How does it work?

Changing rules

SEO is basically what web designers do to make your website more attractive when the search engines, most often Google, come along to index and rank your website. SEO has been around since the early days of web design and a lot has changed since then.

There are a number of basic principles that still remain in place and should be incorporated within the coding for your website.

How can you help?

The search engines periodically explore the web and look for pages to add to their indexes

Seven Top Tips

  • Ensure your site is mobile friendly
  • Write great content containing key words and phrases
  • Provide good images to make your site attractive to view
  • Regularly update content
  • Include video
  • Review Key words and update to attract more hits specific to your business
  • Work with your website designer to keep abreast of search engine developments

Some of the older SEO tactics that might get you banned or penalized by Google:

  • Stuffing non-relevant keywords into your meta-tags and content that are of obviously intending to sway the rankings in your favor.
  • Hidden keyword text. For instance, white text on a white background.
  • Link farms. If you have paid to get your website link on another site that’s sole existence is sharing links, this can come back to haunt you in the form of lower rankings or even a total ban in the search rankings.
  • Participating in PBN (private blog networks). Recently, a lot of websites got slapped down by Google because they were linking between other blogs and websites that they created solely for circulating link traffic
  • Posting your link on forums and irrelevant websites and blogs. While this may not get you banned, these are considered “low quality” links (some of which may be “no-follow” links anyway) which can nullify your SEO attempts.
  • Set it and forget it solutions. Often touted by so called SEO experts, some of these automated link building tools and article spinners can cause you major headaches if you get caught.