Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is what makes your website or web pages, including social networking profiles, rank higher in search engines. A web design company must know what factors contribute to making a website rank high in search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Bing. By knowing these factors the SEO Company can then successfully develop a strategy tailored to each website in order to get the best results. Google, for instance, has over 200 factors it uses to rank a website on its search engine results page. As with anything, some are more important than others.
There are articles all over the internet that give you tips and advice on how and when to apply these techniques to your website. Sometimes it can be difficult to determine which tactics to use and which not to use. That is why you hire a SEO Company, because they are more knowledgeable in the area and this will free your team to do more important things like handling the core of your company.
Lets first talk about how search engines work. Search engines use complex algorithms to determine the rank of each page and their search engine results page (SERP). Every day the search engine crawlers go through the web and scan your website to update their ranking. The actual algorithm different search engine companies use is kept a trade secret and never shared. It should also be noted that search engines frequently update that algorithm just in case someone has figured it out and is exploiting it. This keeps competition fair, and the results displayed in the search natural and organic.
Google does not publish its actual ranking algorithm, but it does publish a little assistance to website owners to help them with SEO. The “Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide” can be downloaded from Google’s website and can be a valuable asset to a Web Design or Marketing Company, Bloggers and people who publish websites.
Here some of the best practices as listed in Google’s Official SEO Guide, if you want the entire guide, you can download it from the Google Webmaster Central Blog.
1. Create Unique, accurate page titles:
A title tag tells users and search engines what the topic of the page is. Use the title meta tag within the head tag of the web page. Keep each title unique, never duplicating titles between pages. Use keywords in the title to improve SEO.
2. Make use of the “description” meta tag.
This is very important because website design companies are not doing this anymore, but it is recommended, even by Google! Description meta tags are not visible on the web page itself, but they are visible to search engine crawlers. Try to put keywords into the description tag to improve the chance of ranking on search engines.
3. Improve the structure of your URLS.
Structure refers to how your pages are organized and their nomenclature. This can ensure that the maximum number of pages are indexed. Correct category structure can also help create a website that ranks in Google’s results. Try including keywords in the structure and organize your pages into categories instead of single top level structure for all pages.
4. Make sure site easy to navigate.
Making your website easy to navigate is best done by a qualified website design company. This company knows how to make links and information easy to find and follow. Google advises on using simple text links and not picture links with complex navigation. Text links can easily be scanned by website crawlers and are indexed properly. You will want to use correct anchor text for links, also include bread-crumbs on pages. Check for broken links, use site-maps, and set up a custom 404 page (just in case a page is not found).
5. Offer quality, unique content and services.
Google official states that content is the most important factor. Quality content will often get referenced and linked by other sites, blogs and articles. This also ensures that back links will get generated. Try to use good language and write in easy to use text. Make sure your content stays relevant to your topic and keep the content fresh by publishing new content frequently.
6. Write better anchor text.
Anchor text is used for linking content to another page. Sometimes referred to as link text. This blog contains many examples of anchor text, it is basically text in a paragraph you can click on to bring you to another relevant page. Do not use words such as “Click Here” or “Learn More”. Keep anchor text short and to the point.
7. Optimize your images.
Images are used on almost every page of a website. Images provide a way to get information to visitors. Keep in mind that a search engine crawler cannot scan and index the words or data within an image.
Use descriptive alt tags when describing images.
Name your images appropriately, and relevant to the content the image is displaying. For instant, if you use an image to display a product (we’ll name widget A) that is on sale, then a good image name might be (widgetAonsale.png).
8. Use robots.txt
This is another tip that will want to be performed by a website design company, or an SEO company. Editing robots.txt can be tricky if you don’t know what you are doing. The robots.txt file tells search engine crawlers not to access and index certain files or directories within your web domain. Generally speaking, these are areas of your website that are private and/or secure.
9. Use heading tags properly
HTML uses six different heading tags that are H1 to H6. Headings are important because they seperate text areas for your visitors to clearly see, but search engine crawlers also index them as more important sections in a website.
10. Use rel=”nofollow” tags for links carefully
When linking to pages, we pass some of our reputation to that page. Sometimes you will not want to do this, so using the rel=”nofollow” tag eliminates that process. This special tag tells search engines not to pass your reputation. By doing this on links such as in the comment section of your website or blog, you can preserve your reputation.
11. Promote your site in the right ways
Google advises against using bad tactics or blackhat SEO tricks to promote your website. There is also a way Google can detect if you are using these methods or not. If you are using companies to add bulk links to your website, or add your site to thousands of directory websites at once, then Google can find out and ban your page from their search engine results page, never to be crawled or indexed again. Google encourages the right methods to promote your content. Here are some practices Google approves of:
The use of blogs to promote your site and content. Having a blog is an excellent way to promote your website. It can also lead to organic links that are generated through the viral use of content.
Use offline methods to promote your site. This is generally done by handing out business cards with your URL on it, or other promotional material.
Use social media and networking sites to promote your URL. FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon or Digg are great ways of spreading your website. Use these tools to post information about blog topics and links within your site.
Use Google’s free business directory to promote your site. This is especially useful if you are targeting local customers because your listing will show up on Google Maps.
Use genuine business directories such as YellowPages.com, Business.com or more localized directories such as BestOfTampa.net
12. Use Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools is a free service that allows you to view, in detail, how Google is indexing and crawling your website and web pages. You can also analyze your use of meta tags, the page speed, and other common issues website developer and owners face. Using these tools can help you optimize your SEO strategy to see which techniques are working, and which ones are not.
13. Take advantage of web analytic services.
Analytics provides in-depth information about your web page like how many visitors, where your visitors are clicking, what type of browser they are using and more. There are different analytics companies out there. Some of them are free, and some of them are paid. Generally, they all do the same thing, but some of them have different features. Google Analytics is a good tool for just about anybody. There are other analytic services that are tailored for blogs. XTELWEB uses a service called PostRank for our blog that actually ranks each posting and provides analytic data at the same time. It can track Twitter mentions, FaceBook likes, and shares and more.
In Conclusion:
Google sure does give us a lot of information for SEO techniques. The whole PDF if is thirty-two pages long and gives you good insight to how search engine crawlers do their job. As mentioned before, there are over 200 ranking factors contributing to the position of your website on the search engine results page. These 13 tips that we discussed barely scratch the surface of all you can do to ensure your website is listed as #1 in search engines. Our website design and SEO company utilizes these SEO tactics and more to get you listed on search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Give us a call today, or use the contact page to receive a free consultation about your website.
