Search Engine Optimization can be quite daunting for a ‘newbie’ and it is a quite complicated strategy. But don’t worry about that. Here are ten essential and easy to implement tips from ‘Navega Bem - Web Design‘ that will certainly improve your organic search results (unpaid search engine listings) and get your site racing to the top.
1. Create a Sitemap
A sitemap will give the search engines all the information they need to index your website and the pages that are available for crawling. A simple text file will do - or use one of the free sitemap creation solutions available on the internet. Just Google it!
2. Use Meta Tags
Meta tags are simple lines of code that are inserted into the ‘head’ area of your web pages. They cannot be seen by visitors to your website but help control how the search engines will describe your page. Make sure you use the ‘title’ tag, the ‘description’ tag, the ‘keyword’ tag and last but not least - the ‘robots’ tag. Use them on every page and ensure that they reflect the actual content on that page. Don’t try and cheat - you’ll be caught and punished!
3. Use the keywords in your page content.
The Search engines will scan your website for keywords. These are the ‘words’ that your potential clients will enter into the search engines. Aim for a keyword density of between two and eight percent. Google apparently likes your page to be at around 2% and Yahoo at around 8%.
4. The Flash intro and flash content
The FLASH intro and text ‘Click to Enter’ was used up to 2001 and it is not ‘Search Engine friendly’. Trash it! It just isn't cool any more. Seriously.
5. Use HTML Navigation
Very often Javascript is used to create dynamic and animated navigation. Although the navigation works for users it is not actually optimized for the search engines. They won’t understand it or find their way through it. If you do use a Javascript navigation then make sure you have text links at the bottom of the of the page to ensure the search engines can find there way around your site.
6. Use ALT Tags
Since search engines don’t and can’t index images, they won’t index any text on your web site that is presented in image format. To get around this you can use ALT tags, which describe what an image is about. ALT tags filled with keywords can also be used to boost your keyword frequency and help you achieve better rankings. And there is more… ALT tags also make your site more accessible to visually impaired people using text readers.
7. Clean up your Home Page and get rid of the rubbish.
Organize the site so that users aren't overwhelmed by too much information. Your Home Page should be clean and easy to navigate. Run your code through a W3C validator before promoting. Too much information, too many links, menus, and site widgets (Google Search Box, Weather Info, etc) will scare your visitors away and they'll be off to your competitors website within a click. Confuse them and you lose them!
8. Submit your website to the most popular search engines and directories.
It’s always a good idea to let the big search engines and directories know that you’re out there. Don’t use submission software - do it manually. If you must use submission software - use it sparingly.
9. Give the Search engines what they crave…
Search engines love fresh new content. New content is king. Getting Google to visit your site on a weekly basis is just so good for business - and it will visit regularly if you take time out and update your content as often as you can.
If you have come to the conclusion that you can't change your text content - then restructure it. Move paragraphs around or just use different words to describe things. Change your headlines. Change something… search engines love new content!
10. Install ‘Google Analytics' in your website.
Formerly known as ‘Urchin’, this industry leading software is free to use (for the moment at least) and has the best site traffic reporting tools available anywhere. Important things to know about your website visitors are: How many visitors are coming to your site, where do they come from, what keywords do they use to find your site, which pages of your website are they viewing, how long are they staying at your site and do they come back.
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Published by Chris Szabo, MD Navega Bem - Web Design , Madeira Island
