Creating an SEO friendly website means creating an attractive website that readers enjoy as well as one that the search engines will rank high, giving you more views. It is about creating the perfect balance between user versatility and pleasing the search engines. If you make too many technical changes, your website becomes less user-friendly, but if you don’t make enough SEO friendly changes, users will not find your site because the search engines will not rank it high enough. In order to have your cake and eat it too, you need to understand the basics of SEO.
Every page on your website needs a proper title. This title should be able to give an accurate idea of what the individual page is about in just a few words. You should avoid using generic titles, such as “Page 1” or “XYZ Company Page 2”. Every page should have its own title and one that is unique to that page in order for the search engines to differentiate one page from another, allowing it to rank in various categories. The title appears in the H1 heading and should be as short as possible while using, at least, one keyword phrase, which is a few keywords linked together.
Underneath the title in your HTML code is where your Meta tag will appear. This is the description of your website. The Meta tag is what you often see when you pull up a query in a search engine. Underneath the title, you will see a small snippet telling you what the page is about. More often than not this is the Meta tag, but in rare cases, it is a blurb taken directly from the page if it matches what the user was searching. The Meta tag is an extension of the title as it should give an accurate description of the page with more keyword phrases and can be between 130 and 155 characters (including spaces) long.
The URL or web address for your website also appears in the search engine’s rankings. It will appear just below the title and Meta tag. You should take advantage of the opportunity to use your keyword or keyword phrase again in the address for more exposure. Every keyword that shows up in your content whether the title, description, or address, gets bolded by the search engine, allowing you to have more exposure and a higher chance of being clicked on by the user. It is important to remember to keep your addresses as simple as possible, however, as they will stay in the minds of viewers much easier that way. For example, a page for the home page www.purses.com that looks like www.purses.com/filexyz/39393/kis.htm is not going to be easily remembered. However, an extension like www.purses.com/pinkpurses.htm tells users exactly what they are going to view making it easier to remember.
One of the most important things you can do for the search engine optimization of your website is to provide quality content with accurately used keywords. No matter how high your website ranks, if your content is not high quality, no one is going to read it. Your content should be organized, unique, and able to stay on topic. If you are simply using the page to stuff keywords, yet the content has nothing to do with the page’s topic, the search engines will penalize you by not ranking the website. They want to see organized content that is on task and includes proper titles, subtitles, and an easy-to-read layout.
Creating an SEO optimized website is not as daunting as it seems. With the right use of keywords, accurate descriptions, and perfect layouts, you can increase your readership with little effort. Remember to keep your content updated frequently and always test your URLs to ensure the links work enabling you to enhance the viewership your website receives.
