hosting service (if mainly selling to the UK)
**** Regularly changing text at least on the index page
Adwords
(I do have some experience of this)
***** Turn off Google Content Network
**** adwords link deeply (should land on the product page)
***** adwords shouldn't target the default rank 1 (they cost more and you often get rank 1, anyway)
? adwords have fewer keywords, in more adverts (not sure what this means)
**** adwords have more specific keywords (should keyword on product names)
** adwords needs as much money as you can pump into it
*** adwords should have lots of campaigns
**** adwords needs cleverly worded ads (wording should reflect the product searched on)
? adwords needs analytics (depends on whether your products sell on the first visit)
? use the desktop application (never used it)
*** adwords needs someone working on it 24/7 (not 24/7, but you do need to keep an eye on each campaign's ROI)

[alan@onlybowls.]

And I thought I might have to wait until tonight for the stars to come out!

Can I ask questions about a couple of your rankings / suggestions?

**** Have a Google xml sitemap -

This is one thing that we are doing just for Google - ordinary users get no direct benefit from this. Is the consensus that an xml sitemap is a good thing for a fairly logically laid out, simple website? I have read that they can confuse the indexing of the website for the worse.

**** Use .co.uk in the UK, not .com

We sell worldwide (Europe, USA, Brazil, Australia are our main overseas markets), though the vast majority of our business (say 85%) is in the uk. We have a .com site. We own the .co.uk domain as well, but that is 'idle' - just redirecting to the .com domain. Question is, is it worth the cost of powering up the .co.uk domain and getting full blown hosting for it instead of, or as well as, the .com domain? You think this is fairly important? Our current hosting is with internetters and costs £125 per year.

[acompton]

**** Have a Google xml sitemap -

You're right, and I've downgraded it to 3*

**** Use .co.uk in the UK, not .com

This advice is usually given if you are mainly trading in the UK