Search engine optimization is less technical than one may think. You and I both know when we have reached a website that has not been given the proper care to ensure it looks and “feels” credible. Websites that contain countless banner ads flying in every which direction, are filled with irrelevant links, and just plain don’t look good, are all signs of a poorly optimized site. A general rule of thumb is that if it doesn’t look good to a person, it probably doesn’t look very good to a search engine either.

That said, it IS possible to have a decently constructed site that is professional, functional, and offers great content, but still suffers from poor rankings from the search engines. From here, there are a few initial edits/additions that can be made to ensure that when a search bot returns to your site, it finds something different and makes it want to take a second look.

1. Create Compelling and Informative Title Tags

Your title tag is what defines your page. It should be brief but informative. It should also contain a keyword or at least a derivative of a keyword that you are trying to rank for with that particular page. Most content management systems allow for easy editing of title and meta tags for individual pages of your website. If your site is not  built on a user friendly cms or any cms for that matter, you can edit the title tag in the raw html file using ftp. Make sure that your title is no more than 60 characters long.

2. Use Meta Tags Honestly and Effectively

What I mean by honestly is that you should never stuff your meta tags with data that doesn’t have anything to do with your page. A product page showing a picture of a pair of snowboarding goggles and a brief paragraph describing that particular model should not have a keyword meta tag that contains 100 keywords ranging from “vans snowboarding shoes” to “popular skate videos.” Contrarily, the keywords meta tag should contain 7 to 10 keywords that are specific for that product such as “orange Spy snowboarding goggles,” and “fog proof ski goggles.”

Likewise, your description should be brief and page specific. It will be a little longer than the title but no more than 160 characters. It basically explains what the person will see if they look at the page. When a person reads your description tag, he/she should have a pretty good idea of what they will see if they click through to your page. It is often a good idea to leave them hanging a little though to create curiosity.

3. Take Advantage of H1/H2 tags

Headings break up content and help your page look less intimidating. A good web page will have four or five bold headings that segue into different topics of the page’s content. Google places heavy emphasis on what words are utilized in your headings so you can use this to your advantage when striving to optimize a page for a specific keyword. You can use those keywords in the H1 and H2 tags to ensure that Google and other search engines know that your page is centered around the topic of your keyword(s).

4. Make Good Use of Internal Text Links

Many overlook the importance of properly utilized internal text links to help a site rank higher for specific keywords. Though you don’t want to overload your pages with tons of text links as that will make it difficult for the reader with constant text color changes, these links help enhance the quality of your site. They offer sound navigation to other pages of your site. You should use descriptive text in your links. A link that says, “free bankruptcy consultation,” is better than a link that says, “click here,” because the viewer doesn’t have to read around the text to find out why they should click on it. Using these links can greatly increase your rankings for keywords that are utilized in the text for that link.

5. Don’t Neglect Your “Alt” Tags

There is debate as to the importance of “alt” tags for images, but the motto, “better safe than sorry,” is a good one to live by here. There would be no such thing as an “alt” tag if it wasn’t good for something right? There is such a thing as an “alt” tag so we might as well use them and use them correctly. They are there to describe in text what an image is displaying. Obviously, a search bot does not have eyes to see the image as it appears on a screen, it can read words though so every image on a page should have an alt tag that describes that image to the bot. If nothing else, it gives you a chance to beef up your page with a couple more instances of your keyword(s).

Don’t Stop Here

Of course these represent only a few of the very basic techniques you can use to make your web page more search engine friendly. There are countless ideas out there and I encourage you to actively pursue the learning and implementing of other ideas from well trusted SEO experts. It’s a constant battle, especially with Google, trying to stay on top of the game to ensure that you are not doing anything that will get your site flagged for spam. This is a good article from Aaron Wall on the topic of search spam techniques and how hundreds of engineers are constantly looking for ways to cut out spammers. An easy way to not get flagged as “spam” is simply to NOT SPAM! Sounds basic and it is. Build a clean quality website and don’t say you have something that you don’t and you’ll be fine

Coming Soon!

Look for additional techniques and tips in future posts. We will also be putting up a “tools” page soon with some links to free seo tools that will help you in your efforts to optimize your web site.

Cheers!

A popular SEO expert, Ardan Michael Blum, has been gaining a great deal of attention lately in the search community. He is from Switzerland and has been doing SEO for over 9 years according to his site. In a recent youtube tutorial he mentions some helpful SEO tips that I hadn’t previously considered and thought I’d share them with you here.

One piece of advice he brings up is the idea of having commented text that is keyword rich and relevant to the site’s content. He claims that having commented text placed high on a page containing keyword rich phrases is recognized by Google search bots and is taken into consideration when ranking a page. Obviously the overuse of this method is a little “grey-hat” which he does mention in the video. Though you wouldn’t want to go overboard with this type of practice it is something to consider.

Another hint for ensuring your site looks trustworthy and reputable in Google’s eyes that Mr. Blum speaks of is in regards to the copyright usually located in the footer of a site’s pages. Ardan says that you should never tamper with this piece of information to make it look like your site is “older” than it actually is. Google definitely takes the information provided in the copyright and can probably compare it to when it first shows your site being indexed. If the two are a year or two apart from each other you can imagine Google won’t take that very lightly and you could get flagged.

These are the two main points that I took out of the tutorial that I watched from Ardan Michael Blum. He does offer some more information mostly about the keyword meta tag and how to optimize for words in specific languages, especially words that have uncommon characters such as accents.

I hope you find this information helpful and I’m featuring the tutorial here for you to view yourself to get some greater insights on these tips.

The Windy City offers a central hub for advertisers and business owners looking to get themselves and their reputations noticed on the web. Chicago has had the opportunity to host many worldwide events and is one of four cities nominated to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. These type of events bring golden opportunities for businesses to capitalize on the influx of consumers. Many of these consumers come to the city itself to participate in the events, however, even more will offer their eyes and ears via television and the internet.

Having a meaningful, effective, and secure marketing campaign can make or break a business especially during times when your company’s name will be exposed to millions of viewers. Paying for an expensive tv commercial or billboard advertisement can be very risky and only exposes a general audience to your product and name.

The benefit of running an internet marketing campaign goes without saying. Millions and millions of consumers are online everyday and most of them for a good portion of each day whether at work or at home. Thus, a website that ranks #1 on Google for profitable keywords in your niche market gives you daily face time with targeted potential customers.

Similarly, a well organized and implemented pay per click campaign can give you persistent exposure to your targeted audience without some of the time, effort, and money that goes into a productive organic search campaign. By focusing first on determining what keywords are most profitable in a PPC campaign, one can then decide to optimize the website for the keywords that proved to be most beneficial to the business.

If you own a small business or even a large corporation in the Chicago area, it is absolutely essential that you capitalize on the opportunities afforded you in regards to internet marketing. The potential for incredible gains is unlimited. As you consider your marketing strategies to be successful in such a prime location, do not forget the absolute necessity of preparing and implementing an internet marketing and advertising campaign.

While we are located in Phoenix, another fine marketing city in the U.S., we would relish the opportunity to help  jump start your online presence and success no matter where you reside as that is the beauty of the internet. There are NO boundaries. Find out more about how MESSEO Marketing can propel your business into achieving its financial goals.