A question asked by almost everyone who has a website is, "How do I get my site on the first page of Google? Well, you've probably heard a lot on the topic and you're probably not interested in learning how to crack Google's magic formula for ranking sites or learning a new web language or you maybe you don't know what SEO really means. So here are ten simple tips for improving your site's search engine ranking in Google's eyes. I sure you'll find it's a bit more simple than you thought.
- Play By The Rules
First and foremost, play by the rules. It may seem a little too obvious, but it works. Many people think that they can find some secret way to somehow trick search engines into giving their site a high ranking. And there may be some out there, but they won't last. SEO is about the long term so being upfront and sticking to it is key.
If you wondering what I'm talking about, here's a for instance. Many, many people have exploited the use of meta keywords by putting in keywords that have nothing to do with what their site is actually about. An electronics company site can't have a keyword like 'twilight.' Google will see that you're not playing by the rules and penalize you for it.
- Google's Keyword Tool
Keywords are critical for good SEO. If you didn't already know (I didn't) Google has an excellent tool for researching keywords. This amazing tool allows you to type in a keyword like 'dry cleaning in Orem' and see how many times it was searched in the last month. This means that with a little research you can use this to your advantage in helping local customers find you. The people at 97th Floor say that 70% of searches are in the longtail. This is powerful stuff - you can target your local audience, since I'm pretty sure most people now days go straight to the web instead of the phone book to find something. Check this tool out there is a lot to be discovered here.
- Turn On Page Rank
Your web browser should have the ability to display a web page's ranking. You may have to go find a plugin to download like I did for Firefox. This little tool will show you the link popularity of the specific page. As you're surfing the web you can see how other page's rankings compare and see how your competition is doing.
- Target Your Anchor Text
A fundamental part of the internet is links or anchors. Even if you're not familiar with HTML you know that you can click on links that take you to different pages. No brainer. So we've all seen the text on a web page a million times that reads, 'click here' - this is bad. Why? The backbone of SEO is links. Google sees who and what you link to and how you do it. They also see who is linking to you. You could make say <a>click here</a> to login to your account. But you should target your anchor text to important words by saying <a>Login to your account</a>. This way Google know what the link is.
- Keyword Usage
Basically you should write content for your web pages that is keyword rich. You should write for your audience too, don't just put the word twilight all over your page so you get ranked higher, you're audience will hate that. If you have a dry cleaning site the content should be all about dry cleaning right? Another no brainer. But the problem arises when you put keywords in your meta tags for search engines to see that don't really have anything to do with your site - like the twilight example above. Google sees the twilight keyword in the meta tag and then sees all this content about dry cleaning and says, "They're not being upfront." And your site doesn't get ranked as high.
- Social Media
Yes it's true having that twitter account will help you in your quest to get on the first page of Google. Remember when we talked about links earlier? Well social media is all about being social and linking to people. So it's natural that search engines like it if it's done right, of course. Let's say there's a great blog article on SEO and you tweet it and post it on your Facebook page. Then your friends to the same. This is good because then google can see that people are linking to your blog article. Even better is when another blog that's all about SEO links to your SEO article because Google sees that as added value, that it's legitimate. So if you don't have twitter account and you're serious about SEO for your site you're missing out.
- The Title Tag
The title tag is displayed at the top of your browser as the title of each page you're viewing. Take sometime to make your title tags keyword rich and specific to each page. Out there on the web you see the same title tag used for all page of a site or a title tag that doesn't have any keywords in it. These people are missing the boat. Let's say you have a dry cleaning company in Orem called The Cleaners. The home page title tag could be something like 'The Cleaners' This is good, but not great. A better tag would be something like 'The Cleaners - Dry Cleaners - Serving Orem and surrounding areas.' And this tag should change for each page accordingly. A title tag for another page could be 'Stain removal - The Cleaners....' you get the picture. When the title matches up with keyword rich content Google will see it again as a legitimate, upfront web page.
- Content
It's been said that content is king. Good, well written content goes along way. You should write for the reader not the search engine. Like we said before you don't want to just throw keywords around. Including 10 - 15 keywords for each page is a good measure. But ultimately the goal is to provide content that your audience will enjoy and share.
- Internal Links
Google likes it when pages are linked together in your site. A good example of this is on a home page there may be a paragraph of text that explains that a company designs web sites. At the end of the paragraph it may say contact us for a free estimate. You could make free estimate into a link that goes to a contact page. Google will like it a lot more than click here. Remember to pay attention to anchor text and make sure it's targeted to your keywords.
- Duplicate Content
Google tends to be suspicious when it see the same content in 2 different pages. You may run a blog that has teasers for your recent posts on the homepage. When someone clicks to read the full post they see the same content - so goes Google. It may be worth the effort to write a teaser that is different from the full article. grab a thesaurus and use synonyms for important words.
This list could obviously go on an on, but 10 is a good number. You'll find after trying out these tips that improving your sites SEO health really isn't that complicated.
