How to Optimize Your Website for Search Engine Use
How to Optimize Your Website for Search Engine Use
from wikiHow -
The How to Manual That You Can Edit
Content still reigns as the king
in the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Some websites get on top of
search engine rankings because of high-powered link building campaigns, but
when you talk about visitor loyalty and traffic retention (and yes, public
consumption), it will always require that good old optimized content
Steps
1.
Dedicate some time
to writing really great content. The saying goes that you should write for
people first and search engines second. This basically means you should be
creating really quality pieces that are useful and engaging for humans because
the search engines will recognise your efforts. Your readers will share your
work generating additional backlinks, not to mention extra traffic, and search
engines will recognise your quality piece because it will flow naturally with
not too many keywords (something which is penalized in the post Penguin Update
world).
·
Write content people
want to share on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social networks. The
search engine will read those social signals as a signal of the quality of your
domain. You can accelerate the spread of your content on these sites by having
an account on these social networks with lots of followers.
·
Consider submitting
your content to sites like Reddit, Delicious, Digg and other content
aggregators that might gain you a few readers. ,
·
Go back and SEO
rewrite some old content. Chances are you know stuff about search engine
optimisation that you didn't know last year (not to mention changes in SEO best
practices since last year). Re-visit some old content and re-write it with your
search engine optimisation hat on, updating image attributes, changing keyword
density, adding links to your home page and other relevant content on your
site. Even consider republishing as a fresh article for extra brownie points
with the search engines!
·
Get links to your
pages from other trusted websites.
·
Even if you are new
to the web, you have natural links you could try to get. All businesses have
suppliers whether they be accountants, solicitors or raw material providers.
All these suppliers are bound to have a website, contact them to arrange a link
exchange: encourage them to put up a 'client' page on their site with a link to
your website if you put up a 'providers' page on yours. That's 15 or so
backlinks straight away!
·
Complete all image
attributes. Pictures dress up your pages but search engines don't really know
how to deal with them unless you complete all the nitty-gritty details like
title, caption, alternate text, description. Be ethical though, don't use it as
an opportunity to cram an extra few keywords onto the page as this will likely
have a negative impact on your search engine ranking. Some people search for
what they are looking for via Google image search, if you're image is highly
visible then your potential customers will likely visit your page.
·
Diversify anchor text
links. As Aaron Wall pointed out, there needs to be some variations in the text
when one creates those blue-highlighted anchor text links. The links on a page
are what the search engine spiders follow in determining your website
structure. Most likely, the text used in the links are being considered in
figuring out what a page is all about. You may also set some keyphrases in bold
letters. That tells the spiders which terms you’re trying to emphasize, just
don’t overdo it.
·
Take note of word
count. Although it’s been a classic rule that “readers online do not read”, it
simply doesn’t mean that one has to deprive the online users of good, meaty
content. Stick to at least 250 words a page. SEOs know that writing down for an
appropriate length of text means being more able to include more related terms
for the target keywords.
·
Avoid duplicate
content. The content on your website should be unique from those of other sites
on the web.
1.
Title Tags The first
is your page title. It’s very important to put keywords in your page title;
specifically try to get important keywords first and try to limit the overall
length of your page title. Well-constructed title tags contain the main keyword
for the page. It should contain less than 65 characters with no stop words such
as: a, if, the, then, and, an, to, etc. Your title tag should also be limited
to the use of alphanumeric characters, hyphens, and commas.
2.
Header Tags Next,
it’s important to look at the header tags on your site-h1, h2, h3, h4 and so
on. H1 is the most significant. Make sure you have the most important keyword
labeled as h1 tag. This will help you with ranking for your site, especially if
someone is searching for that particular key word or phrase.
3.
Page Content Next up
is the content. You definitely want to put your keywords in the contents
somewhere, but the object, though, is to make sure the content is very well
written for visitors to your website. You want to insert the keywords for that
page only where it makes sense. Page content should have between 300 and 700
words of descriptive content that contains the keywords specified in the
keywords meta tag for the page. You also want to try to optimize your URLs.
Make sure to include important keywords in the URL.
4.
Meta Tags Next are
the Meta keywords and Meta description. These are pieces of code behind the
scene. The code should look something like this: It should be placed directly
under the title tag codeYour site tittle
5.
Navigation Next is
to have proper navigation. Each page of your site should contain links to every
other page so search engine spiders can find every page. This is an important
step for the proper indexing and page ranking for your site.
6.
Site MapNext is
having a proper site map. It's important to use two site maps for your
website--an XML version and a static version. The XML version can be created by
sitemap generators tools such as http://www.xml-sitemaps.com.
The static version should be a HTML page that contains links to every other
page.
Video
http://youtu.be/sRlO0JAyNPk
Tips
·
SEO-friendly content
is no longer the restrictive,robotical-sounding content it used to be. Search engines,
in their aim to continuously refine search are catering more to the online
readers, the social aspect of the World Wide Web. Content comes out to be more
human-centered, and ready for consumption.
·
Usage of JavaScript,
Flash & frames. Search engines are not always can correctly process links
on JavaScript, therefore it is desirable to use them as less as possible. The
elements of a site executed on Flash, are not indexed by many search systems.
If internal links of the project are made in Flash, the majority of search
systems will not find these pages. Each time when there is a new page on a
site, it becomes to the known search engine only when it will be found by the
robot of the search engine. If the page is located in the heart of a site, it
can occur very much at a distant day. Sitemap placing frequently solves a
problem of indexation and site reindexation.
·
Dynamic pages are
tough to index as it contains too many special characters, some bots takes much
longer time to index those pages or sites as well. Try to avoid dynamical
writing of site pages.
·
If you have a local
business, get listed in the Google Local Business search results. 86% of people
looking for something offline will search online using the likes of Google and
Bing. Even businesses like hairdressers and butchers can't afford to miss out
on a spot of search engine optimisation. Head over to the Google Local Business
Centre and add your business to the map, that way your business info and
contact details will appear next time a potential customer searches for a
service you provide in your local area!
Related wikiHows
·
How to Improve Search Engine Ranking
·
How to Get Your Site Indexed in the MSN Search Engine
·
How to Search for Phrases & Expressions in Search Engines
·
How to Find Free Content for Search Engine Optimization
Article provided by wikiHow,
a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the
original wikiHow article on How to Optimize Your Website for Search Engine Use.
All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.
Hidalgo
Jones
Link Building Specialist
Support:
Blog:
http://linkedliberation.com/seoblg
Affiliate
Disclosure: I am grateful to be of service and bring you content, Like this
e-mail or blog post, free of charge. In order to do this, please note that
whenever you click the links in my e-mails or Blog and purchase items, in most
(not all) cases I will receive a referral commission. Your Support in
Purchasing through these links enables me to empower more people Worldwide to
live more conscious lives. Thank you!