The 52 Top SEO Tips

by David Leonhardt

Published on this site: February 25th, 2004

From the obvious to the "Hey-I-never-thought-of-that-great-idea- before", here are 10 of the top 52 tips on how to optimize your website for its turbo-charge rocket ride up the search engine rankings.

Be bold. Use the <b> </b> tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.

Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site.

Become a foreigner. Canada and the UK have many directories for websites of companies based in those countries. Can you get a business address in one of those countries?

Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their archives.

First come, first served. If you must have image links in your navigation bar, include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they find to any particular page. They won't follow additional links to the same page.

Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Why not a site dedicated to gumbo pudding pops?

Article exchanges. You've heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else's article on the history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. They publish your article on the top ten pudding pop flavors in Viet Nam, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in other tips.)

Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page.

Not anchor text. Don't overdo the anchor text. You don't want all your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like automation - something Google frowns upon. Use your URL sometimes, your company name other times, "Gumbo Pudding Pop" occasionally, "Get gumbo pudding pops" as well, "Gumbo-flavored pudding pops" some other times, etc.

Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. It's called the navigation bar.

There is a lot more to search engine optimization, and there are always more details when looking at an individual site. But these tips should help any website significantly improve its rankings.

David Leonhardt is a freelance writer, and an online and offline publicity specialist.