I started my Web Design career over 12 years ago. Back then, it was a hot topic how to get at the top of the organic search results – deja vu! – .
Many things have changed in the web since then; the techniques, the technology, the players. Oh so different.
But at a recent networking event I was very surprised to hear an old story again : "… my SEO guy has an insider in Google giving him the secret tips on how to get me to the top!" … If I only had a dollar for every time I heard that story.
To help non-technical people avoid this and many others SEO fairytales, I decided to share some current techniques about On-Page / Off-Page SEO techniques, starting with:
10 On-Page Search Engine Optimization tips
On-Page SEO really starts during the design and development of your web site:
- Provide brief and clear titles for each one of your web pages, accurately describing the page's content. Do not repeat the same title in 2 pages.
- Take advantage of the description Meta Tags. Google may use the description Meta Tags as snippets for your pages. Write a 'descriptive' message that can inform the user about the topic of your page.
- Structure your site to provide readable URLs. This not only helps the search engines but it is user-friendly. You can use: mysite.com/folders/desc_23.html (wrong) Or you can use: mysite.com/services/pressure-washing.html (right!)
- Use meaningful "anchor text" and clearly identify them as links. You can use: click here> (wrong) Or you can use: Our Tiling Services > (right!)
- Take advantage of Heading tags to provide hierarchy to your content. H1, H2, H3, will tell the search agents what is more important in your page.
- Make your images search engine friendly by using the "alt" attribute. Provide a clear, descriptive "alternative" text for the images.
- Use text-based navigation, this makes easy for search engines to crawl and understand your site. Try to avoid navigation with Flash or JavaScript since some devices may not handle these properly.
- Include a sitemap; an HTML site map listing your pages in categories. An XML version of your site map also helps the search engines to discover your pages.
- Providing fresh, on topic and useful content to your audience not only keeps your site interesting, search engines love new, relevant information.
- Avoid splash pages. Once popular, splash pages -often with flash animation- were used as a dynamic introduction to a website. Splash pages are now perceived as non-user-friendly. And for SEO, you are literally putting a barrier between the search engines and your main page, where all your relevant, fresh content is; not to mention the links that will serve to crawl the rest of your pages.
Many other tings can be done to improve your chances of a good ranking, but this list gives something to work on and monitor while I post more tips.
As a last note, Google has great information- available to everyone- on Search Engine Optimization and excellent webmaster tools and programs to help with the ongoing task of keeping your site in top shape. SEO information is not top secret … just Google it!
Learn how Innovo Ideas can help to improve your online presence at www.innovoideas.com
