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When it comes to
organic search engine optimization we believe these are what we
believe
to be the top 11 most important things (not necessarily in order)
that you need, in order to get your website found in the search
engines.
There are many
other factors as well, but if you follow these guidelines, you'll
stand a much better chance, and you'll be off to a good start.
1. Title Meta Tag
The
title tag is what displays in the top blue band of Internet
Explorer, and what the first line of the SERP’s (Search Engine
Results Pages) will show when your site is found. Your title tag of
your website should be easy to read and designed to bring in
traffic. Your main keyword phrase should be used toward the
beginning of the tag.
Do NOT make the
mistake of putting your company name first, unless you believe
people are searching for it that way. in the past, the title tag was
better written with a capital letter starting the tag, and followed
by all lower-case letters, (unless you’re using proper nouns).
Today, that matters less, as capitalized words are fine as well.
However, don't use all caps. Like an email in all caps, it's
considered wrong by most people, and might be perceived as spam by a
search engine.
A proper title
tag looks like this:
<title>
Important
search term first | Company name if you must</title>
You can use
punctuation too, with equally good results, as in:
<title> Pest
Control, Portland Oregon | Company name if you must</title>
Your title tag is
the "headline" that people will see in the search results. It's also
one of the primary factors for the search engines in determining
your ranking for a given search phrase, although that's declining in
importance.
I like to follow
a few basic rules when writing title tags...
1.
Keep in mind that only 65 characters or so will display in
Google search results, so I keep my titles shorter than that when
possible. This makes for a nice headline for the SERPS, and prevents
the title from being cut off in mid sentence...
2.
Write the title in plain English, using proper grammar, make
it easily readable, and not just stuff a jumble of keywords in
there. Remember this is the headline for your search listing. As a
headline, it should captivate the readers attention and motivate
them to click. What do you think is more effective to draw in a
customer..."Cleveland Real Estate - Joe Blow" or "Cleveland Real
Estate - Secrets to Saving Money" ?
3.
A Common Trend seems to be Capitalizing Important Words. I
like that and it makes your listing stand out from the crowd, but
technically, will not help (or hurt) your rankings. Standing out
from the crowd is important. I don't recommend using all caps
though, because like emails written in all caps, it's considered
improper.
4.
I still use my primary key phrase (unique for each page) in
the title tag when possible, and I also prefer it at the front.
Although a well designed content rich website that is properly
"themed" can still rank well without having the keyword in the
title, the odds are still in your favor if you do use the primary
phrase in your title tag.
Your company name
should be dead last (if it's even used at all) unless you're a well
known brand. Sure it's a nice ego boost to see your name in the
bolded search results, but nobody is likely searching for you by
name. By using your company name in the title tag, you're likely
wasting space that could otherwise be used for another persuasive
key word or phrase. What do you want here...new customers or
bragging rights?
2. Description
Meta Tag
The
description tag is the paragraph that people will see when your page
comes up in the search results. The title tag is the headline, and
this is the paragraph below it.
Your description
tag should be captivating and designed to attract business. It
should be easy to read, and compel the reader to act right now and
follow your link. Without a description tag, search engines will
frequently display the first text on your page. Is yours appropriate
as a description of the page?
A proper
description tag looks like this:
<meta
name="description" content="This is what people will see. Proper use
of your subject key phrases, along with good grammar and punctuation
make a compelling description!>
If your title tag
is considered the "headline" then think of your description tag as
the "ad copy" below the headline. A good description tag will compel
the reader to visit your website.
Google cuts off
the displayed description tag at about 150 characters, but may index
up to 185 characters. Other engines may go up to 250 characters, but
will still only display about 150. Therefore, try to say what
you've got to say in 150 characters or less, but feel free to use up
to 180, and even up to 250 if you're not concerned with the entire
thing getting indexed by all the search engines..
Your description
tag is not only "sales copy" for people to read, deciding to click
your ad or not, but it's also food for the hungry search engine
spiders. There's probably no stronger or more important meta tag
than the description tag.
However, one
mistake I see a lot is people trying to stuff too much information
into their meta description tag, then reusing that meta description
in multiple places on their website. Don’t describe your whole
business, just describe the page in question.
For
example, let’s say you're a contractor, and you provide plumbing,
remodeling, and electrical work. You would want to have a completely
different meta description tag on each of your service pages. Don't
make the mistake of using one description for all your pages.
Use your primary
key phrase in the beginning of your description tag too. This gives
a higher "keyword prominence" percentage to the search engines and
your site will rank higher. Don’t Overuse your key phrase though,
or it can be considered "web spam". Higher then zero keyword
prominence is good, but higher still is not always better.
Use natural
sounding language, proper grammar, and try to peak interest in the
subject. Remember, you want the reader to click your ad, not just to
be found. how many times have you skipped over a search result
because the two lines of text you see in the SERPS were just
gibberish.
Finally, if
you're a local business, i would encourage you to put your address,
including your zip code in your description meta tag. I usually put
it after the 150th character, but complete it before the 180th. The
reason for this is that there's strong evidence to suggest that this
will help your "local" search results. As more and more search
engines are trying to determine what their visitors want, local
search matters now more than ever.
