Off-page SEO

Link building

Search engines judge each link to a page from another page or site as a vote for the page. Search engines are really just big popularity contests – the more links you get the better.

It is not just the number of links that are important, but also the quality.
Quality is determined by context, relevance, and popularity of the linking page, as well as the link text.
Not all links are treated equally. One link from an ‘authority’ website may be more valuable than 100 links from non-contextual websites.

Continue to encourage partners to link to your website.

Redirects

It’s important that if, in the future, a site is moved to another server or domain, that this is done using the correct type of redirect. While search engines do value stability, it may be that you are able to achieve better search engine results and increased direct traffic by moving the site to another domain.

If the site is moved to another domain, then using a ‘301 redirect’ will ensure that search engines know that the site has moved and are able to update their indexes accordingly.

Direct traffic – advertise and publicise

Advertising a website or campaign will help to increase the number of searches and click-throughs to the site, as more people use search engines to reach the site. This increases the value attached to the site and therefore increases your ranking.

Encouraging discussion of the site on social media sites like Twitter and social bookmarking services will also help to increase inbound links and, in turn, your ranking.

Analysis

Understanding how people are finding your site and then optimising to complement this search activity is the most efficient way of optimising for search engines. Analytics will show you the terms that people are currently using, but will also reveal underperforming keyphrases – terms which you think are important but which are missing from your current incoming traffic sources.

Analytics will give you a steer as to how well you are performing and where further investment of time or a paid for campaign might be necessary.

January 18, 2012

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All posts, Information architecture, Writing and content management

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Off-page SEO

Link building

Redirects

If the site is moved to another domain, then using a ‘301 redirect’ will ensure that search engines know that the site has moved and are able to update their indexes accordingly.

Direct traffic – advertise and publicise

Analysis

Get posts direct

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More posts to read:

Putting the audience first to boost your communication effectiveness

How to lead design discovery…

An evolution of the Double Diamond

Alternatives to the Double Diamond

The limitations of the Double Diamond

Consistently describing design

The design process and the scaffolding within

Why is “information architecture” at the centre of the design process?