Search engine optimization. You should not be afraid of this term if you want to increase the traffic your website generates. Optimizing your site’s search engine performance does not require any black magic or even technological expertise. You can use simple techniques to raise your website’s search engine standing. Here are just a few of them:
Use toils such as Google stats to see which keywords are bringing users to your site. Are there any keywords that aren’t getting the hits that you’d expect? These are the keywords that you need to improve. Make sure you’ve entered them as keywords in your page header, be sure that they are thoroughly used throughout your site, and perhaps use them in the title of one of your website’s pages.
Avoid using keywords that are of no relevance to your website or product. When you do, web crawler bots may mistake your website as spam and blacklist your site from the search results. On the other hand, be sure to include all relevant keywords on your home page as this is the page you should want your customers to see first.
To optimize your page’s search results, bold your keywords at least twice, throughout your web page. Try to keep them as close to the top of the page as possible, but keep your text natural and non-awkward. It is important to include your keywords in the body of your website properly, so that search engines will be able to detect them. The more well-placed your keywords are, the more likely that your page will appear higher in the search results.
Unfortunately, there are some great technical aspects of websites that can hurt your search engine optimization. For instance, you should avoid Flash plug-ins if you can allow it. Flash uses images, and search engines only read a site’s text to determine its relevance. Even if you have great text content within Flash, most search engines won’t be able to detect it.
One way to increase your page’s search rank and attract more visitors is to include a site map. This way all the pages on your site will be linked together. Visitors will find the links on your site so it will drive traffic to your other pages.
To avoid your site from being ignored by web crawlers, you should refrain from stuffing too many keywords into your web pages. Many advanced web crawlers will ignore sites that are packed with keywords. Keywords are essential if you are using them correctly, but they can also hurt you if you overdo them.
Make sure you spend time optimizing the content on your website. Good website content is easy to read by visitors and consistent when compared against both the title and tags listed with the story. Otherwise, search engines may rank your content poorly, making it more difficult for you to find a following.
To improve search engine optimization, consider repeating the primary keyword or keywords for your web page, in all of the page titles. For example, if you are a running coach, you may want to title your pages “Running Form,” “Running Therapy,” “Running Tips,” “Running Groups” or something similar. Repeating your primary keyword, indicates to search engines that this keyword is very important.
Keep an eye on the calendar and plan your search engine optimization strategy, to take holidays, special events and seasonal offers, into account. When you research effective keywords, you will see that holiday-related keywords spike, in the days and weeks leading to the holiday. Take advantage of these variations by tailoring, not only your content, but your optimization efforts, to the season.
Include some secondary keywords in your site that relate to your primary keyword phrase. Make sure to be very judicious in your use of the secondary keywords as you do not want to dilute from your main focus. Try to keep the density of the secondary’s to no more than 1 or 2 percent of the site.
Keep your site updated but do not spend time making small changes. If you are constantly make small insignificant updates to your page the search engines think that you are just trying to get the date changed for when the last update was done. You will get ranked down for this after it notices it a few times.
You should remain careful with search engine optimization. If you use unethical methods or do not provide any useful content on your website, you will be penalized by search engines. You should always keep in mind that you are offering a service to your customers and keep their best interest as your goal.
Always remember to keep your customers in mind when writing blurbs that contain search engine optimization language. This keeps your customers interested in what you have to say and the products and services you have to offer. Remember using only search engine optimization words will make your blurbs sound spammy.
Check how many inbound links you have for all the major keywords for your website, and then ensure that the number is high for each. Focus on the top keywords which you believe are driving the highest number of turnover traffic to your website, then focus on the keywords that have the least number of links using them as anchor text.
Double check that your page code doesn’t have any links in it that spiders may see while your audience can’t. Old code that may be commented out or invisible on the page could still contain links to pages that don’t exist, or that you don’t want spidered. Just do a quick visual search to ensure that all the links contained there are valid.
Hopefully, this article has helped to de-mystify the search engine optimization process for you. SEO is not an obscure or arcane process. Any webmaster can improve his or her site’s search engine rankings with easy tactics like those presented above. Increased traffic is something you probably want, no matter what kind of website you run. Basic SEO techniques like these can help you find the wider exposure for which you are looking.