SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
Introduction
SEO will help search engines find and rank your site higher than the millions of other sites in response to a search query. SEO helps you get traffic from search engines. Although the basic principle of operation of all search engines is the same, the minor differences between them lead to major changes in results relevancy.
SEO Score
SEO has a unique scoring system based on the following SEO factors:
- Page Indexable
- Meta Description
- H1 and H2 tags
- ALT Image Tag
- SEO Friendly URL
- Title Tag
- Number of links
- Page Rank
Page Indexable
Search engines can understand content in HTML or text format. Content involving images, and audio and video elements are not legible to search engines. However alternatives are available to make these non-indexable formats understandable to search engines.
Images come with "alt" attribute, which can be given keyword descriptions for capture by search engines; CSS style can be implemented to replace images with text formats publishing text transcripts for audio and video content makes them indexable.
Meta Description
Meta description tag is used for a brief description of the page. It is used by all popular search engines when displaying search engine results. Having a good Meta description can improve your chances of the visitor clicking on your result in the search engine.
- Write a sensible description and avoid automated tools for generating meta description.
- You can include your popular keywords n the meta description as they will be bold when displayed in search engine results.
- Keep it up to around 70 words (350 characters). Search engines display variable length but they will pick the best bit to display based on user search.
- Use unique descriptions for each page
H1 and H2 tags
Header tags are a great way to help boost your search engine rankings. H1 tag is usually larger than normal text and helps users quickly learn what the page is about.
- Use H1 and H2 tags to highlight important keywords
- H1 tag should be used once on the page
- H2 tag can be used as many times, after the H1 tag
ALT image tag
ALT image tag has became particularly important with the increase in demand for image searches which can significantly contribute to your search engine traffic if used properly.
The best practices for image search optimizations are:
- Use alt and title tags in your images to describe the context of the image with relevant keywords
- Avoiding long ALT text that would be considered as spam.
- Avoiding only image links for your site's navigation.
SEO Friendly URL
URL structure on the site appear to have a static structure like "/category/page" in contrast to dynamic structure like "/category/page?cat=3&page=1".
Avoid:
- using lengthy URLs with unnecessary parameters and session IDs
- choosing generic page names like "page1.html"
Title tag
Browser title tag is one of the most important on-page SEO factors. The following things are recommended by SEO
- Always include a title tag on your pages.
- Don't use multiple title tags in single page.
- Keep the title length up to 11 words or 70 characters.
- Use relevant keywords in your title tags.
- Don't use single title tag across your site.
- Using extremely lengthy titles are unhelpful for the users.
Number of links
Number of links represents number of links found on the page. Search engines consider only a certain number of links on a page and would ignore others for purposes of page rank calculation.
Page Rank
Page Rank is one of many factors that determine where your web page appears in search result ranking, but if all other factors are equal, Page Rank can have significant impact on your search engines rankings. to increase your Page Rank, you need to have "back-links," Search engines often use the number of back links that a website has as one of the most important factors for determining that website's search engine ranking, popularity and importance. As you build web pages within your website, you can create some of your own back-links by linking to relevant pages within your own website.
Conclusion
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of back links, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.