Dave Stein

on Nov 29, 2007 at 12:04 PM

Don't newer versions of flash allow you to make up the text difference in some hidden place for search engines? I'm pretty sure Google can read flash sites now.

Gallant - Simon Grunfeld

on Oct 01, 2007 at 11:39 PM

True, however don't forget the Keyword to Code ratio, or the keyword density for that matter. Both a problem in a Flash only site, unless you embed the text, and even then its still missing a good ratio.

justin powell design

on Oct 01, 2007 at 1:02 PM

nice overview.

i'd add that META description doesn't mean so much for rank, but it does help for click-through. so, once your page moves up in the ranks, make sure it has an interesting description so people will click.

in regards to flash and SWF object a lot of people miss the opportunity to plug in relevant content into their content DIV. google picks this area up (for now). for example do a search for - This is replaced by the Flash content. What this means is that even though you may have a 100% flash site, google sees the source. There is opportunity to optimize.

Gallant - Simon Grunfeld

on Sep 15, 2007 at 8:21 AM

I used WebsiteGrader and its a neat tool > naturally, they're trying to sell me the premium service which I don't think I'll need....but more power to them.

On a separate note, I opened an account with AllWebHunt - only to make use of their website translation services. They also offer other SEO services that I think make no sense, for example:

Getting listed on the top of the search results of Google,Yahoo, AllWebHunt,About,Encyclopedic and TopChoice......BUT at THEIR site (which I personally don't fully understand yet).

Can anyone comment on AllWebHunt?

Dave Stein (reply to Gallant - Simon Grunfeld )

on Sep 05, 2007 at 10:02 AM

I think we should mention that using an H1 too much on a page can also hurt. A tool I have mentioned on our team blog is right here: http://www.websitegrader.com/

The <title> tag is something I used to overlook but I definitely agree it's looked at. I didn't notice that until more recently but it seems to weigh in well.

Gallant - Simon Grunfeld

on Sep 04, 2007 at 11:16 PM

I'd add to that:

1. Fonts ; Bold vs Italic vs normal.......Bold the relevant Key Words.
2. Keyword location - the higher on the page (like you said H1, H2..) the better.

MetaData is a bit outdated by Google; although, its still a solid contender in Yahoo & MSN. HOWEVER; the <Title> tag is still heavily looked at still by all three.

Dave Stein

on Sep 04, 2007 at 7:48 PM

There are a lot of "rules" out there for doing SEO work well. If you were to read them all they range from pretty solid to what seems like random speculation. I guess I will start this discussion off with the basics.

1. URL relevance.

If you own the domain www.mycoolsite.com it's a pretty safe bet that typing in "my cool site" on google will show your site. Most terms people want to optimize now are impossible to get like that though. So your next step is to use some rewrite rules. You do not want a URL like behance.com/index.a...article=1. You can see on certain sites, like this one, that there are no extensions or question marks in the main URLs. This helps people find articles faster via search engines.

2. Link-backs

If you want to be number one for "awesome product" on whatever.com, you should try to get as many sites linking to you with that in the link. Having a link that the user reads as "Whatever.com" to your awesome product is not nearly as good as the user reading "Awesome Product" as the link text. Obviously this has pros for SEO and cons for getting your name out there. Also, the higher the rank of a site linking to you, the better.

3. Updated content.

A static page can mean death in a search engine. Updating content regularly shows search engines you are an active site and will most likely make the spiders come back faster as well. A good way to measure that is to search for your site in google and click the lovely "cached" link which says the last date it visited.

4. Miscellaneous word-stuff

To go with the "awesome product" example, it would help if "Awesome Product" was once in an H1 tag to show the search engine how important it is on that page. You should most definitely use CSS to alter the look though, we all know how ugly a default H1 tag is. You also need to be careful of word density of "awesome product" in everything - body text, link text, and even ALT tags are looked at. To go down the line towards speculation, having "awesome product" closer to the top of the page is better than lower down.