Free DIY SEO

Reviews and Coupons for Hostgator

2008-02-22T14:47:00.002Z

Top14webhosts.com is a well laid out and nicely designed site which provides reviews of the most popular hosts, like BlueHost, LunarPages and this Hostgator review.

We all want inexpensive web hosting, but the cost is not the only factor that you should take into account. One good reason is that many hosts offer cheap hosting plans initially to gain a market share but then can't keep up with the demand. As a consequence, the level of service suffers. For many webmasters, it makes more sense to use a web host that has been around for a while.

Top14webhosts.com reviews most of the established hosting companies and provides a detailed over view of the packages and services they offer. If you're looking for cheap web hosting, then this is the kind of site you need to study, as it gives you the facts along with opinion and experience from people who've hosted plenty of sites.

Compliance with UK Building Regulations

2008-02-01T07:17:00.001Z

The UK Government have introduced building regulations that require new homes to undergo an 'air tightness test', which is also known 'air permeability'. The building is sealed and pressurised, and the amount of air leaking from the building can be calculated. These regulations will help to reduce the energy required to heat buildings and tests must be carried out by an approved testing company.

Air naturally leaks from most buildings around doors and windows, and through gaps and cracks in walls and floors. However, excess levels of air leakage leads to uncomfortable draughts for the occupants and high heating costs.

A number of companies in the UK now offer air tightness testing for new build homes and commercial buildings. Some can even help private home owners who want to improve the energy efficiency of their houses. These companies should be registered with the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing and be able to test air leakage to the standard required by Local Authority Building Control and the Air Tightness Testing and Measurement Association (ATTMA).

Leema Technologies are fully qualified to these standards, and can also call upon in-house architects who can offer advice on how to comply with regulations and sustainable building techniques. Leema Technologies are based in the Midlands and test buildings for airtightness throughout the UK. Visit their website at www.leematech.co.uk for more air permeability testing information.

Don't forget - Search Engines Like Valid Code!

2008-01-08T00:22:00.000Z

Why is it important that your web pages use valid code?

Well, search engines have to parse (read) the code of your site to find the content and decide how to classify and rank the page. If the code contains errors, your SEO efforts may be wasted because the search engines won't be able to read the page.

Most major search engines are fairly robust and can deal with minor errors in HTML code, but do you want to take the risk? Your code is one of the few things you have complete control over from an SEO point of view so you may as well make it as good as possible.

The best way to validate HTML code is to use the W3C HTML Validator - they make the rules so they ought to know. Popular HTML editors such as Dreamweaver usually have built in validation tools as well.

Web Design for SEO

2007-11-09T14:29:00.000Z

Some webmasters seem to forget that it is a bit of a waste of time getting visitors to a site if they don't stay on the site and convert into customers.

The design of the site is a major factor in determining what they do on your site. Do you want them to click on advertising links, buy an item, fill out a contact form? The design of the site needs to point them towards the course of action you want them to take.

Blogx10 is a new blog with some interesting design ideas and tips for webmasters. It also highlights some other great resources available on the web. Worth a look.

Free DIY SEO Info

2007-08-02T16:22:00.000+01:00

Find out more about the pages and content available on Free DIY SEO here. This page provides shortcuts to some of the best information and resources on the blog.

Free DIY SEO has moved!

2006-11-06T09:19:00.000Z

Free DIY SEO has moved to a new home, it's very own domain at freediyseo.co.uk.

There will be much more regular posts and extra pages of static information on the new site. It is powered by Wordpress, which is a bit more flexible than blogger.

A SEO glossary and a SEO site directory are also planned for the new site.

Hopefully see you there!

Stage 5 in SEO: Monitoring and Analysis

2006-09-09T16:18:00.000+01:00

Once you have designed and optimised your site you need to check how it is ranking in the search engines. Depending on how your site is doing, you may then need to change your pages slightly.

You can do this manually by typing your keywords into the search engines and seeing where your site appears, or you can be more analytical and use SEO software to track your ranking over time. This software automates the process of checking your rankings and means you can check for many keywords on several different search engines at the same time.

There is also another Digital Point online tool you can use, their keyword tracker.

This is an important part of SEO, you need to make sure what you are doing is working - but don’t expect overnight results. You should see a steady increase in your ranking over time for the keywords you are targeting.

Stage 4 in SEO: Link Building

2006-08-26T12:38:00.000+01:00

Link building is a very important aspect of SEO. Search engines see a link from another website as a ‘vote’ for your site, so the more links you can get to your website, the better.

