Search engine optimization has become a major part of any website. The internet has continued to grow at an amazing rate since its birth more than twenty years ago, now the number of websites and therefore competitors are in the billions. This makes getting your site found very tricky. To make it easier for people to find your website you will need to appear at the top of the search results for the key-terms that are relevant to what you do. That means optimizing your website with SEO. It is no longer good enough to have a great looking website. Now it has to be optimized for the search engines, otherwise it will be buried in a heap by millions of other sites, that’s bad news for your business.
You want people to find your website, but you don’t know where to start. You need to have your current site analysed then you will to decide on the most cost effective way to bring the traffic in. Sometimes minor changes and some general search engine optimization techniques will be enough to get your site moving up the ranks.
The design of your website is obviously a very important consideration. During the design phase it is especially important to maintain the focus on your potential customers and not on what looks pretty. If a customer can’t use your site easily then you may risk losing them. It is far better to have a simple, easy to use website rather than one which looks great but is hard to navigate.
Having a website is all well and good, but if no one can find it then there isn’t a great deal of point. Submitting your sites to the Search Engines is one of the first steps in SEO and can help speed up the process of getting your website noticed on the search engines. Submitting your site to the search engines can take a fair amount of time and knowing which ones to submit your site to can be difficult. As a rule of thumb it is wise to stick to the big ones such as Google, Yahoo etc and then to find any specialist ones that cater specifically for your industry.
For many years people used invisible text to ensure high ranking in search engines. But now search engines are more cleaver than before, and these tactics can help search engines to ban your site. Don’t use invisible texts in your website. This can put you in the bad books of search engines.
Inbound link building is a very important step in SEO and getting your website ranked highly in the search engines. Think of each link from another site as a vote. If the other site is relevant to yours and of high standing, then the vote is worth more.
Don’t be over creative while making your links. Your links should not be made in Java Script or graphics. Search engines don’t recognize links which are made in graphics. Your links should be in a text format. If you have a certain word for the link then you should have it in a plain text format. Making graphic links can be unfruitful for you. Getting good quality links can be a minefield, especially as there are a lot of companies offering thousands of links for a fixed fee. Stay away from these companies at all costs, some links they provide will have no positive effect on your website, but they may actually damage your ranking.
Be focused on choosing your keywords and target audience. Don’t make an irrelevant site which doesn’t talk about your business. Irrelevant sites usually don’t attract traffic and end up in dark cells. Be focused on your business. Use every word, of your website, as a marketing tool for your business. And above all be a relevant site which is good for both the customer and the search engine.
The following list shows nine factors that can improve the usability of your website as well as your search engine rankings.
1. You should have fast loading web pages
Usability: Web surfers don’t want to wait for web pages.
Search engine optimization: Search engines can index your web pages more easily.
2. Your web pages should be easy to read
Usability: It’s easier for web surfers to read your web pages.
Search engine optimization: Near-white text on a white background and tiny text is considered spam by most search engines.
3. The contents of your web pages should be clearly arranged
Usability: Clear headings, paragraphs and bullet lists make your web pages easier to read.
Search engine optimization: Clear headings, paragraphs and bullet lists make it easier for search engines to find the topic of your web pages.
4. Your web page images should use the IMG ALT attribute
Usability: Web surfers with images turned off and visually impaired visitors will be able to see the content of your images.
Search engine optimization: Search engines cannot index the content of your images but they can index the content of the IMG ALT attribute.
5. You should use custom 404 not found error pages
Usability: If your 404 not found page contains links to other pages of your website or a search form then people might remain on your website.
Search engine optimization: Proper 404 error pages make sure that search engines index the right pages of your website.
6. Your website should be easy to navigate
Usability: Clear and concise navigation links that are easy to find help your website visitors to find content on your site.
Search engine optimization: Clear and concise navigation links that contain your keywords make it easy for search engines to index all of your web pages.
7. Important content is above the fold
Usability: Web surfers with small computer screens can quickly see what your web page is about.
Search engine optimization: The sooner your important content appears in the HTML code of your web pages, the more likely it is that it will be indexed by search engines.
8. Your web page titles are explanatory
Usability: If web surfers bookmark your web pages, a clear web page title will help them to find it again.
Search engine optimization: The web page title is one of the most important SEO elements. It should contain your keywords and it should look attractive so that web surfers click on it when they see your web page title in the search results.
9. The URLs of your web pages are meaningful and self-explanatory
Usability: It’s much easier to remember a web page like www.example.com/support than a web page like www.example.com/123123-werwc.php?2342234.
Search engine optimization: If your URLs contain your keywords, this can have a positive effect on your search engine rankings. Dynamic URLs with many variables can lead to problems with search engine spiders.
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