seo basics

Everyone makes mistakes. That’s just a part of being human. But only those who learn from their mistakes will truly succeed.

When it comes to SEO, making mistakes happens just like in all other ventures. But the problem that occurs in SEO is that most people who make these mistakes don't know they are making them.

If you are planning on implementing SEO on your Drupal site, are currently do so, or just want to learn more about this mysterious and intriguing process, please join me after the jump for 10 Drupal SEO mistakes to avoid with your website.

Sometimes it is much easier to use images on your website instead of text. Search engines, however, cannot accurately read images, so unless you explicitly tell the search engines what your images are about, they will provide no search engine optimization value to your page.

Lost?

The Internet is a big place. What you thought was once there might no longer be. Trippy, isn’t it? Sometimes it is necessary to move, delete, update or change your website or its URL. A 301 redirect sends a user from an old homepage to a new URL.

It’s a lot like forwarding your mail but, instead, it forwards those accessing your site. The code “301” is interpreted as “moved permanently” (“302” is temporarily) to a new location. It’s the most efficient and search engine friendly method for web page redirection. 301 redirects aren’t penalized by search engines like some other types of redirects are.

When implementing SEO on your website, there are certain elements that are essential to optimize for success. If your site is new to the web and needs to be found, here are the five most essential elements on your site that need SEO attention:

1. Meta Title Tag

This may be the most important element you optimize for your site. The Meta title tag should use text for each page that is relevant to your site, including the use of your most important keyword. This tells the search engines what your site and its pages are about, as well as what keyword you want to rank for.

In search engine optimization, the most important animal is the spider. If you happen to read this blog on a regular basis, you may have heard me fondly refer to the search engine spiders quite often and how they crawl your site. If you aren’t quite clear on what a search engine spider is, you may find my consistent references quite creepy. I would like to take this time to weave the web of clarity on search engine spiders and (possibly) lower the level of creepiness that spiders bring you.

There is a learning curve with Search Engine Optimization, and everyone has come to terms with it. There is a small threshold of acceptance when a website makes a few mistakes along the way of mastering the world of search. However, that does not mean you shouldn’t heed the wisdom of your predecessors and avoid some basic mistakes that many neophytes makes with their website.

1. Splash Pages

A splash page, or landing page, is the first page a visitor sees when they land on your website. Most splash pages utilize a flash animation with an accompanied “click here to skip” button, or a large static graphic that overpowers your screen. The main reason why splash pages are not recommended is that they are usually not optimized for search engines to crawl for rankings. There is little readable content or links for the spiders to index and therefore will show little to no interest in the page at all, resulting in very low rankings.

If you are implementing an SEO campaign for your company’s website, then you are always looking for ways to climb to the top of the search engine rankings. Even the beginners know that you have to the a good, sturdy rope to even begin, and that’s where on-page SEO comes in: Link building, keyword optimization, and getting those tags plugged with the right copy will slowly and steadily get you up the cliff. But if you want to have a little extra boost, you may want to look at other ways to help your SEO efforts. You should always submit your website to directories.

Whether you are a company with an office the size of a broom closet, or your broom closet is the size of a company, it is always crucial to establish and set SEO priorities for success. The process of setting priorities could have a significant impact on your organic search results. We will start with the basics.

Search Engine Optimization can be very versatile in a variety of different ways. The application of SEO depend on the objectives of your business and the benefits you desire. The impact of your objectives may even yield benefits you hadn’t intended, and may not have even known were possible. There are primary applications for SEO and reasons to use them for your business. It is very important that you choose the right objectives before implementing any SEO strategy. Let’s look at six different objectives that SEO can execute and how they will impact your business.

You can use SEO for raw traffic on your website. You want to use this objective when you can monetize traffic without actions or financial transactions on your site. Concentrate your efforts on great content and use keyword-based optimization only as a secondary method to confirm your titles and headlines of the work you create. This will optimize your accessibility throughout the site to earn a high volume of traffic and success with long tailed queries. Make sure your articles are easy to share and optimized for viral spreading by employing good on-page optimization. This objective is a starting point for businesses just joining the SEO world and need some training wheels-per say.

SEO for e-commerce sales focuses on driving relevant traffic to your site to shop and boost your sales. This objective is used when you have products and/or services for sale on your site. It primarily is focused on monetized traffic and often yield very high conversion rates, when applied correctly. Pay-per-click is an excellent way to test the efficacy and potential ROI of keyword targets you choose and find out if they are providing traffic and conversion appropriately. You may find that the more specific the keyword, including your brand or product name, the more likely your visitors will purchase. This objective also involves some serious link building and highly optimized content. If you would like to know more, please read on...

It is rare that you will have image links in your navigation bar, but if you do have them be sure and include the text links too. When the search engines index your website be sure that they see the text links first, and you can ensure this by putting them first in your code. Because the search engine spiders won't follow more than one link to the same page, it's always best for them to see the text link first so that they index that one.