Using an SEO Cheat Sheet - Part One
Getting your web developers up to speed on and attentive to your SEO efforts is not easy, which is why creating the Web Developer's SEO Cheatsheet, a free downloadable e-book you can share with those on your staff for the behind-the-scenes rundown on both technical and off-page best practices, is not only important, but easy. It helps your staff stay on top of what's new in search engine optimization (SEO) while simultaneously making suggestions for future improvement. You can't have one without the other, right? By keeping these three issues in mind when creating your SEO cheat sheet, you will ensure that your website and your business will enjoy the highest level of search engine optimization possible. Let's begin by taking a closer look at each of the three major sections of this SEO Cheatsheet.
The first section of the SEO Cheatsheet, which we'll start with today, deals with the most essential areas of SEO and what they can do for your website and business. Search engine optimization is perhaps the most important part of your website; therefore, it should be given its due attention by all your web developers. In this SEO cheat sheet, you'll learn valuable techniques such as link building, title optimization, keyword research, content optimization, Meta tags, ALT tags, website designing, and more. If your website isn't benefiting from any of these techniques, consider investing in additional services. Your web developers should also include an SEO audit in their SEO cheatsheet; however, don't be afraid to get help if it's needed.
Next, let's take a look at the second part of this SEO cheat sheet - the social media aspect of SEO. There are many social network sites on the internet, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare, as well as many other smaller directories that are beneficial to websites and businesses. Many of these sites will allow you to create backlinks directly from your blog or website. The social backlinks that you create through Facebook and Twitter can have a great effect on Google page rank and the number of organic links that your website receives. These backlinks will not only direct potential customers to your site, but will also help your search engine rankings as well. The social media aspect of SEO is worth taking into account when planning your overall online strategy.
One last thing that you should include in your SEO cheat sheet is the aspect of structured data and how it can benefit you. This includes things like RSS feeds, news feeds, and the ability to store data using XML. SEO SMB of these formats are commonly used in modern online business formats, and are extremely beneficial to SEO efforts, whether or not you're using them.
Now let's take a look at some of the topics that we touched on briefly before, which includes duplicate content, duplicate information, and content issues. SEO SMB is always an issue with SEO, and it can be difficult to avoid when you're working on a major project. But there are a few different ways that you can combat duplicate content and other issues that end up causing Google and other major search engines to drop your site off their indexes.
In our previous post we looked at the need for canonicalization. Canonicalization essentially means updating HTML and creating a new tag that corresponds to each piece of content that was removed or changed. However, in this context it can be helpful to also take a look at tag management and the use of meta tags. The addition of tags to your site audit tool can help ensure that your code is well organized and consistent, and ensures that you do not have duplicate content issues on your website.
Another cheat that we're going to go over today is the addition of http status codes and the effect they have on Google and other search engines. When you use H tags, Google uses the HTTP Status line for the status code to determine whether the page has been moved, refreshed or deleted, among other things. Unfortunately, this is also one of those times where a little information about what the code means isn't particularly useful. So, looking for an SEO cheat sheet that details how to best use H tags and other relevant information helps you get a better idea of what the problem might be.
In part two of our two part SEO Checklist series, we'll take a look at how you can use backlinks to help improve your off-page SEO efforts. As mentioned in part 1, building backlinks is one of the most important things you can do to improve your off-page SEO. However, there are a number of different ways to go about doing this, and there are even more rules and regulations that govern what you can and cannot do with backlinks in certain circumstances. Fortunately, there are some really great services available that can help you get started and keep a watchful eye on those you have created as well as helping you learn more about creating them in the first place. So, if you'd like to start boosting your on-page and off-page search engine optimization performance, you might want to consider consulting one of these services before you start digging through the various strategies out t here .