top seo tips 2013

1. Aim to be in the top 3, not just the top 10. If your site isn’t ranked in the top 3 positions for a keyword then you’ll only get a small percentage (less than 10%) of the traffic from searches for that keyword.
2. Rankings can be misleading. The number of 1st page rankings you have is irrelevant if those rankings don’t convert to visitor numbers and, ultimately, sales.
3. Don’t worry about PageRank. Sites with a low PR can, and often do, outrank sites with a high PR.
4. Choose between using www or not using www. Ensure that your site is set to load at either www.domainname.co.uk or domainname.co.uk – not both.
5. Adopt a flat website architecture. Any page of your site should be accessible within 3 clicks from your homepage.
6. Use a simple, clear URL structure. People should be able to guess the topic of a page by looking only at its URL.
7. Use header tags. Include variations of your target keyword phrases in a page’s H1 and H2 tags.
8. Use rich snippets. They provide additional data about your site to search engines and can improve the appearance of your site’s listing in search results.
9. Use 301 redirects. If you change the url of a page on your site, but don’t redirect the old url to the new one, any links pointing to the old one will be wasted.
10. Set-up a useful 404 error page. Linking to your best content from your 404 page means that visitors who see it are less likely to leave your site.
11. Optimise your images. Include a page’s target keyword phrase, or variations of it, in the file names and img alt tags of the images on that page.
12. Optimise your website for mobile users. Your site needs to be clear and simple to use for people accessing it using smartphones and tablets.
13. Check browser and screen resolution compatibility. Your site needs to render correctly in every web browser (Chrome, IE, Safari, etc.) and screen resolution (1366×768, 1024×768, 800×600, etc.).
14. Maximise your website’s loading speed. Use Google’s site speed tool and implement the recommendations that they give you.
15. Use a reliable web hosting company. Your site’s keyword rankings will be downgraded if your site is regularly inaccessible.
16. Regularly backup your website. If you lose your site data then you lose your rankings too, as search engines quickly remove sites that won’t load from their results.
17. Keep up-to-date with SEO news and trends. Read sites such as Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Land and SEOmoz.
18. If you don’t know, ask someone. If you have a question, ask it in an online SEO forum or contact an SEO consultant.
19. Ask SEO consultants lots of questions. If you’re going to hire someone, you’ll be taking less of a risk if you know a lot about them and their strategies.
20. Engage with your SEO consultant. The more you know about SEO, and the more a consultant knows about your business, the better the results will be.
21. You’re ultimately responsible for all of SEO work done on your website. Search engines won’t remove a penalty on the basis that you didn’t do, and didn’t know the specifics of, the SEO work on your site.