Underrated.co.uk – Search Engine Optimisation

A quick fire list of five tips that will help you get off to a good start with SEO:

1) Update Frequently

Not all sites require regular updates, but it is important to update your site as often as possible. If it’s not a traditional daily update style site, then why not think of adding industry news or a blog? Google and co are very fond of web properties that are current, and frown upon stagnant sites.

2) Reduce duplicate content

If you have an article site, make sure that you dont run a mirror, sister site or sub domain with the same or very similiar content. Google penalises duplicate content and as such  there is nothing to be gained from reproducing it elsewhere. The same applies to underhand activities like ripping off other peoples content. It will be noticed and you may well be penalised for it.

3) Location…location…location

If you run a site aimed at a regional audience, then your aim should be to appeal first and foremost to that very audience. For a UK targetted site for instance, you can better achieve this aim by hosting your site and domain within  the UK, primarily exchanging links with sites from the UK, getting featured in UK articles etc. Do all you can to make your web property ‘the go to place’ for visitors from the geographical area you are targetting.

4) Don’t be anti social

Tthere are so very many social networking sites and services that it’s no longer really an option to shut yourself off from them and just slog away in an attempt to improve your popularity. You need to help your content become viral on sites like digg.com , inform people of updates or musings on twitter.com , get your friends on facebook talking about a new service you’re offering and so on. It all helps and the backlinks will help too.

5) Spot Trends

If you become successful in a niche it’s all too easy to be so satisfied with what you’ve achieved that you make no effort to improve. Big mistake. There will always be competitors on your tail just waiting for you to ease off the gas. The net is fast moving, and if you miss a trick, by the time you’re back paying attention you’ve lost valuable time, which in turn can translate to customers, website ranking and reputation in general. Stay focussed, keep an eye on your competitors and any new developments in your line of business.

google trends chart

terms to optimise for. When comparing terms such as “funny stuff”, “funny clips” and “funny videos” it’s possible to see whichs ones are most searched for, and as importantly how popular or unpopular they are becoming.

To further refine a SEO strategy, why not browse through the first 10 or 20 results in google for these terms and try to ascertain the general quality and popularity of these sites. This can be done by checking the page rank, number of backlinks and alexa rating of the site in question. You can also use the google trends for websites to gauge site popularity. If one groups of results for a keyword phrase looks particulalrly weak that they may well be a good angle of attack.