Search engine optimization abbreviated SEO is one of the most discussed and analyzed topics on the internet.
Discussions on SEO forums often get heated as members argue about which tactics work best.
Search engine optimization SEO is merely the art of making your site friendly to the search engines so you will rank well for keywords related to your niche.
As a website owner, you want search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN to rank you highly.
For example, if your website is about fashion shops from New York, you want to show up on the first page of results when someone searches for “Fashion Shops in New York.”
Top rankings for popular keywords can bring hundreds if not thousands of visitors to your site day in and day out.
Unfortunately, there are too many opinions on how to achieve top rankings, and these opinions often conflict with one another.
Google and other search engines carefully guard the algorithms that determine to rank to prevent manipulation.
But through trial and error, clever minds have reverse-engineered the process to identify several factors that help websites rank well.
The key is to make it easy for search engines to figure out what your site is about. Let’s look at some ways to make your site friendlier to the search engines.
SEO Tips
Each page of your site should target a different keyword. Go back to our wine example. You’ll likely have pages on red wines, white wines, wine tasting, wine tours, etc.
Each page should target a single keyword phrase and that keyword should be featured prominently throughout that web page.
You’ll want to place your keyword in each of the following places:
– In the Title of your page (preferably at the very beginning)
– In the Description
– As the Header (H1) of the page
– In the “alt” tag embedded in an image
– In the anchor text of a link
– In bold somewhere in your text
You’ll also want to use your keyword phrase throughout the text. But do so carefully. You want it to appear natural.
Going overboard and packing your keyword phrase all over the place is called “keyword stuffing” and could cause the search engines to drop your site altogether.
Working and improving your web page Meta Tags is very important too, mostly your Title tags if you can!
These simple on-page SEO tips will help you get top rankings for many long-tail keyword phrases. But for more competitive keywords you’ll need some help…lots and lots of backlinks!
