What are the TOP SEO tactics - any low hanging fruit?

[AdamS]

Hi,

I'd like to improve my site's ranking, and wanted to know what tactic from the SEO toolbox would have the biggest impact on ranking. We are a dynamic site with good link popularity and get decent results from nat search already. Here are some elements that I was considering, and would love to know which one I should work on first:

growing # of links (we already have over 1000 links to us tho)
adding more content
cleaning up HTML
url rewriting (many of our urls are indexed, but no title or description exist in the SERP)
adding alt text other meta data
others???

Thanks for the info.

Adam

[mcanerin]

I don't think I could pick just one out of that list. You might also want to add page titles.

Ian

[AdamS]

Ian. Thanks for the reply. What are the top few elements that you would target first?

Adam

[Chris_D]

Number 1 is accessibility. We take it for granted that a site has to be accessible - but until it is accessible - everything else is like reorganising deckchairs on the Titanic....

For example - we have a new cleint who site is 100% Flash, launched in a Javascript popup. There are no 'pages' per se. First step is to rebuild the site....

[AdamS]

Would rewriting dynamic urls help accessibility (from search engines)? Will this programmatic tactic have the biggest bang for the time/effort put into it? I know 'content is king', but what else could be done that is easy to implement?

Adam

[simons1321]

I dont think there is ONE specific SEO tactic that will get you more traffic over any other tactic for the most part. But if i had to say one specific thing (ok 2 or 3 or more) I believe that building a good site (w3 compatible) and having good, fresh content alone can gain the most traffic. If you have a site that is easily crawlable by spiders and you have content that people want to read and refer other people to, then that alone can bring a lot of people to your site. The use of title, meta tags, backlinks, etc are almost entirely for search engine spiders(these days), but having a good site with great content can benefit both your visitors and search engine spiders. Doing this allows your site to be spread by both search engine results and word of mouth by visitors

[AdamS]

Thanks for the reply. Our site is well established, with decent content. We are not a content site, so the blend between content and commerce is one that we are aware of. However, without redesigning the site and creating new content, what can we do to improve performance?

And maybe I should ask specifically...is url rewriting worth the effort? I heard from another retailer that they employed url rewriting and had a 5x increase in the number of pages that were indexed. Any specific thoughs on url rewriting?

Adam

[simons1321]

Most spiders fumble around when it comes to urls that include ?'s, .'s, and #'s, so rewriting urls can help spiders crawl certain urls more easily.