search engine optimisation for www.kirstyburgoine.co.uk...
Search Engine Optimisation can make or break a website these days and there are a lot of different techniques that need to be used to ensure good organic rankings within Google. There is no guaranteed way to get that top spot (without the use of Adwords) but you can ensure you are somewhere near it using a variety of techniques within the initial website build. Some of which I have outlined below.
behind the scenes...
Whenever I build a site I use semantic XHTML and CSS and this site is no different.
My title tag is unique on every page and has been ordered by importance, The structure of the titles is ‘keyword heavy description || page title || site title’. This allows Google to see the keywords before anything else within the page.
Where ever possible,all of the code used to style the pages is contained within an external style sheet. This allows Google to find the content within the page much more easily and also increases page loading times.
When dealing with images, any that are design elements are set as background images within my css instead of in the main page. All images used within the content have relevant names most have keyword specific names. This is a useful way to embed some extra keywords within your page instead of just using something similar to ‘content-image-1.jpg’ that tells Google nothing.
All of my header tags are in order of importance. The tag is the title of the page content so is most important, is used for sub headings, and so on.
I have also included ‘meta’ information within the tag of each page. This doesn’t have the same amount of importance as it once did but I see no reason to leave it out.
Also, because my old portfolio site had been live for a couple of years and it already had reasonably good organic rankings. I didn’t want to lose those rankings while I wait for Google to re index it. Therefore I have used what is called a ‘301 redirect’. Using a .htaccess file I have written some code that points all of the old pages that no longer exist to the equivalent new page. This is especially useful as it prevents people that find my site being sent to an error page instead of my new design.
what you can see...
As well as 301 redirects, .htaccess files are extremely useful for URL rewrites. Many sites using php have ugly url’s, something similar to www.yourdomain.co.uk/index.php?id=12⊂_id=37 is not uncommon. Not only is this awful to look at but it is also not good for SEO. By using a .htacces file I am able to easily rewrite these as much friendlier url’s. The text chosen is pulled directly from the database and then using a simple php function called preg_replace I am able to replace the gaps between the words with underscores. Creating keyword specific links.
The main navigation has been kept at the top of the page so that when the site is spidered, the structure of the site can be determined easily ensuring all pages are indexed.
the content…
You’ve heard the phrase content is key, well this is certainly true for websites. It is usually good practice to have a keyword density of around 10 percent for website content. This allows google and other search engines to figure out the relevance of your site to the search criteria. However, a common mistake is to sacrifice interesting, readable content for the sake of keyword density!
Google regularly checks when a site was last updated and if it hasn’t been updated for a while it will place websites that have higher in the rankings. Because I know that I don’t have the time to update my site 2 -3 times a week. I have incorporated many of my social network profiles. This way even though I am not editing my website directly, every time I use one of these it will automatically update my site and give it the appearance of being maintained far more regularly than it is.
I employ all of the above techniques as standard when building a website now, plus many others. The web industry is ever changing and there are always new techniques being adopted, if you would like to talk to me about SEO then please do contact me. I would love to hear from you.
If you are familiar with me around the net you will recognise my avatar and know that I pop up all over the place!
I realised that I don't have one central area for all of my online profiles so this area is exactly that.
I am an active twitterer and through Twitter I hear about all sorts of tips, tutorials and blog posts, if I find them interesting I bookmark them to my Delicious account. Check out my tag cloud to find a subject of interest.
I have started to upload some of the photos I have taken to my flickr account now, and I am also on facebook.
Find me on facebookMusic is a huge part of my life. I listen to music at work, at home, in the car, pretty much anywhere I can. Recently I came across a new music player called Spotify.
Spotify is essentially an online music library which you create an account for. What I like about it is that because everything is stored online it means that you can access your playlists from any computer that has Spotify installed just by signing in.
The other thing I like about Spotify is you can share your playlists with other people, I am rubbish at creating my own playlists so I find websites like www.sharemyplaylists.com great. Here are some of my favourite playlists. Enjoy!
- Kirsty's music to work to - by me!
- Ultimate Grunge Playlist - by ZepHead
- Guitar Hero Smash Hits - by olegafx
- Rock Band 2 - by codeeater
- 80's - by christianse
- Chillout - by ryanajarett