There are as many views of the “best” SEO as there are companies selling their services as SEO experts. All the conflicting information can be very confusing, especially if you’re just learning about search engine optimization. It can be very tempting to take shortcuts and concentrate on the latest thing or newest fad to try and “game” the search engines. Unless you’ve been optimizing your web site already, it’s important to focus and master the fundamentals of SEO first.
Is linking important? Yes. Is social media important? Yes. Are ongoing customer communications like newsletters and emails important? Yes. I’m not advocating abandonment of other methods employed to improve the ranking of your web site – but if you haven’t performed basic on-page SEO for your site before employing these methods, you’re already behind your competition.
SEO fundamentals are traditional, tried and true methods to ensure that your web site is cataloged correctly by the search engines. By cataloged correctly, I mean that the search engines can review your web site, catalog all the pages, and that the information they retrieve fits the message of your web site.
7 SEO Fundamentals to master:
1.Keywords
It is important to pick a few keywords that really characterize your web site theme. Pick 1-3 basic keywords to characterize each page of your web site and consider these the “theme” of that page. If you can’t – then consider creating some additional pages for your web site. Each page of your site should be tightly themed to help your search engine rankings and increase the likelihood that your page visitors are really interested in your product or service. Unless you’re selling something that hinges on loads of site visits (like CPM advertising), you should be interested in relevant traffic.
2. Page Titles
Page titles are an important component of your site’s SEO strategy. Your keyword for the page should be part of the page title and those keywords closest to the beginning of the title carry more “weight.” The page title shows up in the title bar of the web browser, but it also is the link to your site in search engine results pages (SERPs). Your title should be descriptive, fit the theme of your page and entice searchers to click through to your web site.
3. Meta Tags
Meta-tags are often forgotten. There are quite a few allowable meta tags, but only two that really matter for SEO. The meta-keyword tag is one that used to be used for ranking web sites, but is no longer widely used. It’s a meta tag that may be used or not, at your discretion. Some web site owners find it convenient to have their relevant keywords for each page close at hand to help them maintain thematic integrity for each web page. The meta-description tag is extremely important for your web site SEO. The meta-description is the text that appears below your web site title link in the SERPs. Although search engines will occasionally ignore your description if it doesn’t fit with your web page theme, the search engine uses your description in their results. This means that your meta-description tag needs to be accurate and also entice searchers to click through to your web site.
4. Site Map
A site map is an XML file containing links to each of your web site pages. This file tells each search engine what pages are contained in your web site, how important you consider each page and how often each page is updated. Detailed information on creating site maps can be found at http://www.sitemaps.org. An accurate site map ensures that the search engines catalog your entire site and don’t get hung up in that fancy menu the web developer put on your site. You should also consider including an HTML site map for your visitors to help them find information, especially if your site is very large or difficult to navigate.
5. Images
Images are important for the look of your site, but don’t neglect them in your SEO. There are a few things you should consider for each of your web site images. First, the search engines will catalog your images unless you restrict access to your images folder (so, if you don’t want search engines cataloging all your images you’ll need a robots.txt exclusion file). Name your images appropriately – classic-french-door.jpg is much better than doorphoto1.jpg – especially if you’re selling french doors! Each image tag (img) allows you to specify an alternative text (alt) attribute. The copy in this attribute is shown when someone browses with images turned off (not such a problem as it once was) or is used when someone with low vision uses a browser that “reads” them the web pages. Include alt attribute text that describes your image using your keywords and remaining consistent with the overall web page theme. Please use your keyword only ONCE in each tag!
6. Headings
Headings should include your thematic keywords if possible. If you use a wysiwyg editor for your web site you should see a “format” option that will contain entries such as: paragraph, heading 1, heading 2, etc. If you use an HTML editor you will see tags like <H1>, <H2>, <H3>, etc. These heading should be used appropriately throughout your web page copy, but incorporate your thematic keywords in these headings if possible. For instance, above this list you’ll see “7 SEO Fundamentals to master” in an H1 tag. This tells the search engines that the text is more important than the following text, and also incorporates the page theme of SEO fundamentals.
7. Copy
Copy is king. Or so they say. Each of your web pages should have at least 150-200 characters of text. By the way, an image that contains text doesn’t count. The copy should fit the theme of your web page and use the keywords for that page a few times. Yes, a few – if you stuff your copy with keywords the search engines will penalize you and the site visitors will leave immediately. The page copy should be relevant to your page theme, provide useful information for the site visitor, be well written, spell checked and include your keywords in a very natural-sounding way. If it fits, you can also italicize or bold your keywords for emphasis.
These are the basics of search engine optimization. If you use a content management system it should allow you to modify all these parts of your web site – if it doesn’t, upgrade it or switch to a different system. Get started now, make a few changes, and watch your web site rankings improve!
