Optimizing for Visibility
Websites are mere images until they come alive with the proper structure and optimization required by search engines to accurately identify and index your website. Structure is important to accurately ‘spider’ your site….header tags lead the bot in the direction of priority based on number: H1,H2, H3, H4 etc., with 1 being the most important. Header tag 1 should tell the search engines what the page is about and where to start, you should only have one h1 tag per page. H2 tags instruct the bot where to go from there with sections or subtitles on the page.
Although Google ranks websites as a whole, they consider each page separately. Each page needs to be optimized. There may be millions of results for a search term relative to what you offer, unless you show up on the first or second page you are wasting your time.
Search engines need to know you exist, where you are, what you offer and why they should send you visitors over your competition. Working with search engines to identify, qualify and index your website is the first step in making your site readily available.
Keywords
To ensure you will be found by your specific product or service, it is important to use relative and properly placed keywords.
The idea is to have your desired, or highest return keywords on each page, using title tags and meta description for search engines to identify quickly. If the content on your website differs from the description, chances are slim you will be one of the first to come up in search results. The goal of search engines is to bring up the closest match for the searcher and they take every measure to get it right.
Google has a free keyword research tool that is available to be sure your keywords will bring traffic to your site, including search volume, the variations used and the competition for the keyword.
Bottom line is to do it right the first time or make the simple changes to correct it.
Review:
- Site Structure
- Identify valuable Keywords
- Use these keywords in Meta tags and descriptions
Next topic will review search for local businesses, how to get your business on the first page of search results.
Denise is the Owner of Get-Mobiled.com and MobileLocalseo.com with over 10 years experience in SEO and local best practices
