Many SEO companies and SEO consultants would say that Content is king in search engine optimisation. This is attributed with the fact that content especially those that are laced with keywords are highly regarded by the search engines as a source for the websites’ information. It is to be recalled that search engines are using crawlers to gather data from the websites and most of the data being gathered are based on the keywords or words that are given high importance in the website. It is also good to note that keywords are those being utilised by search engine to as the category index of the target website and that most of the time these keywords are also the words or phrases that are being entered by internet users when searching for information using the search engines. However, it is also because of this fact that some SEO companies and SEO consultants may have been overdoing the insertion of keywords in their content which could lead to a problem called keyword stuffing.

Keyword stuffing is considered to be a black hat search engine optimisation technique. This is because of the fact that this is an abusive way of conducting search engine optimisation, further it is considered to be a technique that would tend to defraud the search engines into interpreting something abusive to be legal. However, because of the fact that search engine algorithms have already evolved it is important to note that it already has the ability to detect keyword stuffing and ban such websites that uses that said black hat search engine optimisation technique. Many SEO companies and SEO consultants sometimes committing such keyword unknowingly this may be because of the fact that their content contains an overloaded keyword density. This can be remedied by inserting only ample keyword density that is one to two percent of the total number of the content words.

Search engine optimisation is basically the use of strategies that would allow search engine crawler find keywords or data in your website that would help index or rank your website higher. Search engine bots mostly gather data through the text content of the website that is why website content is one strategy that is primary in the SEO strategies of SEO consultants and SEO companies. Images on the other hand are skipped by search engine crawlers or search engine bots but for SEO companies and SEO consultants such images are not seen as “dead weight” rather it is seen as an opportunity to develop an SEO strategy. Although images are skipped by search engines SEO companies and SEO consultants have found use for it and this is through the aesthetics of a website. No human user would like to look at a plain text website, sometimes message is conveyed better through images therefore for SEO consultants and SEO companies when developing a website the use of images is imperative as this would increase the aesthetic value of the website, which, as a consequence would increase the possibility of conversion of users to clients and the loyalty of your websites’ visitors. The aesthetic look and feel of a website may not be much of a factor for a search engine crawler but it is an important factor for a website visitor.

Another method that were developed by SEO companies and SEO consultants is by exploiting the tag that would create the image. It is a known fact that images are displayed because of the <img> tag in HTML and since web crawlers are unable to gather data from images SEO consultants and SEO companies have utilised the image tags’ alt attribute as an avenue to place the keyword. The alt attribute stands for alternative text and this is the text being displayed by the web browser if the image is not properly displayed by the same browser. The text placed in the alt attribute is recognised by search engine crawlers as a data that is worth processing in the search engine’s central engine.

One of the most important element of Search engine optimisation is content, many SEO companies and SEO consultants have even considered content as the king strategy in Search engine optimisation. This is because of the fact that it is within the content that one can insert the keywords to which the search engine will index the website. It is to be remembered that the website will be indexed by the different search engines using the keywords present in the website. This is why it is also important to create a keyword rich content. So how do we create a good content for our website? The following are some suggested guidelines in order to accomplish such goal:

1.       Start your content by first determining your keywords and keyphrases, this is imperative because of the fact that the search engines will index your website based on these keywords. Further when choosing your keywords it is important to limit it to only three, although there are no restrictions in the total number of keywords that you can use limiting it to three strong keywords would help you focus on your campaign and not be putting too much effort in the implementation of the Search engine optimisation strategies.

2.       Once you have determined your keywords you are now ready to write your content and in writing your content it is important that you utilise the keywords that you have chosen. However, SEO companies and SEO consultants have warned that using the keywords or keyphrases across the content should be done in relation to the context of the text and not to liberally use it in the content. It is because of the fact that use of the keywords liberally is an SEO black hat technique called keyword stuffing which is frowned upon by many search engines.

3.       Finally when creating content many SEO companies and SEO consultants would suggest that you provide readers with the avenue to discuss the text through the form of a comment. This would make your website a lot more interactive with the user and it would be creating avenue for discussions thus loyalty to your website will be ensured.

These are just some of the suggested steps that one can do in order to develop a good , SEO-friendly content.

It is a known fact that the main language for the web was standardised to be the Hypertext Markup Language this is why the main structure of a website is the HTML. Since HTML is the standard language many if not all search engines have developed their search engine crawlers to be recognising only HTML tags. However, with the development of the web comes the introduction of other scripting languages that allows web developers to add more features and properties to their website. However, such scripting languages have some adverse effects in the SEO campaign of an SEO company or an SEO consultant. The following are the scripting languages that are introduced in web development, their effects in the SEO campaign and the possible solution:

1.       Flash – this is a scripting language that is being utilised mainly for the websites’ aesthetic values such as animated navigation links and the like. The downside of using Flash is that it slows down the loading of a website which is a factor that is especially affecting any SEO campaign since Google have recently announced that page loading speed is now considered as a ranking factor. In order to solve this, it is imperative that the website is not entirely developed using Flash it would be prudent to just embed the flash code to the HTML structured website.

