Hungerford Web Design Blog

I’ve already said that I consider myself a whitehat, one thing I would like to clarify though is that you don’t need or have to conform to these labels defined by others. Each individual should find their own SEO path based on history, experience, skill and ultimately risk.

What defines a whitehat? Maintaining the integrity and morality of your site as defined by the major search engines you are working with. (is that a fair description?)

Each search engine normally publishes whitepapers, guidelines and sometimes rules for inclusion in their services and following this is one of the descriptions of a whitehat. An equally valid description is simply a webmaster who creates their content for their users, not for google. The obvious byproduct of having a solid, committed and returning userbase is probably better rankings.

Internal linking

You have to tell a search engine where to look. An effective way of doing this is to have a link on your page, pointing to another of your links. This is why having simple links with descriptive text is extremely valuable. E.g. If I was going to link to an imaginary page for adobe reader:

• Good: Are you struggling with PDFs? Why not use Adobe Reader
• Bad: Are you struggling with PDFs? Click here to use Adobe Reader

The difference is that a search engine spider will be attempting to index your link based on the context in which it is given. “Here” is such a pointless word in terms of its descriptiveness that it will be ignored. When linking internally, avoid the use of phrases which don’t describe what you are linking to and attempt to be consistent in the use of that text.

Reciprocal linking

Exchanging links is one way of both increasing your site presence and also your search engine exposure. *Caution* be aware of the reputation of the sites you are exchanging links with and in my opinion, stay well clear of any sites promising you that your site will be exchanged with thousands. Firstly, in all honesty, the sites taking part in the program will be of an equal or lower ranking than yours (thereby not helping with your ranking) additionally, your links are more than likely to be buried in a site structure not given any weighting by search engines.

Website optimisation

Optimising your site is to follow the guidelines laid out by the search engines themselves. Clear, easy to read links in association with well written content and considering accessibility will all help.

Some SEO related info from major search engines:

• What’s an SEO? Does Google recommend working with companies that offer to make my site Google-friendly?
• Google webmaster design guidelines
• MSN/Livesearch Guidelines for successful indexing
• Yahoo search content quality guidelines

Content

Good quality and regularly created content will bring both visitors and search engines alike. Make your content related to your site, create unique content offering your views and opinions. It’s my belief that making your content interactive through forums, guestbooks, blogs and other similar systems keeps people and spiders coming back again and again. For me, it also enriches my experience. Knowing that people are reading, learning from, thinking about what I’m saying really enspires me. The more comments and feedback I get, the better.

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