In the big bad world of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you can greatly increase the influence of your website using just a few SEO tactics. Optimizing your site doesn’t have to be a daunting task outsourced for millions or thousands of dollars. With a little patience and time you can build a better website.
In this article, we’ll look at three key components to a strong SEO foundation for your site. As with any type of business or relationship, you will need to build a very solid foundation if you want to survive life’s turmoil. I believe in sticking to the fundamentals and slowly building from there, so I think we’ll start with META tags.
META tags are html tags that refer to key information directed to search engine spiders to help them decipher your site. Now I know that in the last 1 1/2 to 2 years META tags have lost most of their weight with search engines, however that doesn’t mean they don’t see them. It simply means that it is no longer considered a “core” part of what they are viewing. Here are 3 quick examples of meta tags in case you’re not sure what I’m discussing, there are many more META tags. These labels must be inside.
meta name=”description” content=”a description of your site”
meta name=”keywords” content=”your,keywords,separated,by,commas”
meta name=”robots or spiders” content=”follow everyone or unfollow”
META tags are found in the “head” section of your site before the “/head” tag. Even if they don’t carry a lot of weight in search engine placement, they are still valuable tools for letting search engines know what your site is about…if not abused with keyword stuffing.
Another key component of a strong SEO strategy, and arguably the most important, is keywords. The key to having good keywords is thorough keyword research. This can be a daunting task. The easiest way to start is to write down every word AND phrase you would use to find your site. Now do a simple Google search for your top ten keywords (phrases). Did your site show up? Take this time to also look at the websites of your competitors.
The great trick for keywords is simply this… Create a page with 2 of your keywords and write the content of your pages in such a way that you can use these 2 keywords very prominently in the text. You want to be sure that it “sounds good” to humans. Include these two keywords in your text at a rate of around 5-7% (5-7 keywords per 100 words). Over time, this has become a very acceptable keyword density. You should add a couple of your “bottom” keywords if they are a good fit.
Our last entrant in this article might very well give keywords a run for their money in regards to the importance of SEO basics. Five simple letters that could very well take your site to the next level… LINKS
Links are what spiders follow. From page to page they crawl along the links as if they were a trail of breadcrumbs. Links can describe your site to search engine spiders through text. Of course, you get the benefit of humans being able to follow them to your site as well. The more links you have coming to your site, the better. This helps Google establish the overall prominence of your sites in your niche. Links are “weighted” differently based on a few key points…
1. Link Text – Incorporating some keywords into the link text is the best way
2. linking site: if the linking site has Pagerank or authority, that’s good
3. any link: any type of link is better than none
All links pointing to your site carry a certain weight of importance no matter what site they come from… (no link farms). Just remember this when you think of links… NO LINKS = NO INTERNET. Links to “other” information from your information is what keeps things moving forward.
So, in closing… we cover META tags, which are mostly work you do once, keywords that need to be visited 2-3 times a year, and finally links, which are jobs you NEVER do. You must build links DAILY. I cannot stress how important they can be to the success of your site. So happy SEO’ing and until next time…
Thank you and remember… Always strive to improve and success will follow.
