Here is a short-quick guide to the best practices on SEO

1. Create unique, accurate page titles: Page titles are important for users and search engine both. Use unique page title for each page and include keywords in a non-spam descriptive manner in the titles.

• Indicate page titles by using title tags
• Accurately describe the page’s content
• Create unique title tags for each page
• Use brief, but descriptive titles

2. Make use of the “description” meta tag: Google gives more importance to description meta tag. Some people even believe that google search algorithm puts very little to no value to keywords meta tags due to its misuse and so description meta tags become even more important when it comes to page content.

• Accurately summarize the page’s content
• Use unique descriptions for each page

3. Improve the structure of your URLs: Use meaningful page names with keywords and use meaningful categories to organize the content.

• Use words in URLs
• Create a simple directory structure

4. Make your site easier to navigate: Google advises using simple text link rather than drop-downs or image navigation.

• Create a naturally flowing hierarchy
• Use mostly text for navigation
• Use bread-crumbs on pages
• Put an HTML site map page on your site, and use an XML Sitemap file
• Have a useful 404 page

5. Offer quality content and services: Fresh original content is always a key thing to any website. It also helps getting quality backlinks in long run.

• Write easy-to-read text
• Stay organized around the topic
• Create fresh, unique content
• Create content primarily for your users, not search engines

6. Write better anchor text: When you are linking a page to another page or document, instead of giving links like “To read more click here“, use meaningful description of the page to which you are linking.

• Choose descriptive text
• Write concise text
• Format links so they’re easy to spot
• Think about anchor text for internal links too

7. Optimize your use of images: Don’t just add images but also provide alt attributes with them.

• Use brief, but descriptive filenames and alt text
• Supply alt text when using images as links
• Supply an Image Sitemap file

8. Use heading tags appropriately: Six heading tags from H1 to H6 are available. They are important not only for search engines to analyse your content but also for the readers.

• Imagine you’re writing an outline
• Use headings sparingly across the page

9. Make effective use of robots.txt: In robots.txt file you specify what not to index to the search engine. If some of your pages contain sensitive or private information, you should use robots.txt

• Use more secure methods for sensitive content

10. Be aware of rel=”nofollow” for links: It helps you to control the quality of links to which you want your website to be related to.

11. Promote your website in the right ways: Use a blog integrated with your website to promote your content or service.

• Know about social media sites
• Reach out to those in your site’s related community

12. Make use of free webmaster tools: Use webmaster tools to submit xml sitemaps, see crawler errors and other details related to your website. It will help monitor your site performance more closely.

13. Use Google Analytics: Register your site with analytics and pay attention to the kind of users visiting your site and what content is popular amongst your site visitors. It also helps you to understand whether people visiting your site are the people you need, whether they will become your customers or are just trespassing your site. Accordingly you may want to modify site design and content.

All the tips essentially boil down to making the site as easy to use  and as meaningful as possible for the users. If your users are happy with the site, they can easily navigate through it and find your content meaningful, in long run search engines will love your site too! After all the purpose of search engine is to find what is good for the users.

And finally don’t do too much of any thing as it may have negative effects.

Source: Google

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