Cheap and easy ways to increase your SEO rank. (part 2)

A few weeks ago, I wrote "Cheap and easy ways to increase your SEO rank. (part 1)" about ways YOU can increase your SEO rank. At the time of the previous blog topic, Ameronix had just launched their new website which implemented these very same tips I am writing for you. After being indexed our site quickly climbed ranks. In just two days we saw a +28 position climb with just one of our keyword search phrases. With that phrase we currently sit on the first page and second position on Google's SERP. These results are better than had expected, but by no means am I going to complain!

These results are possible for anyone to achieve. Higher rankings are easy to implement and they are absolutely FREE. If you haven't read Part 1 of this series, sit tight, you can go back to that later. In fact, you may benefit more by reading this article first. In this article I will focus on the structure and design of a web site in relation to it's ability to be searched and/or crawled effectively. This will lead back to article one which deals with the elements inside your design and code that will benefit you most.

Solid website design
There is a huge difference between real life human visitors and the spiders/bots which crawl through your website. Even so, you must, and I repeat MUST design for both. For the human visitors, you want your website to be unique, bold, fun and engaging. You want them to want to hang out and look around – explore what you have to offer. It should be friendly and easy to navigate. More than likely the language you are designing for is English, and as such your page should be read from left to right and top to bottom. It's human nature, follow it. Your design should also be structured in a way that will naturally draw the visitors eyes to a focal point on the website at which point they stop and an action on their part is expected (clicking a link, filling out a form, etc). The spiders which crawl your pages unfortunately can not see what a human sees. Instead, they view your site from top to bottom. They want to gradually progress through the page, first by identify what they believe will be on the site and then hopefully, if you have done your content writing correctly, they will validate that they have found proper information relating to what they expected to find. A well designed website will allow the spiders to quickly and effectively crawl your web pages and find as much important information as possible.

Use the latest in web standards
You have probably heard it a millions times before, coding using the latest in web standards is a must. Not only can you impress your visitors, or the code curious people like myself (yes, I often find myself checking websites I enjoy for their XHTML and CSS validity), but you also make the crawlers jobs a heck of a lot easier. Now I'm not saying that an error or two is going to reduce your pagerank or SERP positioning, but it sure doesn't help. When a website begins to stray far from being semantic, it poses problems to both humans and spiders alike. If we as humans cannot read a link, there is a good chance the spider will have just as hard a time doing the same. While many may advocate that 100% XHTML and CSS perfection is hard to achieve and unnecessary, I will absolutely crawl out on my little branch and proclaim that there should most likely never be a problem with achieving absolute success with the latest web standards and semantics.

Website structure
I love the word and I get all giddy when using it. My obsession with structure probably derives from my love of architecture. Structure is a form of art, the ability to create something – anything – and have it, the thing as whole, work together in a uniform manner. A website works the same way, both in the design and the construction of the website. It should be coded using a similar structure throughout. Open your divs and close your divs. Use H1 tags for your headings, the items you wish the search engine to initially relate to most. Follow your headings with sub headings if needed. If not, go directly to your content and make sure it's structured! Start with a brief synopsis of what you will be talking about. Be broad and let both humans and search engines alike know what you will be covering. And then slowly build, like an architect does a building. Narrow your focus eventually to the point where you are talking about hardware for the cabinets which will reside on the 56th floor of your marvelous skyscraper apartment building. In apartment 1214 to be exact. You know, the ones with the beautiful granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances. It is this specific data that the search engine will love to devour. Be original, show some personality and structure your content to flow like the freakin' Mississippi!

So get out of here already! Get to work, you have a lot of it ahead. Use this free advice and follow these simple tips to get your website crawling up the ranks faster than Charlotte's web. And if you read all of this seo mumbo jumbo and still don't feel safe testing the waters, you can always use our search engine optimization skills to help you out!