Think it’s possible for anyone to get their site to the top of the search results?
Our answer is… Yes, it is very possible. SEO is not just for the big box retailers, and household name companies. Search engine optimization is not difficult either, it’s just a matter of doing the right things to make your site friendly to the search engines. There are steps to complete during the development of your site, or if necessary, once your website is complete, and there are steps to take and maintenance to do once your website is live and yes, even when your website is ranking on the engines.
Why is SEO important?
Let’s take a moment to make it clear exactly WHY search engine optimization is important. We can all agree that it’s important to rank high on the search engines for keywords and phrases that best describe what your website has to offer. But ranking isn’t enough. Always bear in mind that your ultimate goal is not just to rank high, but to get click-thrus to your site. And don’t stop there, once a person gets to your page, you want to convert that click to a sale. Keep your goal in focus as you proceed with every step of SEO.
Keyword Selection
Look at your site, and see what you term or phrase you might enter into a search engine in order to find this website. If you’re serious about your search, you’d most likely use a two to three word phrase to find what you’re looking for online. Therefore, you’ll want to start by selecting a primary keyword phrase.
There are many places that can help you select keywords. Google’s paid system Adwords is one source. This keyword popularity tool is used to select keywords for the paid program, but you don’t have to buy anything to use the tool. Go to adwords.google.com to look at ideas which will help you choose a good primary search term, and get ideas for other possible relevant search phrases and keywords.
And remember, just because a search (any search) returns a lot of websites, doesn’t mean that search term or phrase is popular, so don’t fall into that trap. Be honest and realistic when you think about the words you’d use to find the site you’re optimizing.
Page Titles
Creating your page titles, or title tags, is important to SEO. Your title is a brief “title” of what the associated web page is about. Page titles are also called “title tags” as they are a meta tag. They appear in the browser window title bar at the top of an internet browser. Title tag basics:
• Should be a sentence
• Should be relevant to the page
• Should be no longer than 50-60 characters
• Should include your primary keyword or phrase at or close to the front of the title
• Should include a repeat instance of your primary keyword or phrase
Page Descriptions
Writing your meta-tag meta-name description is important to SEO, part of the big picture. The description basically describes the content of the web page. Generally they are written in a paragraph of 2-3 sentences which are relevant to your page. Meta-tag descriptions normally appear right below the title in the search results.
Search engines also read the meta-tag descriptions as part of the page crawl, but primarily this paragraph is used for people as it helps them decide which search results best meet their search criteria, and those that seem to best meet their needs are the links they will click through from the search result.
Inspired 2 Design is an advertising agency providing full service marketing, including SEO on new and existing websites. We give you clear direction for what needs to be done to get your site ranking and how to keep it there. Maintenance does not have to be outsourced. You can maintain your SEO and perform SEM (search engine marketing) in-house, and we even get you started. There’s much more on SEO, marketing tips and advertising advice to come from Inspired 2 Design. Watch for it.