It seems that getting a website listed in Search Engines (SE) can appear as a monumental task in itself to many of our clients.
So we sat and had a coffee (or two!) with our SEO Monkey, here are her Top Five tips for the simplest stuff that should become second nature to us all apparently…
All of these are EASY to do in WordPress as you go along. Effectively if you fill in most of the boxes presented to you when you write a post, you’ll do ALL of these every time!
Tip#1. The Page Title
First off is the first thing you type in, and looking first at the homepage, you can like totally forget using ‘Welcome!’ as the page title, if you really want any chance to attract traffic.
Use real English titles, (make sure your Mum can read them and they make sense!). You can your keywords and list your product keywords separated by using the | (hold Shift + backslash key) symbol (e.g. Digital Cameras | Video Cameras) and this could help boost the strength of your chosen keywords, in this case Digital and Video Cameras. But don’t overdo it…
Tip#2. Page Filenames
The filename is the last part of the ‘address’ in your browser that can sometimes looks like funky code…
We hope you are not still naming your page filenames as products.htm or aboutus.php. You need to add some weight to your website and help the SE distinguish from the thousands of pages with these generic names. Again, you should utilise your keywords into your filenames (eg: scuba_diving_fiji.htm) for a Fiji Dive Centre’s site with this link to the list of dive sites.
Tip#3. Picture ALT Tags
What in the heck is an ALT Tag we hear the troop screech! It’s the English alternative that shows up in your browser when an image doesn’t load, we know you’ve all seen it. It’s also the way that Google uses to work out what the image is about and what’s in it…
Again keywords play an enormous part in the design of your site and another great area to include these words is in your image ‘ALT” tags. Just make sure they also match what is in the image!
Tip#4. Header Tags
Now, getting back to your Page Title, there is really no point in making the heading text “Welcome to our Website” especially if you are selling Hotel Stays.
In techie-speak, the <h1> to <h6> tags are used to define HTML headings. <h1> defines the most important heading. <h6> defines the least important heading.
But you need not worry about code, if you use the Heading styles in WORD or Writer, then this is the same princilple. It tells the SE’s how to organise the page. Using header tags to emphasize your Products and Services in order of importance, lets the SE’s sort it out as you want it done.
Tip#5. Page Meta Keywords
Many SEO Monkeys will say that they aren’t that important anymore to get results in the SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages) but using them correctly can add to your sites overall effectiveness.
Don;t worry about getting huge long lists of 20 words. Concentrate on 3 – 4 keyword phrases (eg: “scuba dive fiji” or “hotel stay fiji” for Fiji holiday sites). Also try and make sure they are used in the first and last paragraphs of your home page content.
Conclusion
There are indeed many, many facets to Search Engine Optimisation of websites but these 5 tips are a very good (and simple) starting point to get your website promoted on the web.
