How should you lay out your site? part 4

The next part of your page to concentrate upon is your footer. The reason for this is that when a search engine looks at your page, if it sees that the beginning of the page relates to a subject, the content relates to a subject, the images and logos relate to a subject and finally the footer relates to a subject then it stands to reason that the page it is looking at is all dedicated to that one subject....... and what does Google want to provide for its vast network of searchers??? High quality topic specific websites that provide the information that the searcher needs.

I will discuss the page content in the next section

How should you lay out your site? part 3

The content of your page should be fresh and original. In addition you should try to include your keywords where you can in order that the text is searchable for your topic. The optimum keyword density is important to how well the site ranks, you want to include your keyword 6 - 8 times on the page including in the h1 and h2 tags, for maximum effect.

As you work your way down the page you will need to make sure that your images and graphics have suitable alt text attached to them. If you use your keywords as the alt text, followed by image 1, image 2 etc then you will help your page to rank as well as possible.

How should you lay out your site? part 2

After the logo that you have already located in the top left you can continue your header across the page. If you want to add some flast this is a good place to put it, but remember that Goole and the other SE's will see no more than a white square.

You also need to add some navigation to your site. The simpler the navigation is the better. Google will struggle to follow java script links or clickable images and will also not know what the links "subject" is. If you use text then the links can be read and understood and the pages that you link to will benefit.

Once you have the navigation in place it is time to concentrate on the content for the site. Start with Heading tags. H1 to H6 are important tags and so you should use them whenever you can. You can adjust the size etc using your css style sheet so they do not need to be huge headings on the page. Make the heading tags your prime keywords so that they rank as well as they can.

How should you lay out your site?

If you are at the planning stage then you have the ideal opportunity to create a site that will be easy to optimize and that will rank as well as it can.

Of course if you are working with an existing site then you will be somewhat stuck with the design that you have. As long as the index page of the site isn't just a pretty flash entry page you will have something to work with.

However if you have a blank page but want some interaction on your site how can you lay it out so that you will still rank well?

Firstly you want to have either an image or logo in the top left corner. This is the first thing that the SE's spider will look at and although it can't see the image or logo it can read the alt text that you can put behind it.

How to analyse a niche part 4

Another good indicator when deciding upon a niche is to run a short term Adwords campaign. This will help in several ways as it will give you the main traffic keywords and highlight the ones that are a waste of time in the real world.

You will also get a feel for how competitive a keyword is. As a basic rule of thumb, the more adwords ads there are for a keyword, the more expensive it will be to rank on the front page. It follows that the organic listings will mirror this and it will be harder for your site to rank in the top ten the more ads show, and the higher the per click costs are.

If you take an hour to dig deep before you commit to a niche then you will save yourself many wasted hours in the long run.

How to analyse a niche part 3

Detailed analysis is vital if you are to succeed in your quest of top rankings. You can formulate a plan for anything if you know what you are competing against.

The best indication of success is keyword frequency...... if the site that you wish to surpass has used its' url in the majority of its' links then you have the opportunity to make your links more valuable by using the right link text on the right pages.

How to analyse a niche part 2

Once you have selected a keyword how do you go about analysing the top ranked sites?

The can be done in stages, firstly have a look at their PR rank. This will give you an idea as to the value Google places on the site.

Second, have a look at the quantity of backlinks. The is best done currently using Yahoo here;
http://uk.siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/siteexplorer which will show you every link Yahoo is aware of, and also how many pages are currently spidered for the site. This is not an exact figure and every search engine returns different data, but in the main it is the best yard stick. Google for example will only show a few backlinks even though in reality the site may have thousands. This is in part due to the workings of its algorithm, however Google analytics provides accurate data for your own sites, sadly this data is not available for your competitors sites.

Thirdly it is a good idea to have a look at the link text of your competitors links to see if it is an area that you can improve upon. I use SEO Elite for this purpose as it will return detailed results on link PR, page title, link text, as well as alexa rank, etc

If you have a look at the top four or five sites in your niche, not forgetting to also have a look at the main url if an individual page is ranking then you will soon get to grips with how achievable your goals are.

How to analyse a niche part 1

Before you attack a keyword armed with nothing more than enthusiasm and guts it is well worth having a good look at the competition that you are going to face. Top rankings in any niche are achievable if you do more than anyone else has done. The problem arises when you realise that the site that you want to beat is a PR 8, has 100,000 links, is in Dmoz, has existed since 1995 and has the dot com url that is perfect for the niche.............. how do you go about competing with such a site?......

The short answer is to pick battles that you can win...... and for the time being you can't win that one....... but if you work as hard as they did then in five years time your site may well be a worthy adversary to their crown.

If that example was the case for your niche then I would advise initially chasing traffic that you can realistically attain. It is important to walk before you can run, but while still keeping your eyes on the big picture.

Quality over Quantity links

I can't stress enough how important it is to focus your efforts on fewer high quality links rather that lots of low or no value links.

Remember a link is for life, not just for christmas.

A little bit of extra effort to attract the best links that you can will pay dividends in due course.

Creating good linking habits is something worth doing.

Less can often be more.