5 Basic Rules of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Getting top page rankings in search engines is not easy and requires patience. Basic SEO is about common sense and simplicity. The goal is to make your site easy to find, easy to follow, and easy to read for both visitors and search engines alike—supported by well written content and relevant incoming links. Here are five things you can do to satisfy both for long term success:

1. PAGE TITLES. Each page has a title that is displayed in the bar at the top of the browser window, and these titles play a large part in getting people to your site. Create a unique title (using the title tag) for each page. Include the strongest keywords and phrases that best describe the topic of the page. These will provide the highest return for your efforts.

2. HEADINGS WITHIN YOUR WEB PAGES. These should be written using header tags (h1, h2, h3). Provide clear heading text that further reinforces the keyword theme of the page. Keyword positioning is critical. Place the most important words first.

3. IMAGES AND GRAPHICS. Use the ALT attribute to provide an alternate text description that clearly describes what a graphic or an image is, or what a button does. Do not use ALT attributes to add keywords to a page. The purpose of the ALT attribute is to explain what an image or graphic is to people who can’t see it (as on some mobile devices), but it can also be read by search engines and thus can influence your search rankings.

4. WEB LINK DESCRIPTIONS. Anchor text is the clickable text that is displayed for a link in a browser window. Anchor text including keywords and meaningful phrases can improve search rankings, while throwaway phrases like “click here” or “read more” add ZERO value to those rankings. When employing this technique, make sure people understand what the link is for – or they won’t click it! Search engines assign greater value to phrases used in links than to those that are simply part of the text on the page.

5. LINKS TO YOUR WEB PAGES. In addition to a few, well placed incoming links from external sites, focus on establishing internal page links. Place strategic text links within the content of each page that link to your most important pages. Targeting internal links to your most important pages will rate the targeted page with greater value and importance when search engines calculate page rank.

While basic SEO can be time consuming in the beginning, and while it may take three to six months to see real results, it is well worth the effort and creates a solid foundation for future marketing efforts.

However, if search rankings are critical to your marketing efforts in the short term, hire an SEO monkey (or dog) with knowledge of advanced techniques to strategize, document, present, and execute an effective SEO campaign.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 2:11 pm and is filed under Web Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.