Search engine optimization – the process of tweaking webpages to get better rankings on the search engine results pages – is not just a matter for the most technologically-savvy webmasters. There are simple tips that any website owner can use to dramatically improve their website’s search engine performance. This article shares just a few of them.
One of the most effective ways to optimize your website is to put your keywords in the title tag. Search engines crawl over around 60 to 70 characters of the title, so it is important to keep your title short and your keywords relevant. The search engine will match the title keywords to the actual content of your page, so relevancy is very important.
Research your keywords before you start the search engine optimization process. You need to know which keywords are more likely to bring visitors to your site, and which keywords are being used most often for the products that you sell. There’s no point in optimizing your website for a term that web users never search for.
Don’t use generic words in your key words list, like “computers” and “books”. This will generate too many results and will most likely, not show your site at the top. Instead, using more specific words and phrases like “buy cheap computers online,” can be less competitive and be more effective for your site.
When you initially launch your new site, send out a press release to local media who may be interested in covering the story. Even if you already have an established site, do a “remodel” and send out a press release for the new and improved unveiling. You might be surprised by how many publications have space reserved for just these types of stories.
Use your location to your benefit. Type in the name of the location you are at to have search engines include you when someone types that same wording into the search bar. For example, if a searcher types “Snyder Village shops” and you had mentioned your “Snyder village store location,” you are very likely to show up in the search results.
Do your research on the search engine crawlers. Many search engines use different methods and qualifications for their rankings, but mostly use a similar type of crawler. Read up on the types of crawlers they use, what they can and cannot see, and how you can use these to your advantage.
Ask questions of your audience. Regardless of whether you are asking their opinions or testing their knowledge, people love to answer questions. Allowing them to comment their answers directly on your website is an easy way of getting search engines to notice you, as well as building rapport with your readers.
Hire a writer if need be. Some people do not have either the skill or the time to provide daily updates and quality content. If this is the case with you, look at hiring an online article writer to keep your site busy and fresh. Adding new information gives you a heads up over the competition.
Start a blog to increase your search results for long-tail keywords that focus on more niche aspects of your business. These keywords do not fit well in your main site content. However, writing specific blog posts on more defined keywords, draws additional site traffic. Blogs are also, more likely to receive links from other sites and increase your ranking with Google, because fresher content is crawled and indexed more often.
Keep your site focused on 1 or 2 keywords and phrases. If you try to include every related keyword you will suffer from keyword dilution. Focusing on too many will end up confusing both the search engines and your readers. Your rankings for all of the keywords will suffer as a result of this dilution.
When picking keywords to emphasize for search engine optimization, the singular form of a keyword is usually more popular than the plural. (e.g. “Boat” gets more hits than “Boats.”) The opposite is true for a certain minority of keywords. Webmasters should research the most common terms in their fields to find out which case holds true for their keywords.
Hopefully this article has illustrated that SEO is not a mysterious process set aside for the technologically illuminated ones of the online world. Good SEO is not a matter of arcane practices or total devotion; a webmaster at any level of technical know-how can easily implement basic SEO tactics and see a dramatic improvement in search engine performance.