Last night I attended the monthly PATCA dinner. The featured speaker of the evening was Kevin Dean, a certified Internet marketing consultant, from WSI (We Simplify the Internet). It was an interactive question and answer session in which Kevin covered “Search Engine Optimization Best Practice Basics.” Kevin’s key point was that SEO is easily misunderstood: no one should believe that SEO alone will allow you to close business, it’s just one aspect of your overall marketing mix.
Here are some helpful tips to increase your web presence and make your website more relevant to search engines.
- Content is king. A search engine has never purchased anything, so do not substitute tacky headlines and searchable jargon for pure, unfiltered, original content. Write to your target readers, use good sentences, and get to the point. Try to keep key content/messages to no more than three per webpage, so as not to dilute the keywords for SEO.
- Key phrase selection is important. Phrases that have two or more meanings can increase your competition and confuse searchers. Key phrases are primarily the verbiage picked up in the titles and descriptions. When you choose key phrases, make sure you describe yourself the way people would remember what you do. A good way to figure this out is to ask your customers what they think of your offering.
- Understand how your page structure is read by the search engines. One thing you should be aware of is pictures and images cannot be read by search engines. Be sure to create subtitles or add an alt tag to the picture/image in a way that relates to your business.
There are over thirty components that make up SEO. If you would like to see how relevant your website is visit http://www.websitegrader.com. The free tool diagnoses your website and shows you many of the components you need to improve.