How To Get Higher Search Engine Rankings
If the strategies used to improve your search engine rankings seem like mumbo-jumbo to you, you’ve most likely been too busy to devote the effort it takes to become proficient at search engine optimization. Even so, if your website is expected to contribute to the bottom line for your business, then it’s about time to face this demon head on.
Statistics show that around 85% of those looking for products and services online find those websites by searching keyword phrases on Google, Yahoo and MSN (now Bing). Seo or Search Engine Optimization is a broad term for the techniques and methods used to create an environment, both on-site and off-site, so that people more easily find your website when conducting a search in a web browser.
Search Engines Rule
It’s a fact that those who are searching online looking for a website are more likely to be looking to make a purchase than any other Internet use, whether it be blog commenting, social media or other communication channels. The higher in the rankings on a page in those search results your page is positioned, the more visitors your website is going to have, period, at least for a particular keyword.
Getting your site ranked higher in the search engine results is the sole purpose of SEO.
SEO Can Be Technical
There are some technical aspects to SEO that require quite a bit of experience and expertise, and there are some labor intensive aspects that just take time and a lot of effort over time.
Although the off-page factors contribute to the majority of the effectiveness of Search Engine Marketing and SEO, there are critical on-page factors that need to be implemented at the onset of your efforts. The first is getting the page Title right.
Title Tag: This isn’t always visible on the page, but is usually visible in the tab at the top of the web browser just above the page. In SEO-speak, this is your Meta Title tag. For the home page, this title tag should contain your highest level primary keyword phrase and perhaps your company name.
Each page on the site should have a unique title tag that represents the content of that page. Also, it’s often best to match the actual title displayed on the page with the title tag itself. I won’t get into the code at this point, but there is some specific code that is used to identify the main header title of every page.
Description Tag: There is also a Meta Description tag which should contain a short description of the content of the site in a way that communicates the site’s value and inspires someone to click on the link in the search results to visit your website. This description is often, but not always, used in the search engine results just under the site title.
Since Google quit including the Meta Keyword tag in its ranking algorithm, it has become irrelevant even though other search engines may still give your site some juice for that line of code.
Content Is Critical
More important is the main content of the page which should contain natural language descriptions of your products and services, emphasizing benefits and using synonyms and other words related to your topic. You don’t want to “keyword stuff” your content, as including your keywords too many times will appear unnatural to Google and your site will receive negative points for including too many of the same words.
For best quality, try to have at least 450 words on a page. In addition, don’t include too many photos, but when you do include photos, which you should, be sure to include the “alt” attribute in the code and include relevant keywords. It also helps to give the images relevant file names. Google will index those images and include them in its “Image” results. Keep in mind that the search engine bots like text when reviewing a web page. Images and iFramed text cannot be read.
Back Linking for SEO
Now to the more important efforts that positively impact SEO and your site rankings in the search engines.
SEO Back links are links from “authority” sites, which when linking to your site are viewed as “votes” for the value and importance of your website…usually, the more the better. This link popularity is vital for improving your rankings in the search engines. That being said, it’s the “authority value” of the site that’s linking to your site that is important. This value is identified by “PR” or “PageRank” which is a measure of the authority value of the site. You want a lot of links from sites with high PageRank.
What Is NoFollow?
In addition, for best results, these high PR sites/pages need to be “nofollow” pages. Often a site owner will put a “nofollow” designation in the code to tell the search engine indexing bots not to follow the links on the page. This makes those links very ineffective for back link value.
Finding, attracting and building these back links is a skill that is critical to a successful SEO campaign. The bonus is that through many of these back links, your site gets more authority and a boost in search engine positioning… And you get site visitors who find your site via those referring websites.
Since search engine ranking is the most important element of any search engine marketing campaign, be sure that your on-page SEO elements are done correctly so that your off-page back linking strategies will be fruitful.
Don’t forget, the higher your site is positioned in the search engine results, the more and better quality traffic you’ll have to your website.
Author Steve Josephs is owner of Intellidon Marketing LLC, a Search Engine Marketing and SEO Services firm specializing in attracting new customers for local businesses through Online Marketing Strategies. See: Wikipedia on Search Engine Optimization.
