Search engine optimization can be daunting at times. There is so much information out there, and you could quite literally spend months working on the SEO of your website. If you’re like me, you don’t have months to spend on just SEO. There’s also advertising, conversion optimization, merchandizing, email marketing, and more to worry about.
That’s why I’ve put together a list of 5 critically important SEO strategies. You shouldn’t stop after you’re done with these, but hopefully they’ll give you a good starting point and a solid foundation to work from.
It’s All About the Content
The major search engines use complicated algorithms to determine what your website is all about. No matter how many tags, attributes or links your website has, you’re going to need real content. Not only is real content critical for search engine optimization, it’s also important to the visitors who will hopefully find your web page.
You don’t have to write a 5,000 word thesis about your product or service, but you do need to have adequate content to describe the features, benefits or adequately convey what your page is about. Here are a few tips for writing excellent content:
Do…
- Consider keywords people might search and use them in your content.
- Break up your content into short paragraphs and bulleted lists.
- Frequently link keyword phrases to other important pages on your website.
- Use headings (see below) to create a logical flow (both for search engines and your website visitors).
- Use strong tags to convey importance (but don’t use them too often).
Don’t…
- Don’t worry about “keyword density” or stuffing your content. Search engines’ algorithms can detect content stuffed with keywords.
- Don’t try to hide text on the page using background colors or CSS positioning.
- Don’t copy the manufacture or a competitor’s content. Not only is it copyright infringement, it wouldn’t help you anyway (it’s called “duplicate content” and search engines would not credit you as writing it).
Needless to say, this barely scratches the surface of the topic of writing quality content. For more information on writing exceptional content, check out Brian Clark’s Copyblogger blog.
Page Titles
The page title is an invisible tag in the head of a web page document. You’ve likely seen it because it’s often used by search engines as the linked “title” on results pages. It’s also displayed at the very top of your browser window when you visit a web page.
Page titles are important for several reasons. They’re likely the first piece of content that a search engine spider comes across when visiting your web page, and (as mentioned above) are used as the headline on search engine results.
Do…
- Write unique title tags for every page of your website
- Include the most important keyword phrase close to the beginning of the title tag
Don’t…
- Don’t put your website name or address at the beginning of the title tag (if you include it, make sure it’s at the end).
- Don’t write looooong page titles. Keep your page titles under 100 characters (or at the very least, keep the most important content at the beginning).
- Don’t stuff keywords or phrases into the page title. A shorter, more meaningful title tag is better than a long list of keywords.
Page URLs
Your website’s URL (or Universal Resource Locator) is it’s web address. It’s everything from the domain name (i.e. www.yoursite.com) to the directory structure and page name (i.e. /products/horse-blankets.html). The entire web address is the URL. In most content management systems and e-commerce software, the latter part of this address can be customized either globally or on an individual page or product level.
Like page titles, the URL of your web page is both used in determining your rank and it is displayed in the search results as the destination link. Having well written URLs will result in higher search engine placement and highter click-throughs.
Do…
- Include the category structure in the web address.
- Try to include the most important keyword phrase for the page, product or service.
Don’t…
- Don’t have query strings or special characters in URLs (i.e. /products.php?id=1234&category=23).
- Don’t have too many sections (i.e. /products/categories/24/details/524/product-name/).
Logical Headings
Headings are tags in HTML that give a structural heirarchy to your page. They start at level 1 and go through level 6, depending on the amount of contnet on your page. I wouldn’t recommend going much beyond a level 4 heading as that would probably indicate that you have too much content covered on one page, and you might consider breaking it into multiple web pages.
<h1>This is a top-level heading</h1>
<h2>This is a second-level heading... thus less important</h2>
Search engines look at headings as a way to classify the content on the page, and they consider the text in heading tags to be more important than other text on the page. They also give more weight to the higher level heading tags than lower level headings.
Do…
- Include only one level 1 heading tag, describing the content of the entire page.
- Include multiple level 2-6 headings, that are all sub-levels of their parent heading.
Don’t…
- Don’t use multiple H1 (level 1) heading tags on a page.
- Don’t use headings to stuff keywords, make sure they accurately describe the content below them.
