10 Essential SEO Pearls of Wisdom |
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The
ramblings of an online mogul... |
Many
people spend a great deal of time on search engine
optimization. They do this in order to boost the search engine
ranking for their websites, so that they might enjoy natural
search traffic.
There are
numerous on-page SEO techniques that you could, and should,
use. However, some of
those techniques are absolutely essential, even if you don’t
have a great deal of interest
in SEO. Below is a description of ten of the most important
on-page SEO techniques, and how you should use them.
1 - Clean HTML Code
Search engines prefer tidy houses. In this instance, your
website is your house. Simply put, search engines don’t spider
pages with messy code because they cannot correctly read the
code. This, of course, results in not getting listed in the
search engines.
 You
can use an HTML validator to ensure that your web pages comply
with
the latest HTML standards. A good validator will show you what
and where
the mistakes are, so that you can get them fixed easily.
2 - Proper Use of Keywords in Alt Tags
In your HTML code, you will see numerous alt tags. These are
attached to graphics,
hyperlinks, tables, and more. It is important to include your
keywords in these tags.
In the past, webmasters used these alt tags so that the text
used within the tags would appear even if the graphic or link
did not. This was the case when there were so many
compatibility problems between browsers.
Today, the alt tag is used to improve the SEO of a web page.
Search engine spiders look at alt tags to see what they say.
Ideally, yours will contain your keyword phrase, or your main
keyword – not just a spam-type listing of all of your
keywords. You absolutely do not want to spam your keywords in
your alt tags – or anywhere else on your page. Furthermore,
you want to be sure that the keywords you are using in the alt
tags correspond with the keywords that are used in the content
on that page.
 Many
SEO experts have deemed the use of keywords in alt tags
ineffective these days, because this technique has been
excessively
abused with the use of spamming keywords. However, because
using the alt tags plays into clean, compliant
navigation, it is still
an important aspect of SEO.
3 - Proper Use of Keywords throughout the Content
After you have carefully selected your keywords, sub keywords,
and keyword phrases, you will of course be using them
throughout the text on your pages. There is a right way and a
wrong way to use keywords in content, however.
Keep your content to between 400 and 650 words in length. If
it is shorter than that, the search engines won’t see it as
relevant; if it is too long, the search engines will have a
harder time determining which keywords to focus on.
Use your keywords about 2 percent of the time. Thus, for a
650-word page, the keyword or keyword phrases should appear
about 13 times. Don’t overuse your keywords, and make sure
that the content “sounds” natural when you read it aloud.
4 - Proper Use of the Title Tag
The title tag is located between the <head></head> tag of your
HTML page. The text that you write in that tag will be
displayed at the top of the browser window when that page is
being viewed. Because the search engine spiders see the title
tag first, it is extremely important.
Your main keyword should be the very first thing you put
inside the title tag. Secondary
keywords should follow the main keyword, and you should avoid
using all capital letters. It is fine to use punctuation in
the title tag.
5 - Clean Navigation
You want visitors to find their way around your site easily –
and the search engines want that as well. Ideally, you should
consider using CSS style sheets to set up your navigation, if
for nothing else.
Next, use a logical sequence for your navigation, depending on
what the topic of your site is. Start with broad categories,
and work your way in. For example, your main page may have a
navigational link for “Medicine.” Clicking on that link should
take the user to a page with more specific links, such as
alternative medicine or Western medicine, and from there, a
breakdown of medications that your site discusses.
6 - Content for Human Consumption, Not Just Search Engines
At one time, webmasters constructed pages with text that was
meant as fodder for search engines, but did little for human
consumption. Today, this is not advised.
You will find that you do better in the search engines if your
text reads naturally. For example, you don’t want to use terms
like “medicine alternative”; you would, however, use the term
“alternative medicine.”
Today’s search engines not only read very well, but also are
adept at figuring out what a user means when they type terms
into a search box. If someone used “medicine alternative,” the
search engine would be able to understand that he/she is
looking for information regarding alternative medicine.
7 - Internal Text Links
Much has been made of reciprocal linking and one-way links
from important sites
(often called “authority sites”). This is really an off-page
SEO method which can be
useful for initial indexing and viral marketing. But as far as
on-page linking, what
you do need a great deal of is internal links.
 Even
though the search engines are placing less importance on the
number of inbound links that you have – unless they are
important
inbound links – search engine spiders still love links. Proper
internal
linking allows search engines spiders to find and
ultimately index
every single page on your site. Be sure that
you link to every page on
your site, and
not just in
your navigational menus but in your content.
This also
gives you the opportunity to use your keyword more, in the alt
tags.
8 - Heading Tags and Bold Text
The <H1> and <H2> tags get special attention from the search
engines. These are used to make heading and subheading text
bigger and bolder than other text. It is important not only to
use these tags (don’t overdo it), but also to use your
keywords or keyword phrases in these tags.
Make sure that you use descriptive text below your header
text, and also use the bold tag for keywords throughout your
page. Bullet points are also favored by the search engines.
9 - Meta Tags Still Matter
You will hear that meta tags don’t really matter anymore. This
information is absolutely wrong – meta tags do matter indeed!
The meta tag appears in the <head></head> tag of your HTML
code, after the <title> tag. Two parts of the meta tag deserve
particular attention – the description meta tag and the
keywords meta tag.
The description meta tag is the information that users will
see in the search engine results. This description should, of
course, contain your main keyword, and possibly some secondary
keywords, and it should look like this:
<meta name=“description” content=“[Insert content here]”>
For content, use a descriptive paragraph of what users will
find at your website, including keywords and secondary
keywords. Make sure that the grammar, punctuation, and
spelling are correct.
The keyword meta tag contains your keywords, and it is vital
that you not spam your keywords here. Just use each of your
relevant keywords or phrases once in the keyword meta tag,
which looks like this:
<meta name=”keywords” content=“[Your keywords]”>
The keywords you insert should be separated by commas. You
don’t need 50 keywords; 10 – 15 will do.
10 - Include a Site Map
Site maps serve two purposes. First, they make it easy for
your visitors to find content on your site, and second, they
enable search engines to spider your site much faster. When
the spider arrives, they will read the first page of your site
and then start looking at the navigational links. They will
visit each link, and when they find the site map, they will
then start visiting and indexing each link on that site map.
It is a good idea to have more than links on your site map.
Try to include short paragraphs of description text for each
link, which of course should contain your keywords. Creating a
site map isn’t difficult at all. In fact, Google has made it
quite easy. You can get started with Google site maps, and
other webmaster tools at
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/.
Use These Tips Wisely
These ten tips will easily help you get started with on-page
SEO. Above all, make absolutely sure that you never use any
techniques that search engines would consider “black hat,” or
cheating. Search engines hate cheaters! If you are caught
using black hat techniques for SEO, such as spamming keywords
or using hidden text, the search engines won’t index your site
at all. In fact, it can get your domain banned from the search
engines, for life.
You can watch your website statistics to see when the search
engine spiders visit. You will then be able to gauge the
effectiveness of your SEO efforts by waiting a few days and
seeing if you’ve risen through the ranks. If not, you can put
more effort into your SEO. But if you have, congratulations!
You are on your way to becoming an SEO guru!
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