• Keywords
• URL Text
• Description, Meta tags
• Title tags
• Image Names
• ALT tags
• Heading tags
• Content
• Hyperlinks

The focus of these 8 steps is to load your pages with as many “keywords” as possible.

Keywords
Keywords are the most important aspect of good SEO, this is where you tell the Search Engines what your site is about. Search Engines use an algorithm to determine the “Keyword Density” of your site, this formula is:

Total Words ÷ Keywords= Keyword Density

Use this formula on your competitors web site and see how they score, then aim to beat that score.

Choose keywords that best relate to the information, products or services that you are offering. For instance, if I am designing a site about “Web Design”, I want my site to include the words “Web Design” as many times as possible.

However, most people don’t just search for just one word, they type phrases, so you should consider the phrases that best suit your sites target market. For example, if I am creating a site about “Web Design” in New Orleans, I would include “New Orleans web design” in my keywords. Another way around this is to not separate my keywords with commas, just use spaces, and the Search Engines will make the phrases for you. The most important thing to remember is that the content of each page is different, so only use keywords pertaining to that page.

URL Text
When you name a new page you have the option to call it anything you could possibly think of, why not se a keyword? After all, the URL address is the first things a search engine comes across when indexing your pages. You have to remember content doesn’t come easy to everyone, so you gotta slip in your keywords when the process gives you an easy one.

Description Meta tags
These tags are dwindling in importance since Search Engines are now looking at content, but every little bit counts.

Optimize your meta tags to match your content, products, and services, and the Search Engines that still look at meta data will reward your efforts.

Title Tags
Title tags are the tags that tell the Search Engine the title, or formal description of the document or page. This is the word or phrase that is seen at the top of the browser window. The most important rule about title tags is, don’t put anything in the title tags but keywords. Once again this is an easy time to slip in your keywords, so don’t miss out.

Image Names
As I said before, content doesn’t come easy to everyone, so slip in your keywords whenever possible, this applies to image names. If you are saving a picture of a guy working on a computer for your web design web site, don’t call it “some_dude.jpg”, call it “web_site_design.jpg”. The Search engine will look at the code for the site and see the image pertains to the content of the site and this will be another relevant element on that particular page. You have to take the easy ones when you are given a chance.

ALT tags
Alt tags are keywords that you can attach to images, giving more weight to the image since Search Engines can’t analyze the content of the image itself. Here is a chance to slip in more keywords without writing great content, use it.

Heading tags
Heading tags are associated with the bold font that leads into a section of text. Like this:

Web Design
Web Design Inc. offers custom web site designs…

Your heading tags should only be keywords, and should be presented in the order that your Meta tags follow.

H1= first meta tag, H2= second meta tag…

Try to utilize all 6 heading tags on each page to ensure maximum page optimization.

Content
As every expert will tell you, “Content is King.” Each web page should have at least 350 words on it, and the more the better, but keep in mind the formula for keyword density. You don’t want to fill a page with 1500 words of jibba-jabba and only 5 keywords in it. Some people get hung-up on how browsers display text, and use images with text in them because they want a cool font, but browsers can’t read the text embedded in images, so this content ads no weight to the page in a Search Engines eyes.

Linkbaiting is the new trend among high ranking sites. Linkbaiting means writing quality content, or articles that other web sites can display on their pages as long as they give credit, and a link to your site.

You don’t have to be a vi or emac expert to write good web content, just be thoughtful of how you word things and incorporate your keywords.

Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks are text links to other pages on your site. The rules of SEO and hyperlinks are easy:

• Use hyperlinks so the Search Engine will have a text link to follow to the next page
• Don’t use one word links, use long link phrases, preferably keyword phrases
• Use bullets, or some sort of small image that you can attach an ALT tag to, this will ad more importance to the link, and throw in a couple of free keywords for you.

Keep these 9 aspects in mid when designing a site, and you are sure to have a leg up on the competition.

Murry Daniels

http://mtpleasantrvcenter.com/ Pro Web Marketing uses the latest optimization strategies when optimizing for the search engines, especially when it comes to Google.  We strive to make your web site reach its highest potential when an individual searches a specific keyword or phrase that pertains to your product or service.

•    Meta Tags
There are two bifurcations of Meta tags, namely, description and keywords. As the keywords are being used over and over, some of the search engines do not consider keywords. Yet is it better to have keywords in the Meta tag. Although, the search engines do not use description, its importance cannot be undermined, as it would show in the searches by the visitors. You should introduce your site in just a single sentence.

•    Heading Tags
Heading tags introduces your site to users and search engines. The most important title should have largest heading. You can place subtitles in smaller headings.

•    Alt tags
Using alt tags on images is almost mandatory now. By doing so, you are providing the search engines with more information. The tags will enable the visually impaired know the details of your site.

•    Attributes of title
Place the title correctly in the link, so that the users know what to expect from the link.

