This post focused onelements relating to design, content and development. This time, we?llmove onto the important issue of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO is such a hot topic these days. How do you get your web site withinthe first page or two of the search engines? How do you increase yourGoogle page rank?
There are companies who dedicate themselves full time to doing SEO at apretty penny. Something a lot of people can?t necessarily afford to payfor or spend the time on.
However, there are some simple things you can do when building your sitethat will help increase your chances of having good results. In noparticular order, below are 10 of these items?
1. Title Tag
Near the very top of a web site?s source code you?ll find various metatags ? the standard ones being the Title, Description and Keyword tags.The title tag is technically not a meta tag, though it is commonlyassociated with them. The title tag plays such a large role in theindexing of your web site, that it is considered the most important ofthe three.
A page title is the first thing a search engine will look at whendetermining just what the particular page is about. It is also the firstthing potential visitors will see when looking at your search enginelisting.
It?s important to include a keyword or two in the title tag ? but don?tgo overboard - you don?t want to do what?s known as ?keyword stuffing?which does nothing but make your web site look like spam. Most peoplewill include either the company name, or title of the particular pagehere, as well.
2. Meta Tags
Meta TagsThere are two primary meta tags in terms of SEO ? thedescription and the keyword tag. It?s debatable whether the searchengines use the description tag as far as ranking your results. Howeverit is one of the more important tags because it is listed in your searchresult ? it is what users read when your link comes up and what makesthem decide whether or not to click on your link.
Be sure to include a few relevant keywords in this tag, but don?t stuffit with keywords either. The description tag should read like a sentence? not a keyword list.
Due to ?keyword stuffing? many search engines now completely disregardthe keyword tag. It is no longer nearly as important as it was yearsago, however it doesn?t hurt to include them in your source code.
When creating your keyword list, you?ll want to think of the specificterms people will type in when searching for a site like yours. Justdon?t go overboard ? too many duplicates are not a good thing (as in?web designer? ?web designers? ?custom web designer? ?html web designer??your state here web designer? - you get the idea). Those are allbasically the same, so pick one or two variations at the most and moveonto the next keyword.
3. Proper Use of Heading Tags
This is a very important element to consider when writing out your sitecopy. Use of heading tags helps users, web browsers and search enginesalike know where the major key points of your copy are.
Your main page title should use the tag ? this shows what your pageis about. Use of additional tags, such as and are equallyimportant by helping to break down your copy. For one, you?ll see avisual break in the text. But as far as the search engines areconcerned, it will automatically know what your topics are on a page.The various heading tags give a priority to the content and help indexyour site properly.
4. Alt Attributes on Images
Alt Image TagPutting alt attributes on your images actually serves twopurposes. In terms of SEO, putting a brief yet descriptive alt attributealong with your image, places additional relevant text to your sourcecode that the search engines can see when indexing your site. The morerelevant text on your page the better chance you have of achievinghigher search engine rankings.
In addition, including image alt attributes help the visually impairedwho access web sites using a screen reader. They can?t see the image,but with a descriptive alt attribute, they will be able to know whatyour image is.
5. Title Attributes on Links
Including title attributes on links is another important step that anygood web site will have. That?s the little ?tool tip? that pops up whenyou place your mouse over a link. These are especially important forimage links, but equally useful for text links.
As a note, you should use descriptive text for your links. ?Click here?doesn?t really tell a person - or more importantly, the search engines ?what the link is. At the very least put a title tag that will explainthat ?Click Here? really means ?Web Design Portfolio? for example.Better yet - make the main link text something like ?View my web designportfolio? ? this will give some value to the link showing that theresulting page is relevant to searches for portfolio?s.
6. XML Sitemap
My last post
This list of ALL pages / posts / etc. of your site also includesinformation such as the date the page was last modified, as well as apriority number of what you feel the most important pages of your sitesare. All elements that help the search engines properly find and link toall content of your site.
7. Relevant Content
Having content relevant to your main page or site topic is perhaps themost important SEO aspect of a page. You can put all the keywords youwant in the meta tags and alt image tags, etc ? but if the actualreadable text on the page is not relevant to the target keywords, itends up basically being a futile attempt.
