How much SEO is too much?

SEO tips

Compiled below are 10 tips that form the basic principles of SEO that all companies can draw upon…

• Use the analytical tools available (Google Analytics, AdWords, Trends, Webmaster tools) to look at why people are coming to your site, when they do it, and what they are looking for in general. Look at the competition for keywords: is it better to pick a less popular search string but feature on page one of a search?
• The more times you repeat a keyword in a page does not equal higher ranking and you are in danger of being seen as spam. Ensure just one search string is reinforced per page.
• Relevant meta data - ensure the meta data which describes a page's contents actually reflects the page's contents. Search engines are quite good at recognising when it's not the case.
• Avoid Java navigation, again hard for the search engine to see.
• Use URLs that relate to what's on the page, and where possible correlate with keywords.
• Leverage the data from in-site search, particularly within ecommerce sites, to get a more accurate reflection of what people search for.
• Use 'long-tail' search terms - these keywords can be higher converting than commonly used or seemingly obvious search terms.
• Create compelling content - a page of keywords with mumbo-jumbo written between them is not going to getting many inbound links from other sites, so as well as annoying readers, Google will ignore the page.
• A no-no: search engines can read Flash if it is well coded, but most isn't, so sites built entirely in Flash don't tend to feature well in search rankings.
• Another no-no: if an SEO consultant offers you what amounts to keyword stuffing, hidden text or content scraping, walk away.

Thanks to my sources: Yann Gourvennec (Orange Business Services), Anthony Marechal (Viaccess), Hedley Aylott (Summit Media), Shaun Ryan (SLI Systems), Judith Lewis (i-level), Jon Smith (Aedgency) and Taylor Crosswell (EMC Consulting).

Stewart Baines is a director of Futurity Media, a leading technology marketing consultancy. Stewart's background is in journalism and industry analysis with expertise in collaboration, communications and green IT. Over the past 10 years, Futurity Media has worked with some of the biggest names in the technology business. Futurity Media's philosophy is simple: take complex technologies and make them accessible to a business audience. To find out more about Futurity Media's approach, go to www.futuritymedia.com.