Of all the factors that affect SEO for local Dallas TX-based websites, the website server location is also one, the effect of which most small and medium businesses tend to ignore. The location of the website server and the domain name, are two factors that play a significant role in determining how a website ranks on Google and other search engines in a particular location. This is because search engines analyze this data to determine the geographical location of a business, and hence its search engine rankings for users in that area.

• Most of the businesses get a website server away from where their business is actually located.  For US based websites it is beneficial to have a web hosting server in US as the IPs generated can be tracked by Search Engines for US. On the flipside, this strategy might prove beneficial to businesses that are located at a different location than the audience they wish to target. For instance, if your business is based in Texas, but the audience you are targeting is UK-based, getting a UK-based server might be a good idea.

• Another major way in which website-server location affects SEO rankings is through the load speed of the websites. Server locations have a significant impact on loading speeds, with websites based in the area they are targeting having much quicker load speeds. In other words, if your website server is based in the US and you are targeting a UK audience, you are likely to experience slow load speeds, which shall have a negative impact on your SEO. This is another reason why it is important to ensure that you have the right server location for your website.

• If you are not sure about where the server for your website is currently located, the first step is to look into this information. You can either contact your hosting company directly and ask them for this information, or use certain web-based tools to find out where the server is located. If you then wish to change the server location, it is possible to do so without changing the structure and functioning of your website.

You might think that you’ve cracked all the codes for your website to rank high on search engines- quality, keyword rich content, useful information, an attractive website design, and the standard SEO methods, yet your website will not be favored by Google, unless the design is SEO friendly. Flash movies, streaming audios, catchy visuals, and stunning images might make your website look fantastic, but you might end up making it SEO-unfriendly in the process of enhancing its outlook.

Here are some key elements that every website’s design must have, to boost its ranking on search engines-

• The right keywords, at the right places - The first, and perhaps most crucial step in designing a website is choosing the right keywords for what’s being offered on the website. You need to ensure that if a user gets to your website using a particular keyword, he gets what he’s looking for there. However, simply stuffing the keywords that you find relevant isn’t enough. It is just as important to ensure that they are placed at the right places, by which we mean- title tag, meta description and keywords, website slogans, H1, H2 and H3 tags, alt text, internal links, footer links, URLs, file names, etc.
• Text-based buttons and links - Links and buttons that are text-based are much easier to navigate for search engines, than flash-based ones. Not only are flash-based images unreadable for search engines, but they aren’t supported by many mobile devices. CSS methods and jQuery are great substitutes for flash.
• Low loading time - There is nothing more annoying than a website that takes forever to load. To make sure this isn’t happening to your website, remove unnecessary elements like CSS files, Java Script, large images, and line breaks in your code.
• User friendly URLs and image names - Make sure that the URLs on your website are user-friendly- for e.g. http://www.clotheswebsite.com/women/clothing/long-blouses would be much better than say http://www.clotheswebsite.com/apparel/product4?=98834. This also applies to image names. For e.g. if a woman is looking for ideas for beachwear, she would be likely to use Google images as a reference. With your product image named as img622.jpg, it shall not show on Google’s results, while ‘beachwear image 622’ is likely to.
• Social networking icons - Make sure that visitors to your website know that you are active on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter when they land on your website. Use prominent icons and buttons for this, and you might also consider adding your daily Twitter feed on your site to boost Google’s cache rate.

These are some of the must “To-be-followed” tips for websites. We at Centex Technologies, Dallas Texas provide complete SEO services, Website Design, Website Development and Internet Marketing services to our clients. For more information call us at Killeen (254-213-4740) or Dallas (972-375-9654)  Office.