SEO For Internet Marketers
What Does It Take To Optimize Your Websites?
Hi Folks
The title of this blog is a pretty good question, don't you think? It must be because I get this question asked of me every week by new members.
How to optimize your sites.
Search engine optimization for your website should be one of a home business owners main goals to get right.
Getting traffic to the website is also a top priority, so how can you achieve this?
The rest of this blog are my own steps, tactics and methods when I start optimizing my websites.
As always I start with keywords and their research. What keywords am I going to optimize for?
Think of the keywords you want to target. If you target the wrong keywords then you may never see any results from them. If you target very competitive keywords then it will probably take way too much time to see results. Therefore it makes sense to target somewhere in the middle.
Use a keyword tool to cut down on the time it takes to find those keywords. The free version of the wealthy affiliate keyword tool (jaaxy lite) is one you can use to get an idea of what are great ones to use.
Tip - when selecting keywords. Depending on the particular word, I usually use plural versions for keywords. Why? because the plural version includes the single one.
Example - If you have the keyword "business", make it "businesses" because the keyword "businesses" includes the keyword "business".
Where to use keywords - The first places to put keywords in your website includes the Title Tags, Meta Tags, within the text of your website, and within anchor text.
Title Tags:
This is the most important part of your post to place keywords. Why? because search engines show the most importance to keywords within the Title Tag which is why its extremely important to include keywords here.
Meta Tags:
Always be careful not to use too many keywords here because it could be mistaken as keyword stuffing. This used to be an easy way to achieve a high rank in the SERPs, but search engines have evolved since then and its no longer possible to score high rankings with stuffing. In fact could get your site banned. Meta Tags go between the head tags (<head>) in your source code.
Description Meta: This should be a description of your website and always put important keywords in the beginning of the sentence if and where applicable.
Meta Keywords:
Tip - Try to use the plural form of your keywords here but do not repeat keywords.
Heading Tags:
Heading, H1 Make sure you use your main keywords here because this helps and tells search engines there is related content within your post. Sub Heading, H2. This tells the search engines you place some importance on the keywords used.
Anchor Text:
This is important, whenever you are linking within your website make sure to place keywords in the links. Search engine algorithms like this.
[Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. SEO best practices dictate that anchor text be relevant to the page you're linking to, rather than generic text.]
Alt Tag:
If you have a lot of graphics on your site there are a couple of things you want to do. First, you want to make an image as small as possible without losing any clarity. Websites that have a lot of graphics/images/pics/photos usually take some time to load which can affect your site download speed, so size does matter. Also, make sure to place keywords in the Alt Tags.
This means you should describe the image, and use the keywords that you have in your Title and Meta Tags.
Last but by no means least is your Sitemap.
Sitemaps are important because not only do they help make your website easier to navigate for a first time user, it also helps search engine spiders crawl your site which will help your content get indexed in the search engines.
If you find your posts are not indexed in the search engines, this is where sitemaps come in. Sitemaps are written in xml, language.
Once you have your sitemap you submit to Google go here:
www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/
If you don't already have a Sitemap Plugin generator (SEO All In One or Yoast etc), here is a an xml sitemap creator:
Its important to always submit your sitemaps to Google. Also, you can always ping the search engines so that you they will know you have updated your content.
There you have it folks, a nice summary of what you need to do in order to start an effective SEO plan of action.
Any member with other tips and advice can of course leave them via a comment below.
Have a great day and be successful.
Robert Allan
Recent Comments
35
This post has a lot of information about SEO most of which we tend to for being on the bottom of WordPress.
Hi Jhurreea and thank you for visiting.
It does no harm to be reminded what we must do on a regular basis.
Of course if you get it right first time then you do not have to go back and correct it.
Have a great weekend.
Robert
Hello Pamela and thank you for reading and for your Wow!.
Always nice to be appreciated.
Have a good day and the weekend to come.
Robert
Hello Derek and thank you for reading the blog and commenting.
I'm sure you went away with a few of my tips and advice you will now put into practice.
Enjoy your day.
Robert
Hi Glenys and thank you for reading and commenting.
You were sure to go away with a tip or two you will now implement in your own website.
Have a good one.
Robert
Robert your tips are always outstanding. I dont catch all of them but the ones i do always impress me. Thanks again
No probs Glenys and I'm always happy to pass on my tips and advice to the membership.
Not all of them will make sense but they will help once you get some experience.
have a great Saturday.
Robert
What a great post, and a wonderful collection of so many important points. Thanks for this, Robert!
James
Always best to be aware of the do's and dont's with your site SEO.
Get it right and get it right first time and you wont go far wrong.
Hope all's going well for you over in Malta.
Robert
I totally agree. It's a terrible waste of time having to go over things that shouldn't need to if they were sorted out properly in the first place.
All's well down here. How's Scotland doing?
James
All's well here in Edinburgh and expecting good weather over the weekend and Monday Bank Holiday as well.
Robert
Hi Robert, this is such a great tip- "....when selecting keywords. Depending on the particular word, I usually use plural versions for keywords. Why? because the plural version includes the single one."
Thanks for this nugget!
Kaju
Hello Kaju and thank you for taking the time to read my blog and of course for your comment.
The simple ideas are usually the best and just an S or ES at the end of a word can work wonders for your ranking chances.
Have a great q
weekend when it comes.
Now I'm off out for a few hours.
Maybe catch you later.
Robert
See more comments
Thanks Robert. That's comprehensively covered. :)
~Mark :)
Hi Mark and thank you for reading.
Good tips and advice in there for you to follow and improve your ranking in the SERPs.
Onwards and upwards this fine Saturday morning.
Robert