Web site optimization
Develop your Web site with keywords beneficial to your audience who will scan your pages seeking the keywords they are searching for. Both the search engines and the visitors will need to be able to find the relevant information quickly and easily using these proven Web site optimization methods.
Note that most readers want information in short sentences, preferably under ten words. Paragraphs are best read with no more than three, and preferably only two, sentences.
Keywords in your URL
Your page URL has an advantage if it contains a keyword in it. Placing keywords into a domain name provides an immediate advantage because the search engines will locate it immediately. Most of the major search engines favor Web sites that contain keywords in the site's URL. The keywords used in a domain should be separated with a hyphen or an underscore and not as one word, because search engines will read it as a single word and the URL keyword advantage will be lost.
Keywords in your title tags
Your keywords should be in the title tag of your page; that area in the very most extreme, top left corner in the browser. Without the keywords in the title tag your site will not rank high. Make each page unique with specific titles relevant to each page. Google indexes only 67 characters including spaces, although the prevailing wisdom is now 60 characters, so keep it concise.
Keywords in your META tags
Hidden within your Web pages are your META tags that list keywords relevant to each of your Web pages. It is important to list the relevant keywords for each page and remove the least informative or least relevant keywords. Although Google places little importance on the meta tag keywords, other search engines might, and Google will use the meta tags in specific search uses.
Although 870 characters is acceptable, your page may suffer from keyword saturation, so again, be concise and direct. Make it easy to find the two to three keyword phrases per page for the reader and the search engines.
The reason Google places so little importance on meta tags is because so much spamming has occurred from people using the meta tags to gain attention. Google states that the meta tags will not affect a Web site's ranking. The most important thing to consistently improve ranking is to add relevant content and to rely on additional links to your Web site.
The more important meta tag is the "description" tag and its relevant content. Use keywords in your description tags and make the description page specific. Note that Google indexes only 156 characters including spaces, but the prevailing wisdom today is to keep it under 150 characters, so keep it concise. Do not "boiler plate" the description for other pages--keep them different for each page.
Keywords in your text
Your keywords should be in bold at least once, and used up to 6 times within your text. Bold keywords tell the search engines the emphasis is on that particular keyword or phrase. Search engines also consider variations of the keywords and phrases used; moderations to the keywords and keyword phrases adds to the readability of the page, and makes the page less stiff from repetitious use of the same keyword or phrase.
If possible, your keyword should be close to the beginning of the page, and will improve the prominence of the keyword. Early appearance of your keyword shows its importance and should be placed within the first 50 words of text on the page.
Keyword links
Your keywords should be used as links to another Web page at least once in the text, and keywords should be used in ALT tags where there are graphics or images because the search engines cannot read images and graphics. Using keyword links up to 6 times is recommended, but don't overdo it.
Image optimization
For higher search engine ranking use hyphenated keywords to name your image files; greyhound-dog.jpg, for example, rather than greyhounddog.jpg or greyhound_dog.jpg. It's a more logical spelling for readers and search engines.
There are other attributes in the image code that can give an image more significance, such as height and width of the image, but the best suggestion for SEO is to use relavent content describing the image.
Search engines take most of the information they need from the text around the image files, as well as sound files and video files, so make sure that the content and the images are interrelated.
Although the HTML code labels of the images are important, the greater importance is the relavent content explaining the images; the captions, titles, and descriptions you associate with the images on your site. |