Incoming Links
Incoming links are one of the most powerful ways to boost your site’s search engine rank. Incoming links are links from other websites to your website. Google has an algorithm that determines the value of incoming links called PageRank. It’s not just about quantity, but rather the quality of incoming links that can help you acheive higher rankings.
The anchor text (the text that is hyperlinked) is very important, as it tells the search engines what the link is about. “Premium Horse Blankets” is obviously much better than “Click here.”
The theory is that if other, popular, websites link to your page using the phrase “Premium Horse Blankets,” then your web page must be relevant to that phrase. Google (and other search engines) will likely rank you higher for that phrase.
Do…
- Try to find websites complimentary to your own and simply ask them if they will ink to you.
- Ask vendors, strategic partners, or industry associates to link to your website.
- Ask to send over the text used in the link, and try to include an important keyword phrase.
- Try to get links from bloggers by asking them to review your products or services, or by mentioning them in your own blog.
Don’t…
- Don’t pay for links in “link farms” or “link directories”. While it may not hurt your rank, there are very few “directories” that can help your rank (with the exception of DMOZ and Yahoo! Directory).
Internal Linking
Internal links are links on your web pages that link to other pages within your site. Just like with incoming links from other websites, internal links can help certain pages of your site by passing PageRank (remember that term?) between pages.
Do…
- Add nofollow attributes to all links of little value to search engines.
- Add nofollow attributes to duplicate links that have no quality anchor text (such as “more information” or “read more” links).
Don’t…
- Don’t try to hide links using font colors or CSS positioning.
- Don’t limit yourself to the navigation, adding links inside the content of your pages can really help both with search engines and can help your visitors find important content.
Meta Tags
Meta tags aren’t used by the major search engines for determining ranking, but they are still used by most search engines for other purposes. For instance, the meta “Description” tag is used by many search engines as the “summary” text below the link in the search results listing.
Write meta descriptions knowing they will be read by your visitors when they see your search engine listing. Make them want to click over to your website by providing a clear description of what they’ll find on the page.
You shouldn’t spend time stuffing keyword phrases into your meta tags. In fact, Google has confirmed that the keyword meta tag is no longer used to determine page rank.
Do…
- Write unique meta description tags for every page of your website.
Don’t…
- Don’t stuff keyword phrases into your meta keyword or description tags.
- Don’t use the same meta tags on every page of your website
- Don’t spend too much time writing meta tags.
Image ALT Attributes and Filenames
The ALT attribute tells search engines (and web browsers including those for disabled persons) more about the images on your website. Since search engines can’t see the content of images, the only information they get from images is from the ALT attribute and the actual filename.
The filename of an image is used in determining rank, so make sure to name it something legible.
Bad filename: DSC0001.jpg
Good filename: premium-horse-blanket.jpg
Do…
- Include dashes or underscores to separate words in your image’s filename.
- Keep the filename relatively short, around 3-4 words if possible.
- Write an accurate description of the image for the ALT attribute.
Don’t…
- Don’t include spaces or special characters in the filename.
- Don’t just stuff keywords in the ALT attribute, search engines can tell.
- Don’t write an extremely long ALT description, think sentence not paragraph.
Title Attribute on Links
The TITLE attribute for a link is very much like the ALT attribute for an image. It simply describes the destination of the link like the ALT attribute describes the content of the image. All of the tips above regarding ALT attributes apply to the TITLE attribute as well.
Sitemap
A sitemap is a list of pages on a website, typically written for both search engine and users. The list is generally broken down into sections and sub-sections (a heirarchy) and lists most, if not all, web pages on a website.
Sitemaps can be submitted to Google, Yahoo and other search engines directly, and offer a way to give them a complete list of pages to spider. This doesn’t guarantee they will actually visit and index every one of your pages, but it’s certainly better than not submitting at all!
Many software programs will generate your sitemap automatically. If not, see the instructions on Google and Yahoo!.
Wrapping Up
So there you have it, ten strategies for optimizing your website. Of course, each of these strategies could be it’s own article. We’ll likely be discussing them in more detail in future posts, but if you have a question about any specific tip, post a comment below.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Good Stuff.
Thank you.