Search Engine Optimization tips 2010

[netshet]

Canonical Issues - check canonical issues to make sure there is a preferred default page or domain preference (http:// or www).

No reason to have 3 variations of a home page .html, .php and default.htm, depending on your programming platform, server settings (Unix or Windows) as well as if you are using static pages or a content management system you will need to consolidate your website to either http:// or http://www to avoid splitting your site into less potent slivers.

Indexation and Crawl Frequency – See how many pages are crawled in a site to determine crawl frequency.

If you have a home page that is crawled regularly and your internal pages are ignored, then this is often a result of lack of internal or external links.
You can implement sitemaps on a folder by folder basis, then link from the footer in a site template to a maser sitemap page (where all the mini sitemaps are linked to) to increase indexation. This way the link from the footer consolidates the ranking factor to one page and THAT page feeds the various site maps equivocally (through a tiered drip-down site architecture effect).

Orphaned Pages and Dead Ends – check for orphaned pages to determine if pages are linked sufficiently to ensure crawling.

If you have a page or sub folder in a website that is only linked to from a few pages, then you cannot possibly expect that page to rank well in search engines. If you yourself will not “endorse” a page by linking to it properly (contextually from keywords in the body copy) or from the primary or secondary navigation, then you cannot possibly expect search engines to pay that page with any more credence than yourself.
Also be weary of PDF files (which can rank on their own and sponge link flow from your website). Make sure PDF files have absolute links (use the complete URL) back to your site, so they do not pool ranking factor and trap it where the rest of your site cannot benefit.

Dynamic URL’s – If pages are dynamically created, try to remove or rewrite as many parameters in the URL as possible or use URL / Mod rewrite.

Any time you have session data or query string parameters in a URL, you are decreasing the possibility of indexation. Particularly if there are conventions such as ?PID=23D-55.aspx trailing along, when a SEO friendly naming convention could have taken its place with a bit of programming. You can rewrite entire segments, sub folders, categories, etc. without losing functionality or compromising SEO value.

Naming Conventions – Use proper naming conventions (subject or keyword first, then plural variation, modifier, then tag line).

Here is a more useful post about how to use meta titles, descriptions and naming conventions, but the gist is simple. Create a hierarchy based on a relevant platform of topically reinforcing semantics using keyword clusters and related synonyms to toggle relevance from what search engines deem as the co-occurrence matrix.