Optimize Your Website demystifies the strategies you need to optimize your website so that you get an increasing stream of free visitors. You can create webpages that attract search engine attention and you can get your site listed in days rather than months. Having a website not only helps a business to grow, but lets it thrive in a competitive global market place. The strategic importance of a website can be seen from the fact that at the moment there are over two billion websites on the internet, with this number growing literally every minute. To make sure that your website is a success and is found by those who require your services, you need to optimize your site. Website optimization is an almost guarantee that your site will be found among the plethora of websites that are out there at the moment.
Website optimization is the process of designing your web pages to have a high rank in popular search engine results. If you are serious and determined to have an online business then optimizing your web page is the next necessary step. When designing your website, it is essential that you specifically design it to get a higher ranking in search engine results. To do this you need to use; Meta tags, Keywords, Title tags, Image Alt tags, Text and the overall design of a website. All these above mentioned components play a key role in optimizing your website. Though many search engines nowadays are no longer using Meta tags to gain a high page ranking, they are still important and you should include them in your site.
Remember that if your site does not rank in the top 20 search results when conducting a keyword search at say Google, your target audience will in all probability not be able to find you. This is because a significant amount of web traffic is generated from major search engines. So how does one go about optimizing their website? Well the answer is simple just read on below and you will understand what needs to be done.
Keywords and phrases
The first step that you need to take to optimize your site is selecting keywords and phrases that best suit what your site is all about. A keyword best describes what the content of your web page is. For example if your website is about cooking, then the best keyword to use would be ‘cooking’. When drafting the content of your website, always make sure that you concentrate on just a few important keywords and phrases, this is because keyword phrases play a very important role in optimizing you site.
Meta Tags
Meta tags are an HTML code that is found between the < HEAD> and < /HEAD> tags. These tags contain a description of your site and are found in the search engine results when you key in a certain word or phrase. When creating Meta tags, be sure to focus on what your website is specifically all about. Do not generalize. Also make sure that your Meta tags include your most important keywords, so that your customers will know exactly what your website is offering.
Image Alt Tags
An Image Alt tag comes after a website’s graphic address or URL in your HTML code. To fully optimize your graphics and your website make sure that you insert a readable keyword phrase within the Img Alt tags.
Title Tags
The Title tag of your website should always contain the most important keyword phrase of your site. This is because it will aid you in getting higher search engine ranking results. Type your key word phrase in lower and use only the most relevant keyword phrases.
Text
Since your text plays a key role in determining your website’s page ranking, it is thus of vital significance to optimizing your website. Remember that when composing your text for your site it should contain plenty of important key words and phrases used in different ways. Also keep in mind that your keywords and phrases should appear at least three times, but not more than seven times in your text.
All your headings are important
We’re told that search engines also place a relatively high importance on words placed within heading tags. Both your site title and tagline are in heading tags in the code. While your company name is important and should be prominent on your site, people may not know and use your name when searching for your products and services.
Given that, it’s still OK to use your company name as the site title and any significant words about your business in the tagline. For example, if Northwind Traders is a sports shop that focuses primarily on cycling in the summer and skiing in the winter, it could use its name for the site title and a tagline like this: “The Northwest’s premier cycle and ski shop.” The tagline includes the store’s two major product lines as well as another word people might use in searches: Northwest.
Alternatively, we could write a site title with keywords such as: “Premier bicycles, skis, and outdoor gear” with a tagline that focuses on services or products.
Although you want search engines to notice your site and publish it in search results, remember that you are primarily writing heading items for your users. The phrase or sentence should say something significant about your company and make sense to people.
Get linked up
Search engines give you points for popularity. How do they know if you’re popular? Other sites link to you. The more sites that link to you, the more popular your site will appear to search engines, and the higher you may appear in search rankings.
You may be running a list through your head of everyone you know who has a Web site that you could ask to link to you. But the most important links are those from Web sites that search engines already consider good. Of course it’s important to ask customers, suppliers, and vendors to link to you, and tell them you’ll be happy to reciprocate. Then do a little search research of your own to find Web sites that aren’t competitors that rank high in your industry. Those are the sites you should aim to develop “linking relationships” with.
What do you have to offer them? Before you make a pitch to others to link to your site, be sure you have something they want. Are you building an industry or community calendar of events? Place a link to every company or organization that hosts an event you include and ask those firms to add your link to their sites. Have you written a how-to article or tutorial for a product or service? Consider who might find that article valuable for visitors and suggest they link to it. The possibilities are myriad.
Want to find out who has linked to your site? You can go to Live Search and type your Web site URL like this example: link:northwindtraders.com and find out.
Summary and checklist
In the past, search engines looked primarily at meta tags. When people began “spamming” search engines, or repetitiously placing keywords in meta tags and page text so they could pull poor sites ahead of good ones in search ratings, the search engines changed their formulas to push spamming sites down and bring worthier sites up. If, however, you are truthful with both the spiders and your customers, you can achieve decent ratings.
Search engine companies aren’t telling us all their secrets, but it appears that most of them look at a combination of all your word choices —whether meta tags, headings, or ordinary text —to make sure your content is genuinely written for people, not spiders. Here’s your warning: Do not try to fool the spiders into listing your site higher —they already know all the tricks and they will punish you!
Here’s a checklist summarizing what you can do:
- Write a description and keyword meta tags for every page on your Web site.
- Place your keywords in order of importance; only use keywords that actually appear in the text on that page.
- Use plurals in your meta tags, for example, write both “cycle” and “cycles.”
- Include common misspellings that people might mistakenly type in a search, such as “skies” for “skis.” (Misspell words in your meta tags, not your page copy!)
- Try not to use the same word too many times in your meta tags lest spiders believe you are spamming. Three instances are good; make five your limit. For example: ski gear, ski boots, ski bindings, ski bags, ski tours.
- If your company’s geographic location is significant, include it in both meta tags and page copy.
- Make sure your company name is included in your meta tags.
- Include keywords in your linking text: “Find out more about our performance bikes” instead of “Click here to see our performance bikes.”
- If you use images, include a caption or paragraph of text that includes keywords.
- Use keywords in your text headings and subheads.
- Ask Web sites that you think your target audience visits for reciprocal links.