3. Keywords Meta
Tag
The
importance of Meta keyword tags fluctuates from month to month among
different search engines. There is a debate in the SEO community as
to whether or not they help at all on certain search engines. In
fact, in the summer of 2004 it appeared as if they were losing
importance altogether. However, you'll NEVER be penalized on any
search engines for using relevant targeted keywords in moderation,
and they can only help you with most, especially Yahoo. However,
avoid "stuffing" your keyword met tags with too many keywords. Just
use relevant tags that apply directly to the content of that
particular page, and don’t overdo it.
A proper keyword
tag looks like this:
<meta
name="keywords" content="Keywords here, separated by commas, don't
have more than a dozen, don't give away secrets by using your best
niche phrases">
4. Alt Tags
The small
yellow box that comes up when your mouse cursor is placed over an
image is called the ALT tag. Every relevant image should have an alt
tag with your key words or phrases mentioned in the tag. For
example, the ALT description might be "Oregon Widget company logo"
instead of "companynamelogo.jpg".
A proper ALT tag
goes after the file name, and before the Align indicator like this:
(I’ve bolded it for visibility in the entire image tag)
<IMG SRC="images/name.jpeg"ALT="alt
text phrase here" ALIGN=right HEIGHT="92" WIDTH="140"BORDER="0"
HSPACE="2" VSPACE="2">
*Updated June
2005 - The ALT tag is no longer being considered for ranking
purposes by some search engines. That said, it still cannot HURT
you, and will still help you with some engines. My recommendation is
to continue to use them, but be sure to avoid "keyword stuffing".
Besides, who knows when the pendulum will swing back the other way?
5. Header Tags
The text
of each page is given more weight by the search engines if you make
use of header tags and then use descriptive body text below those
headers. Bullet points work well too. It is not enough to merely
BOLD or enlarge your text headlines.
A proper header
tag looks like this:
<h1>
align="center - right etc" </h1>
6. Link Text
Search engine spiders cannot follow image links. In addition to
having image links or buttons on your web pages, you should have
text links at the bottom or elsewhere. The text that the user sees
when looking at the link is called the link text. A link that
displays products does not carry as much weight to the search
engines as a link called Oregon widgets. Link text is very
important, and is actually one of the most frequently overlooked
aspects of web design that I've seen.
7. Site Map
Using a
site map not only makes it easy for your users to see the entire
structure of your website, but it also makes it easier for the
search engines to “spider” your site. When the search engine spiders
come to visit, they will follow all of the text links from your main
index page. If one of those links is to a site map, then the spiders
will go right to the sitemap, and consequently visit every page you
have text linked to from that site map. On the site map page, try
to have a sentence or two describing each page, and not just a page
of links.
8. Relevant
Inbound Links
By
relevant, I mean similar industry or subject related sites. Right
now, no single strategy can get your site ranked higher faster than
being linked to by dozens of other relevant websites. It used to be
that the quantity of incoming links mattered most, but today, in
November 2004, it's much better to have three highly relevant links
to you from other popular related websites than 30 links from
unrelated low ranked sites. If there are other businesses in your
industry that you can trade links with, it will help your site
enormously. Link to others, and have them link to you. It’s proven,
and it works.
To see who’s
linking to you in Google, which some feel is most important type the
following...
link:yourdomain.com
9. Your Content
Not to be
forgotten of course, is the actual content of your webpage. It must
be relevant helpful information that people want to read. These
days, each webpage should be laser focused on one specific product
or subject, in order to rank highly for that search phrase. The days
of writing one webpage to appeal to dozens of search terms are long
gone.
Ideally, each
page should have between 400 to 650 words on it. Too few, and the
search engines won't consider it to be relevant enough. Too many
words and the search engine spiders may have a hard time determining
the actual subject or focus of the page.
Use your keywords
or phrases often, and use them at the beginning of your paragraphs
wherever possible. Don’t overuse them and make the page sound phony,
but don’t write a page about a certain subject, and not mention that
subject repeatedly either. Reading it out loud to yourself is a
great way to judge how natural your text sounds.
Concentrate on
writing quality pages that actually appeal to the human reader.
Write pages that provide the reader with exactly what they are
looking for; that is, information about the exact search phrase
they’ve entered.
10. Avoid
Cheating
With all
of these tidbits of information, it's tempting to think that you can
stuff 100 keywords into your title, or create a page with the phrase
"Oregon widget company" being used 100 times in headers, text links,
ALT tags, bullet points etc. but that cannot help you. In fact, it
can penalize you, and get your website banned from certain search
engines like Google and Yahoo.
As search engine
robots continue to utilize better types of AI (Artificial
Intelligence) they will in effect, get smarter. They are already
starting to look for things the same way you and I do; with the
highest relevance given to pages that directly relate to information
about their exact search phrase.
Once you've done
these fundamentals, what do you do then? - here's SEO 201
The
"game is over,
the secret is out". The way to achieve top search results on any
given phrase is simply to become one of the top informational
resources for that particular phrase. Once you have good content,
your site becomes "linkworthy", and other authoritative sites will
link to you, sometimes without even being asked.
Those inbound
links will also continue to improve your search results. good
content + many inbound links from relevant sites =
"WINNER".
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