Subdreamer SEO and general search engine optimization tips.

This list is a general continuation of our first Subdreamer SEO tips article .

Here are some other general SEO tips for everyone:

• A way to give no value to outbound links with google is to use the 'nofollow' tag in your hyperlinks. see here
• Linking between your own pages with good keyword anchors is a good thing. When you create new articles, makes sure you add hyperlinks to your other related articles.
• Any internal navigation is usually good. The sitemap and subcategory plugins come in handy here as well as a plain textual footer menu with your main cats.
• Create specific Google XML sitemaps and a Yahoo text sitemaps.
• If you are really up for it, implement a completely CSS driven menu system to replace any javascript menus.
• Ensure you have good content, that your site is active and interactive.... and updating consistently.
• Promote your site to get good quality inbound links. (link baiting)
• Customize your Subdreamer print article page to include a mini sitemap to your most important URL's.

I was able to take a new site to a Page rank 4 within 5 months after the first PR update it went through using Subdreamer. Getting over a PR4 is another story,,, it will take most people/sites a good year or two to get to a PR5 and beyond.

Here is a overview of things to consider for SEO:

Good domain age, inbound links (volume and quality), outbound links (moderate and high quality,, relevant of course), good keywords and unique meta info for every page and title, unique headings, sub headings for every page, with keyword rich url's, text and titles.


Here is formula that easier to wrap your head around then trying to calculate too many numbers that may or may not be important:

A LOT OF CONSTANTLY UPDATING UNIQUE CONTENT + TIME

If your site is not at least over a year old then it is hardly worth worrying about the search engines.

How old is your website? How much good content do you have? If you have an old established website with good content and are only getting your homepage indexed then there must be a different problem. Extra keywords in your URL would add a very small bonus to your site with the SE formulas... There are 100's of factors that go into having a good index with any given search engine.


Another quick list from our first SEO tips article :

• Use the newest version of Subdreamer.
• Enable Subdreamer Search Engine friendly URL's.
• Use descriptive categories and subcategories using your desired keywords.
• Install the Google Sitemap plugin. Also not a bad idea to utilize Google Analytics for of course, analysis.
• Text, text, text, lots of text. Images should have full title and alt tags.
• Enable the printer friendly pages because search engines will eat them up also.
• Create quality content, do not try to cheat Google or any other Search Engine because you will end up not being indexed at all / banned.
• Keep fresh and original content to the site.
• You can register your domain for 10 years, it is rumored to give your site more credibility.
• Concentrate on people, not search engines. The search engines will come to you. (people optimization)

Reminders:

• Exact search engine formulas and behavior will never be known.
• The Google index does fluctuate and they intentionally change inbound links data/values so that seo people and blackhat techniques cannot abuse rankings/integrity of the index.
• If your site is under 1 year old I wouldn't expect to much from search engines, it takes time. Concentrate on your website.
• The best guidelines for Google are found in the Google webmaster documentation.

Forum SEO options: Here are some SEO enhancement links and chatter relating to forums.

phpbb:
http://www.phpbb-seo.com/ (there may be others out there as well)

vbulletin:
http://www.vbseo.com (best out there for vb, repuatable)

smf:
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=518 (homepage)

ipb:
http://communityseo.com/ipb_seo.htm (newcomer, reputation unknown)

Also, to warn all webmasters, you should not install any mod let alone a major mod such as a mod_rewrite hack/seo system unless you have looked it over carefully and done your research. See this story about a IPB seo mod call FURL and deceptive cloaking.

Webmaster hangouts to get more general SEO advice and details:

http://www.sitepoint.com
http://forums.digitalpoint.com
http://www.webmasterworld.com