What is SEO?
SEO has to be one of the most talked about subjects on the internet.
SEO stands for “search engine optimisation” and is the process of how to increase traffic to your website from search engines. Some of the most well known search engines are google, yahoo, alta vista and msn. SEO is a fundamental part in website development and maintenance and everyone who is managing a website whether at home or at work should be clued up on seo.
Don’t worry if you are new to this, if you keep reading seojoblogs, you will be an SEO pro in no time.
Building a brand new site
If you are building your site from scratch you will want to liaise with your graphics, marketing and development team to plan the site. If you are lucky enough to have these people on hand to help you. Most of the time you will have to do this by yourself. Don’t panic, here are a few simple steps to get you on your way.
1. Content is king
That has been said over and over again but I cannot stress the importance of dynamic and rich content which include targeted keywords. You should have relevant text on your website which you update regularly. This means when someone types in for example “Seo blogs” they will come to this site.
2. Meta information
The meta tags are the keyword and description tags. The description tag is seen in the search engine results page and is therefore often seen as more important than keyword tag. However, both are important and contribute to search engine ranking. The meta information is in the code behind the web page and look like:
<meta name=”keywords” content=”keyword1, keyword2, keyword3″>
3. Title Tags
The title tags of each page are the most important element for SEO. It describes a specific web page. Creating relevant title tag is a very important factor in achieving high position in search engine. Title tag should contain no more than eighty characters. The title tag is a representation of the core keywords.
4. Image Tags
Images on the website should all have ALT tags. Alt tags help visually impaired people browse the site. They are also a place where keywords should be inserted to improve rankings in SERPS.
5. Header Tags
H1, H2, H3 etc. tags are not strictly essential but they do contribute to ranking.
H1 Tag are the main heading describing the content of the page.
H2 Tags are the subheadings on each page.
H3 tags are the smaller headings.
6. Sitemap
A sitemap page is essential to help Google find all the pages and also gives you a place to link to any new ‘SEO pages’. A sitemap is an interactive table of contents that visitors can view. The site map breaks down the website’s information into different categories and can include every page of the website. Normally it is found on the footer of a website. Some, have all the links displayed below the fold of their website and it occurs on every page. This is a great way to provide in bound links to your site – which I will talk about next time.
That’s it for now. That wasn’t so bad as the introduction to SEO was it?
Hi,
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
Regards,
Jane
Thanks Jane for your comment. I will be adding more interesting posts in the future especially about mobile seo and mobile apps.
interesting read. I would love to follow you on twitter.
I think a seperate post about keywords prior to these stages would be uesful for those new to seo but certainly nice clear info describing onsite requirements.
All the best,
Nick
Hi
Thank you for your comment.
That was one of the first posts I wrote.
I have written posts about keywords
http://seojoblogs.com/category/keywords/
Thanks,