Some Very Easy To Follow SEO Tips
Search engine optimization seems difficult to many but with a
little patience and work it's really not that hard to pick up.
In doing so you can save hundreds of dollars, and get the same
results as the professionals do. You will probably get better
results from highly qualified professionals, but you should
definitely perform these do-it-yourself actions first. Once
you've done some of this kind of work it will be easier to
determine if a professional is worth his/her salt.
Basic SEO is very simple and easy - all it takes is the
willingness to put in the work. Once you know the ropes, it's
not that difficult though it can be time consuming. The content
of your website the focus of what SEO is all about. Here are the
top points to think about when you're doing it yourself.
1. You will start by registering a domain name, which should
reflect what your site about. Keep it short, as long as it's
somehow related to your site. Being more specific can help. You
could choose to name the page after one of your products or
services, for example. Another method is to get a sub domain of
a popular domain. This will generally help you get indexed more
quickly though it will not appear quite as professional to your
visitors. There is a trade of here, sub domains are quicker (and
generally cheaper), but domain names are more memorable, and, in
the long run, better for your indexing.
2. The next thing you should look at is your page's title (i.e.
the HTML title tag), which is critical in letting search engines
see what the page is about, and is the first item looked at by
search engines to determine your relevance. You should put your
most important keywords in your title tags - you don't need to
worry about singular or plural forms as search engines account
for these changes in most cases. Whatever you do, don't call
your home page 'Home' - make the title a mini-description of the
page.
3. The two primary meta tags aren't as important as they used to
be, but the description tag is still used by some search engines
to display information about your website to users and help them
decide whether they've found what they are looking for. Not all
search engines bother with this, though most will put some
bearing on it (even if it is minuscule).
For very short descriptions the alt tag can be used. Alt tags
let you describe an image or graphic file - they're the pop-up
descriptions that appear when you hover your mouse over a
graphic, or when the graphic can't be downloaded for whatever
reason.
Text within comment tags is never displayed on the page - it is
used by coders and designers to remind them of what that part of
the page is for. Some coders used to put lots of keywords in the
comment tags, so that they would be seen by search engines but
not users, but search engines have now stopped paying attention
to any text that isn't seen by the user. Keep this in mind when
trying to post invisible text (i.e. white text on a white
background). This kind of behavior can get you banned from a
search engine.
4. Having keyword density in all of your content is good, but
keep in mind that each search engine has its own requirements
when it comes to how many times that a keyword or phrase should
be in the content for the page to be relevant. Somewhere between
5 and 8 percent is a roughly optimal level - but this isn't
always possible, and you shouldn't force it. Don't overdo it, or
the search engines might mark you down.
5. Many search engines judge web page importance on the number
and quality of incoming links from other sites. You should link
to some related sites, but not too many. Don't overdo incoming
links either, and keep them related your site's content. It's
also good to get sites to use your keywords as the text of these
links.
Using the above advice will see you gaining some very good first
page rankings, it just takes a little effort and work!