However, it is not just the quantity of links that is important but also the quality. A link from a page or site about the same subject as yours (i.e. with similar keywords to your site) carries more weight.

Another aspect of this is the anchor text, the text which is the actual link. If the anchor text includes the keywords you are aiming for, it is an even better ‘vote’ for your site.

A few of the main ways you can get links to your site are:

Exchanging links with other websites with similar or related content (reciprocal linking).
Submitting your site to web directories.
Writing and submitting articles.

But mainly, it is about creating a site with great content - then people will want to link to it anyway.

Stage 3 in SEO Search Engine Submission

2006-08-17T17:58:00.000+01:00

The search engines need to know your site exists, so they can index it and rank it in the search results. Most search engines have an online form you can use to do this (here is Google’s, MSN’s and Yahoo’s - you have to sign up for a free free Yahoo account).

However, there are hundreds of search engines out there so an automatic submission tool is a real help. You can use specialised SEO submission software or websites like www.freewebsubmission.com. It is a good idea to have a separate email account/address for search engine submission so all the replies and confirmations (some may think it spam!) don’t get mixed in with your normal email.

Search engine submission was once very important and you could pay a lot of money to have your site submitted. But you really only need to do it once, if at all, since the search engines will find your site anyway by following links from other websites. In fact, some experts think search engines ‘prefer’ (i.e. rank more highly) sites found in this way.

Stage 2 in SEO - Incorporating Keywords into a website

2006-08-10T12:40:00.000+01:00

Once you have decided on your keywords, the second stage in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is incorporating them into the design and content of your website. A website should be structured so that each page targets a particular key phrase with your homepage targeting the most important keyword.

The search engines look at specific areas of a page for keywords so this is where you need to make sure they appear:

The title meta tag.
The description meta tag.
The content on the page.
TheH1 tag (and other heading tags).
The anchor text of internal links.
The anchor text of external links.
The filenames of pages.
The filenames of images.
The alt tags of images.
The title tags of links.

Of particular importance are the title meta tag and the description meta tag. These are often used in the search engine results that are displayed after a search is completed.

The main point to remember is that search engines like text; they can’t read photos or video or graphics. Of course, graphics make your site appealing to human beings, so you should use them, but remember to add text to the alt tags so the search engines will be able to read them.

Stage 1 in SEO - Keyword Research

2006-08-05T21:41:00.000+01:00

The first step in optimising a website for the search engines is (SEO) Keyword Research.

Keywords and key phrases are what people type into a search engine. What are poeple going to type into a search engine to find your site? What words are used most in your area? Which are most relevant to your website?

First, generate a list of possible keywords by asking yourself ‘What would I type into a search engine to find the service I offer?‘

Remember people are not going to know that you are called ‘Dave the Magician’ and search for that phrase; they are going to search for ‘party magician’ or ‘children’s entertainer’ or ‘magician Leicester'. Incidently, magician Leicester is a key phrase I'd like to come top for.

You can add to this initial list of ideas by asking friends and clients, looking at competitor's websites - look everywhere. You then need to refine it by using an online keyword suggestion tool. This will tell you how many people actually use a particular keyword or phrase and also suggest alternatives.

Try the free Digital Point Solutions keyword suggestion tool. This tool accesses the two main providers of search data, Wordtracker and Overture.

You need to find the keywords that are not just going to drive lots of traffic to your website, but traffic that is going to convert into sales and clients.

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

2006-08-02T11:31:00.000+01:00

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of helping a website to appear near the top, or best of all number 1, in the organic search engine results for a particular search term.

Organic results are the results listed and ranked by search engines as opposed to the sponsored listings which all search engines display and which advertisers pay for.

The good news is you can get to the top of the organic results for free if you are prepared to do DIY SEO.

New SEO blog

2006-08-01T09:58:00.000+01:00

Yes that's right, another blog about SEO (search engine optimisation).

But it's about doing it for yourself for free and not as an end in itself - I'm not an SEO professional.

I'm a magician based in Leicester in the UK and that is my profession, but my background is in technical writing and the production of educational materials for print and the web.

I promote myself as a magician through my main website dangifford.com and have had some success in getting it to appear high in the search engines, so I thought I'd write about how I've done it and continue to work at it - it's an ongoing process.

Iused to post a bit about SEO on my magic blog but I have more to say now, so I'm going to post it here.