2.       Active Server Pages (ASP) – ASP or most specifically the dynamic ASP scripting language is a server side scripting language which dynamically returns results to the user, this is an unflavored scripting language in SEO because of the fact that dynamic ASP only creates the web page only when the user or site visitor asks for them therefore the search engine crawler is unable to index such “about-to-be” created web pages. In order to solve this problem the website designer or website developer should convert the dynamic URL into a static URL.

These are just some of the scripting language that when properly used would still deliver the needed result without compromising the SEO campaign.

Remaining true to their promise of acquiring small companies every month Google have again acquired another small company for this month. Judging from the recent acquisitions being done by Google it is being theorised that Google is moving towards developing their own social media network platform. This theory was culled from the different acquisitions that Google has done recently among the acquisitions that are said to be in the field of social media is Social Deck which is a social gaming company. Social Deck is the fifth Google-acquired company in the month of August. According the written statement of Social Deck in their website the company started with a goal of developing a technology that will connect friends through social gaming on different platforms most especially on the mobile platform.The Company Social Deck was founded in the year 2008 and has been producing several social media games which is imbued with the principle of “anywhere,anytime,anyone”. The games that were produced by Social Deck were Pet Hero Puzzle, Shake and Spell 3D, Shake and Spell and Color Connect. These titles were made available through several platforms like ITunes, Shake and Spell is made available in Facebook and Blackberry. These services or games were made available by Social Deck for free except for Shake and Spell 3D where there is a ninety-nine cent version through the App Store. Another popular social network game developed by Social Deck is Spark which is a social game that connects friend through Facebook, Blackberry and iPhone. The acquisition of Social Deck is the fifth acquisition among the other acquisitions during the month of August is Angstro which is has the technology to connect or tie-up social contacts with news, Like.com which is an online retailer site, Jambool which is a virtual currency platform and Slide which is a social network app developer. These recent acquisitions are said to be in preparation for the launch of Google’s own social media network called Google Me.

For more Information on how this will affect your SEO please contact us via our Contact page.

Placing a page title is one strategy that most SEO company and SEO consultants are using because of the fact that these page titles are considered to be the most important strategy due to the fact that this is the first text that the search engine crawlers would see when it examines the website. Since page title is a top element in an HTML structure it is considered by most SEO companies and SEO consultants to be among the first element that the search engine crawlers are going to “see” or “crawl”. This is the reason why many search engine optimisation companies and search engine optimisation consultants are giving focus on the content of the title tag, the following are some guidelines or suggestions on what to write or how to write on the websites’ title tag.

1.       Although there is not actual set number of characters to be written in the title tag content it would be prudent to set the total number of characters to fifty. This is because of the fact that search engines would only index around fifty characters of text found in your title tag.

2.       It would also be best not to use your company name as the content of your title tag instead it would be better to utilise keywords or descriptive text for the websites’ page. This technique would ensure the data describing the web page would be very accurate.

3.       Use the title content only once, repetition of the keywords in the title tag could be interpreted by the search engine crawlers as spam text.

4.       Consider the special character to make the beginning of your title text as noticeable as possible.

5.       It would also be very useful to add call to action text in the title tag of your web page. This would also help contribute to convincing the users or visitors of your website to convert.

It is a known fact especially for SEO consultants and SEO companies that a search engine crawler uses links in order to navigate through the pages of the website for the purpose of gathering relevant data for the search engine to process. This is why it is important for a website to have valid and unbroken links within the website. However, sometimes due to some factors a link may not be broken but still the search engine crawlers or the users are not able to navigate to some pages, sometimes this is because of the fact that some websites have poor navigation links that users or visitors of the site are unable to locate some other pages. There are times also that the links are developed using flash or JavaScript which a search engine crawler cannot understand however a user can easily locate and understand such link, this conflict is brought about by aesthetics for the user because flash or JavaScript can give a sort of animation or other special properties to the links, however since the search engine crawlers are unable to understand such then there is a conflict on whether to choose the preference of the user or the preference of the search engine crawler. This conflict of preference is being solved by SEO companies and SEO consultants by developing a site map. A site map is a web page where it lists down all the web pages in the website and such listed text are actual links to the pages. The basic site map lists the different web pages in a website using the normal standard HTML links or anchor tag nothing fancy like the use of Flash or JavaScript this is why the sitemap could actually help facilitate the crawling of the website by the search engine crawlers even though the navigation links are developed using flash or JavaScript. With the site map the conflict between the visitors preference and the search engine crawlers’ preference is solved.

