In this article you will find few tips for beginners to write articles based on SEO rules. SEO means – Search Engine Optimization. Articles written by SEO rules will result with better PageRank (higher position in Google, Yahoo, MSN …). Optimization rules can be grouped to: on-page optimization and off-page optimization. On-page optimization are techniques or rules performed on article itself, while off-page optimization it’s done on other sites. SEO rules are not complicated, and after you read them, you will no longer be a beginner.
On-page optimization:
- domain name – if you can, choose good one which will describe site, blog …
- the most important informations should be written in the article beginning (even in the first sentence)
- create user friendly links – like /web/seo-for-beginners/ and not like /article/12345/?id=2232
- describe links and images with title attribute
- put article title in <title> tag
- tags <h1>, <h2>, <h3> are SEO friendly – don’t forget them and use your keywords to create descriptions inside
- <h1> is the most important heading style and the coding recommendations state that only one should be used per page
- description meta tag and keywords should contain descriptive information about the article
- avoid in-line styles, instead write CSS and JavaScript in separate files
- use XHTML standard to create HTML
- avoid fat paragraphs and long sentences
- visitor should have easy access to your informations otherwise will go away
- create links with full name instead of “here” or “click here”
- compress CSS and JavaScript files – for CSS compression, I used CSSTidy (see my style.css)
- modern page design is not “must”, but certainly it will give a better impression
Off-page optimization:
- article with many good external links will have a better rank
- a good link is connection from site with similar content and site with good PageRank
- links from blogs and forum discussions will contribute to better PageRank
All tips mentioned here are from a group of “White hat” and it is a long-term investment. On the other hand, “Black Hat” techniques like:
- text in the background colour – invisible for the humans
- serve one text to the bots and another to the humans
should be avoided. “Black hat” techniques can generate short term results for clients, but the consequence can be ugly like getting removed by search engines. Finally, don’t forget you should write articles for readers – I mean humans.