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Charlotte, NC
Search Optimization
The three
most important places to have keyphrases
and phrases are your title tag, your
meta tags, and your first paragraph. You
want them to all contain the same
important words; this increases your keyphrase density and
improves your rankings.
People are
searching for your product or service in
record numbers. The question is, have
you taken the necessary steps to ensure
they’ll find it? We have worked with
companies worldwide to increase
qualified traffic, gain top search
engine positions and maximize their
return on investment. As a complimentary
service, we will evaluate the ranking of
your Web site. Please contact use
today!
Step 1 - Crafting your <TITLE> tag
 A
webpage’s title text is visible at the
top of the browser window
The
title text is displayed when a webpage
is bookmarked/added to a user’s
favorites
The
title text is often included in the the
header or footer when a webpage is
printed
Search
engines, such as Google, use the title
text as the link-text on a search engine
results page (SERP)
Most people make the mistake of using a
page title that's good for people but
lousy for the search engines. Big
mistake. A title like "Bill Phillips -
Real Estate Broker" is a disaster! The
golden rule is this: All your
most important keyphrases should be in
the TITLE tag. So what you do
is look at your keyphrases, make a list
of all the important words, and create a
title tag that uses them. Also, keep in
mind that browsers only display the
first few words of a title tag (whatever
fits into the title bar of the window).
So while the first sentence of your
title tag should be "human readable",
the rest can be just a list of
keyphrases.
A title
tag belongs in the <HEAD> section of a
Web page, above the <BODY> section.
Technically, it may be above or below
the META tags, but it is common practice
to place the (very important) title tag
above the (less important) meta tags.
The
information contained in a title tag
appears at the top of the Web browser
when viewing a Web page, and at the top
of (most) search listings.
Writing
descriptive title tags is an important
part of optimizing a site to rank well
with the search engines (and get clicked
by visitors). A well-crafted title tag
can stand on its own without the benefit
of the accompanying page content, as
this is how it appears to Web searchers
who know nothing about your site.
Include
at least one targeted keyword or phrase,
maybe more, instead of using all generic
words that do not distinguish your page.
If possible, keywords should be used
early in the title to help search
engines and visitors identify the main
subject of the page, and also to avoid
getting cut off by search engines that
use relatively short titles. Search
engines have limits as to how many
characters are used from the title tag
and typically display between 50 to 70
characters.
Step 2 - The Meta Tags
The fabled Meta tags are important to
getting good rankings, and on many
search engines, the page title and the
Meta Description tag are what gets
displayed.
Meta
tags may be used for a wide variety of
metadata--data that describes other
data--but many site promoters focus
primarily on the description tag and the
keywords tag. Some search engines use
the description tag as the first choice
for a search engine listing, using
alternate methods if the tag is missing.
Some search engines may also use the
keywords tag to reinforce the main
topics of the page. Not all search
engine use meta tags, and the other ones
may not pay much attention to the
contents.
Meta
tags that are hidden from the visible
page, such as the keywords tag, have
been subject to much abuse over the
years. As a search rating factor gets
abused, the natural reaction for the
search engines is to de-emphasize the
offending factor. This seems to be the
case with meta tags, as search engines
increasingly seek "reputation" factors
less directly controlled by the web site
owner.
Meta tags go in the <HEAD> section of
the HTML page (the same section as the
<TITLE> tag). The Meta
Description tag should contain
a short description of the web-page. If
you think of your webpage as a news
story, then the title tag (the first
part of it anyway, not any keywords you
tacked on) is the headline, and the meta
description tag is the lead paragraph.
In many search engines, your search
results will simply be your title tag
followed by your meta description tag,
so make sure they work together to
explain what's on the page. The format
of a Meta description tag is simple. It
looks like this:
<META
name="description" content="whatever you
want to place here">
The other Meta tag is the Meta Keywords
tag. What you do is take your
keyphrases, and enter them in the order
you think is most appropriate, separated
by commas.
Keywords
are used by Web surfers to describe what
they hope to find when performing a Web
search. This statement of a real-time
want/need has not gone unnoticed by Web
marketers, many of whom have tried to
benefit from keyword advertising buys
and/or search engine optimization.
Keyword research consists of at least
three major steps:
discovery
- finding as many keywords as possible
relating to your Web site. Online tools
exist to speed up the discovery process
by allowing marketers to search for
related keywords and their relative
search popularity.
ROI
analysis - finding the most valuable
keywords for your Web site. The most
generic keywords are the most widely
searched, but also the most competitive,
and sometimes bring mediocre conversion
rates. Generally, phrases that most
accurately describe specific
qualities of a site yield the highest
ROI.
competitive
analysis - analyzing the strength of
competitors for potential keywords.
Competitive factors include how
attentive sites are to optimization
issues and the number of relevant
inbound links they have received.
Step 3 - The first paragraph
The first paragraph of your page should
recapitulate and expand upon everything
in your title and meta tags. You need to
have all those keyphrases in it.
However, since this is going to be read
by people, it needs to be written with
them in mind. This is where you
introduce yourself to your visitors, so
you want to make a good impression.
The most
meaningful strategy for additional
keyword placement is to use keyword-rich
content for the body of the web page.
Appropriate keywords should be
researched and analyzed.
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