Most SEO companies and SEO consultants have been focusing on the popular properties or strategies in search engine optimisation that they tend to forget that there are still other factors that should be considered. Common SEO strategies such as link building and content construction are the two most sought after strategies, rightly so because of the fact that these two strategies have the tendency of delivering high SERP results and even page ranking. However the question is this, if those two strategies are standard SEO strategies and two competing online companies have utilised it equally and have been in a deadlock how does one gain advantage over the other? To answer that question it is through determining who among those two SEO companies have utilised or optimised their website using other factors. One other factor that is not always placed in the SEO limelight is the website’s usability. Usability would mean how “user-friendly” is the website or how easily is the website being utilised. For the internet visitor this factor may contribute to the loyalty of the user as such would be very easy for the user to use the site making him or her bookmark the site or return to the website. One main factor about usability is the website’s ease in navigation, where the user or visitor can easily find what he or she is looking for in the website. Navigation also is important in the point of view of the search engines, this is because crawlers that would crawl the target website would also have an easier access to all the web pages and that it can easily look for the needed keywords and data that is going to be utilised in the processing of the website on its indexing or on its SERP. Sometime “flair” in navigation like using javascript codes for links and flash introductions could prove to be detrimental to the websites’ search engine results page ranking this is why navigation should be created simply via HTML to make it easily recognisable by search engine crawlers. When developing a website it is important to note that a useless website would never gain any traffic.

There are several factors that can affect search engine optimisation aside from the websites’ link and content, one factor that is being heavily considered by many SEO companies and SEO consultants is the domain name. It is a known fact that some domain names are being sold for a very expensive price because of the fact that the name or domain name is considered to be a premium name. Domain naming is an important element in the field of search engine optimisation because of the fact that it has been observed that many if not all search engines are giving a high search engine results page ranking to those websites with a relevant and keyword rich domain name. One experiment that was done was to search using a keyword and it was found out that the website with a keyword related domain name was ranked higher than its other competitors and such domain name was even highlighted in Google’s search engine results page. Many SEO companies and SEO consultants have established the importance of domain names this is why guidelines were made in order for SEO companies and SEO consultants to have a guide to follow when naming their domains. The following are tips on how to name your domain:

1. As much as possible it is imperative to avoid underscores, dashes or any other special character in your domain name. Many SEO companies and SEO consultants are committing this error because they would like to get the closest possible domain name to what they want which was unfortunately taken already however a close domain name is still a different domain name so it is important that when the domain name is already taken the SEO company or SEO consultant should look for another domain name which would still use the keywords in the domain name.
2. A short domain name is highly favored, this is because of the fact that it is easy to memorise, many users or site visitors would not be able to memorise a very long domain name that is why it is imperative for SEO companies and SEO consultants to keep it short and simple.
3. As much as possible choose .com tld’s instead of other domain extensions this is because such top level domain is a lot more popular among internet users, this is aside from the fact that the .com top level domain extensions have the tendency to rank higher than the other domain extensions.

When developing a website that will be subjected to search engine optimisation, it is prudent for an SEO company or an SEO consultant to be able to guide the web developer, if such is different from the company or person handling the SEO campaign, on how to develop the website according to the needs of the search engine optimisation campaign. This is of course without destroying the aesthetic value of the target website. There are several website elements where an SEO company, an SEO consultant and even a website designer should take into consideration when developing the website which will be subjected to an SEO campaign. The following are the different web page elements that should be taken into consideration while developing the website;

1. The Text content of the website is a page element that should be taken into consideration when developing the website, this is not only because of the fact that the text content could be an avenue for the SEO consultant and SEO company to insert the different keywords for the website also because the text content is an avenue for you to insert call to action text that will convince visitors to become clients.
2. Website links is another page element that should be considered when developing a website. Broken links or invalid links within the website is unacceptable in SEO because it is through the links that search engine crawlers move between and among the websites’ web page as the links serves as the bridge of the websites pages.
3. Another page element consideration is the HTML tags in the website, it is a known fact that HTML is the lingua franca of the internet therefore most websites are built with the HTML structure, using the tags to insert keywords or to highlight the different keywords that is used by the website is imperative. For example the meta tag though with less importance would still contribute in the SEO efforts thus insertion of keywords in those tags is important.

These are some points to consider when developing your website as this would facilitate the implementation of the search engine optimisation of every SEO company and SEO consultant.