Archive for the seo edinburgh Category

Search Engine Optimisation in Edinburgh

Using SEO Edinburgh as an Optimisation Example

 

In this SEO article we’re going to look at the basic end of on-page SEO – for this example we’ll be optimising the page for the search term SEO Edinburgh.

We’re not saying that this is exactly how you should do it – in fact to illustrate some of the common methods available and using them all on a single page we’ve effectively OVER optimised it.

Because Tartan are an Edinburgh web design company offering ethical search engine optimisation services, our example phrase is something that we would probably go after anyway – getting the phrase ranked highly in the search engines will drive targeted traffic seeking local SEO services. Anything that gets your site traffic for free helps keep your prices competitive or maximises your profits.

So how is the on-page optimisation going? So far we’re at 107 words and have managed to mention the phrase or some closely related phrases 5 times. Obviously this may seem a lot but reading the page back hopefully it doesn’t read as excessive. We’ve done this because phrases mentioned at the top of an article tend to carry more SEO weight than those lower down a page (with the exception of the last line on a page) and so it would most likely be fine if we didn’t mention SEO Edinburgh again. Except we’ve just done it…

You’ll note the first few times we mentioned our phrase we used it in a bold font and then we italicized it.

Also, the way this website is coded, the page title gets used within an H1 tag automatically. We went on to mention Edinburgh SEO type phrases again in an H2 heading tag followed immediately by an H4 subheading tag.

See that boring tartan image over there? We’ve optimised it by using the phrase in its file name, a descriptive alt tag and a title tag – although we’ve been careful not to use the exact same phrase each time.

The key is to give the search engines a pretty good idea of what the page is about without constant repetition – in fact recent algorithm changes have cracked down hard on this type of excessive on-page optimisation (and artificial off page link building using the same keyphrase in every link).

Don’t do it kids!

While it’s not visible on this page, there’s a page title and page description within the head code of our site. Chances are strong that if you found this page in Google or any other search engine (they do exist) you will have seen the result of this in our listing. The search engine will have displayed a 70 character long phrase containing 2 variants of our target term, because we told them the title to display using this title tag:

SEO Edinburgh: We’re an Edinburgh search engine optimisation practice

In fact by illustrating it again – and then by drawing further attention to it in blockquotes we’re now absolutely overstepping the mark  and we’re running a serious danger that this page is becoming over optimised for the phrase.

Back in the day, over optimisation meant keyword-stuffing – and even though you still see sites ranking highly with huge swathes of keyword links in the sidebar or footer area, this is now a big no-no. Most SEOs suggest never exceeding 2% keyword volume per page – but the fact of the matter is Google’s latest algorithm considers keyword stuffing to be using the same phrase in all the tags we’ve illustrated so far. Even an exact match domain name can send a spam signal in certain niches.

We’re only at 464 words and yet we’ve officially maxed out the phrase. Anything more and the article is keyword-stuffed and we risk some form of penalty.

Don’t worry though. In a regular article or web page you’re probably never going to be mentioning your keyphrase this much – but because this is intended as a basic on-page optimisation illustration we’re really going to town.

We mention our target phrase again in our page description – even though there is no real merit to this with Google, as they say they ignore keywords in descriptions. We also wanted to try and attract clicks so we mentioned that we are low cost and ethical:

Tartan are the local SEO Edinburgh based professional practice delivering low cost search engine optimisation services in an ethical sustainable way

Continuing with on-page methods, another thing a lot of people suggest adding is a link to an authority site such as Wikipedia or a related authority site. In our example we could go for an outbound text based link using the target location of Edinburgh – or the subject of SEO – as the keyphrase. Targeting the full phrase and providing a link to a related site – ie ANOTHER Edinburgh SEO website – would only increase page rank to a rival site – which isn’t good.

Now this outbound link – there is a lot of discussion that the search engines are wise to this trick (of course they are) and on whether this should be tagged as no-follow.

We feel when leaving it as “follow” there is no real loss of link “juice” and you’re showing the search engines that you really rate this site – and aren’t just up to some dodgy SEO trick.

 

SEO Edinburgh Video

Video is a fantastic on-page medium and with it being so easy to create a video, upload it to YouTube and then embed it on a website you’re missing a trick if you don’t use video. It keeps people on your site longer, another metric that search engines use to see how valuable the content on your website is. A further benefit is that your video if optimised properly in itself using tags, and descriptions targeting your phrase then it may well show up in search results too. Double bonus.

 

Obviously we’ve not made a video but we love this short and rather odd song about Edinburgh SEO! Good on them. It’s a perfect example of what to do and this company has probably bought a gig on Fiverr to have a 30 second film made using their keyword. It works.

So thats it. Basic and easily implemented on-page optimisation for our keyphrase SEO Edinburgh. The methods are the same whether you’re a Dean Dentist, a Haymarket Herbalist or a Mornigside Musician. Need a hand? Call us today we’re the Edinburgh SEO specialists!