•    Content
Always have relevant content on your page. The content should be rich in keywords. Instead of filling the content with too many keywords, and making the content appear senseless, use few keywords in the content to make it look meaningful.

•    Link Building

Having relevant links can greatly improve your page rank. Therefore, get as many links as possible. However, irrelevant links and links bought from link farms take your rankings in the reverse.

•    Social Media
Though social media cannot be classified under SEO, this media is immensely popular and used by millions. Some of the popular social media sites are MySpace, Twitter and Facebook. These are free sites and therefore, it is advisable to take advantage of the same.

•    Sitemap

Sitemap facilitates search engines to locate your site and also helps users in browsing the site. If you do not have one in place, use Webmaster tools by Google to built one at no cost.

•    What to avoid?
Using flash and splash should be strictly avoided. The reason for this is that the search engines cannot read flash sites and will not index your site; as a result your site will not show up when some one is searching your site.
Using splash pages generates an additional click for the users and is quite annoying.

When a search engine indexes the text of your web site, it won’t correct the grammatical errors you may have within that text.  It is imperative that you use good grammar, have no misspelled words, commas are where they should be, and use variants such as plurals and non plural words throughout your text.

Pdfs are a no no!

Whenever you can avoid using a .pdf version of a menu, article, ect. do it.  Not only is it unpleasant for the person who landed on your page to have to download a .pdf to view it, but none of that wonderful text is available for search engines to index.  To the search engine, your .pdf is nothing more than a photo format.  Include your text directly into the coding of your web site.

Use Keyword Phrases instead of one word wonders

If you ask the general public “how many words do you type into the search engine to find what you are looking for?”  The would not undoubtedly say more than one and less than five.  So the happy median here when adding keywords to your web site content or meta tags is a three word string.  If you only had “trailers” you would not make it any where near the top of the search.  If you added “Traverse City Trailers” you will have found trailers located in a geographic location.   You have a better chance of getting closer to the top.

Hidden text is a no no!

When designing your web site, make sure that your links are visible in a different color than the text and that any text or link colors are not blending in or invisible on your web site.  This is a tactic used in what is termed “Black Hat SEO” and the search engines, especially Google, frowns upon this tactic.  Your web site could be seriously hurt in the search engine placement if this method is used.

Oh my, another browser window?

Back when web site where first being designed, frames and popup windows were everywhere.  Today, they are annoying to your prospective web searcher.  In fact, many search engines today do not index text inserted into frames as part of your most important page, your home page.

You want the best result for your customer yet the market, both local and international, is flooded with the same product or service you are providing. What can we do to ensure that your web site reaches the first page of the major Internet search engines?

The Title of Your Web Site

The contents of the title of your web site is what you see at the very top of your browser. Pro Web Marketing will include keywords in your title that specifically describe your business, and if necessary, the location of your market. The title of your web site is also what people will see when they are viewing a listing on the search engines. So, the title needs to be kept clean, precise to the business, and professional looking to the viewer.

Description and Keyword Tags

Each web page on the Internet contains specific coding, which directs the browser to view your graphics and text. Every web page in your website should include a code for “Meta Description” and “Meta Keywords”. Meta Description is used to describe what your site is all about. For example, if your web site is for a vacation rental site, you would want your description to include the location of your rentals, surrounding cities, type of accommodations you offer, such as cabins, hotels, or condominiums, and so on. It should be brief yet specific, as this description will be displayed under the title of your web site in the search engines. Meta Keywords is used to tell the search engine that individual keywords a searcher types into the search engine is include in your web site. More importantly than keywords with most search engines is what is in the body of your text seen on your web site. We will get into the importance of that later on.

ALT Tags or Alternative Tags

Most web sites also include graphics and/or photographs within the web site. A search engine cannot see your image as part of your web site. However, if an ALT Tag is associated with your image, it helps the search engine find more keywords that associate your web site with what the searcher is looking for, as the ALT Tag is a text description of your image. For example, you have a picture of a 23 foot Maxum boat on your web site, but the name of your image is image.jpg. There are millions of image.jpg’s out there in the World Wide Web. You can narrow this down by creating an alternative tag (ALT Tag) name for your image by calling it “23 foot Maxum boat”. Now the search engine can see that there is a text description of the image, which is used to describe the image in text format versus image format and can be included in the search as text on your web site.

Text vs. No Text

Although Flash may be a beautiful way to display your web site page, most search engines, at this time, do not index them unless only part of the page includes a small flash presentation and the rest of the web site page is text oriented. Search engines index your web site page by the text presented on that page. The more descriptive you are about the product, services, and location of your business using text, the more apt you are to be indexed by a search engine when an individual types in their keywords.

At Pro Web Marketing, we strive to ensure that your web site is optimal for search engine indexing. However, we cannot guarantee that your web site will reach the No. 1 position, but we will try to position your web site as best we can against the vast amount of competition on the Internet.