Really good Search Engine Optimization is a complex process. That said, effective SEO can be as simple as one, two, three….and four. Do four reasonably simple things, and you can see your rankings in Google Search Page Results, aka SERPS, improve considerably.
So you want your web pages to get found well, and you don’t want to spend a lot of money or time to make that happen? Well, look no further.
If you have a webmaster, provide him or her with a title for each of your pages. The “title” should use keywords describing the content on the page (that is, keywords that potential visitors would search for hoping to find what you offer). Also provide your webmaster with a good headline (that is similar to, and contains the same keywords as the title) for each page. And of course you need some text describing what you offer. Obviously, that text should contain the same keywords near the start of the first paragraph. Your webmaster should be able to take it from there.
If you maintain your own website, then you should pay attention to this list.
- Title tag
- <meta> description tag
- Page header <h1> tag
- Well-written text
For those of you who don’t know what those four items are, I’ll describe them.
1. The <title> tag defines the title of the document.
The title element does the following:
Defines a title in the browser toolbar (displayed at the very top of your browser)
Provides a title for the page when it is added to favorites
Displays a title for the page in search-engine result
2. The <meta> description tag provides a description of the HTML document (your web page). The <meta> description will not be displayed on the page, but Google will display (most of the time) the information in search results, and just as, if not more, importantly uses it as one of the “signals” in determining how highly your page will rank.
3. The header <h1> tag contains the “headline” for the page (also used as a Google “signal”)
4. The first sentence of the first paragraph should contain the same keywords. (also used as a Google “signal”)
As I said, basic SEO is as simple as one, two, three….and four. Do remember to do them for each of your pages. Of course there is much more you could, and should, do. If your webmaster isn’t doing those basic four things for you, tell him you would like to pay him or her for doing so, as it does take some time to do it right. In this case a little time and or money spent will reward you with higher search rankings.