While it is important to include as many keywords in your page copy aspossible, it is equally as important for it to read well and make sense.I?m sure we?ve all seen keyword stuffed pages written by SEO companiesthat honestly don?t make much sense from the reader?s point of view.
When creating your site copy, just write naturally, explaining whateverinformation you?re discussing. The key is to make it relevant, and tohave it make sense to the reader. Even if you trick the search enginesinto thinking your page is great ? when a potential customer arrives atthe site and can?t make heads or tails of your information and it justfeels spammy to them ? you can bet they?ll be clicking on the next website within a matter of seconds.
8. Link Building
We?ve probably all heard of Google Page Rank ? it seems to be every website owner?s dream to have as high a page rank as possible. While thealgorithm for determining page rank encompasses many elements, and isconstantly changing, one item is the number of links pointing to yourweb site.
Now, you?ll want to steer clear of link farms and other spammy attemptsat getting links to your site. However there are many reputable andniche directory sites that you can use to submit your web site, orspecific blog articles to.
With genuine content ? especially if you have a blog ? you?ll be able togenerate links with other web sites and blogs, as well. It?s somewhat ofa give and take, in that if you link out to other sites, you?ll findsites linking back to you ? and hopefully see your page rank going up,as well!
9. Social Media
Although technically not SEO, Social Media is such a growing factor ingetting your web site noticed, that it?s an important element to includein your plan.
Social media ranges from social networks like Twitter, Facebook andLinkedIn ? to social bookmarking sites such as Delicious, Digg,StumbleUpon and many more. There is a lot of relationship building
As with any relationship, it is a give and take. Don?t just expect tojoin a site like Twitter for the pure sake of pushing your content. Thatjust won?t fly ? your true intentions will stick out like a sore thumband do nothing but turn people off.
Even if you are on the site purely for networking reasons, the key is tomake friends. Help out members of your network if they ask for a?retweet? or Digg, give helpful advice if asked, etc. You?ll see thesame in return.
If you write a great post and have built meaningful relationships withpeers in your niche, you?ll often find that friends will submit yourposts and give you votes on the social bookmarking sites. The more votesyou receive, the more likely your post is to be noticed by others andshared around, often resulting in additional link backs from otherblogs, etc.
10. A Few SEO Don'ts - Flash and Splash
Flash PlayerAlong with any list of Do?s come the Don?ts. As far as SEOis concerned, two of these items are splash pages (often consisting of aflash animation) and all flash web sites.
Yes, flash is pretty! Full flash web sites can actually be amazing tolook at ? their own bit of interactive artwork. But unfortunately thesearch engines don?t get along well with Flash. Although there is talkof possible advancement in this area, for the most part the searchengines cannot read Flash.
All that great content that you wrote for your site will not be seen bythe search engines if it?s embedded into a Flash web site. As far as thesearch engines are concerned, your all flash web site might as well beinvisible. And if the search engines can?t see your site content, a goodchunk of potential customers will miss out on what you have to offer, too.
Equally as ?pointless? are splash pages. Once very popular, the splashpage should no longer be an important feature of any site. While splashpages used to serve as an introduction into a web site (often with aflash animation), it is no longer seen as helpful, and often times mightactually annoy visitors.
For one ? it?s an extra click to get into your content. Worse is whenyou don?t give a ?skip intro? option or set of links into your main sitecontent ? because you?re essentially forcing your visitors to sitthrough the full animation. If you?re lucky, this will only annoy them?if not ? they?ll just leave without giving your main web site a shot.And without an html link pointing into your site, the search engineshave no way to continue either (unless you made use of a sitemap.xmlfile ? but still?)
A good alternative to both issues is to make use of a flash header.There?s no problem to include a flash animation at the top of your mainsite, or as a feature within the content area, etc. Because this is anaddition to your web site, as opposed to a full separate element.
Back Over To You? What Are Your Favorite SEO Tips?
There are so many tips and tricks to good SEO. These are some of themore obvious ones, but I know there are more!
What are your best SEO tips, tricks or tools? Please share in thecomments below!
*Note: *Please only share ?White Hat? or ?Ethical? SEO techniques! No?Black Hat? or sneaky tactics that can backfire and actually get youbanned from the search engines. Thanks!
