Webinar SEO tips you can use now

The SmartCompany webinar was not only a hoot on Wednesday morning, it was a rich resource of top SEO tips. CHRIS THOMAS

By Chris Thomas

You must be getting sick of me this week! The Wednesday morning webinar was a hoot, and I have to say it’s quite an interesting thing to do, if not slightly surreal. Normally when you speak publically, it’s to a group of people (with faces you can see), so you’re acutely aware if you’re putting everyone to sleep.

A webinar is a different story altogether. You’re pretty much in a bubble, talking to yourself and hoping what you have to say is not only making sense, but also somehow interesting!

If you missed out, you can still listen to the audio of the Webinar by clicking on the following link: 
   SmartCompany Webinar: Drive more traffic to your web site.

There were lots of questions coming in, and it was great that SmartCompany’s Webinar guru Campbell Corser was able to relay some of them during the chat. However, there were some that we weren’t able to get to, so I’ll try and cover off as many as possible.

There were also several websites which I looked at (and didn’t get a chance to explore during the webinar), but which I thought were doing a great job with their optimisation. They follow the old Online Marketing adage – get found first, brand and sell second.

For example, check out the following:

• Sitbackandrelax.com.au – spammy title tag, but it ranks really well!
• Militaryandlaw.com.au – spammy title tag, but it ranks really well!
• Dontfretpet.com.au – again, spammy title tag, but guess what? It ranks really well!

It is me, or is there a pattern developing here?

But to the questions:

Q. What is the easiest way to prepare a sitemap for Google?
Submitted by Greg O’Connor, Wingarra BMI.

A. I think the easiest way is to download the free copy of gGsiteCrawler. This enables you to quickly and easily build a Google (and Yahoo) sitemap. You’ll need to create a Google webmasters account – and load up your site map through there. Remember, every time you create new pages, you’ll need to regenerate your sitemap, re-upload and submit.

Q. Where can you find more information on flash optimisation?
Submitted by Julia Scanlon, BSI.

A. Julia, there’s a fair bit online about flash optimisation, so try a search at Google for “flash website SEO”. I also recommend visiting the following link for a little more information.

From my experience, I recommend two methods; one is using a <noscript> tag behind your flash file, which allows the search engine robots to index your content. You absolutely must be ethical about this. Only use content contained within the flash file – don’t keyword flood or spam.

The other (more expensive) option is to create two versions of your website – one in flash (for humans) the other HTML. Get your web developer to setup your host header to detect user agents. If the user visiting your page is a human (a browser user agent) flick them to the flash site. If the user visiting your site is a search engine robot (Google et al) flick them to the HTML version of the site.

Q. Does having just body text on the home page and no text headline affect the way Google rates the page?
Submitted by Shannon O’Donovan, Nutshell Marketing.

A. I think it definitely does. Headings are a very important consideration in SEO. Keywords in headings are very important and do affect your ranking position.

Q. Our site has a lot of images, with not much text; should this be changed to include more text?
Submitted by Mark Rippe, Videopro.

A. Most definitely. Images are great for humans, but search engines require text to analyse and make a ranking decision. Title tags really help, but well-optimised headings and body text do wonders.

Thanks again for a great webinar!

Chris Thomas heads Reseo a search engine optimisation company which specialises in setting up and maintaining Google AdWords campaigns, Affiliate Programs and Search Engine Optimisation campaigns for a range of corporate clients.

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>> SmartCompany has hosted several other Webinars on SEO as well as sales and marketing.