Classic Search Engine Optimisation is now an essential part of marketing your business and although high rankings aren’t as crucial as they used to be, they still matter. So, want to get your head around the basic stuff quickly? There are 6 elements you need to remember when looking at your website:
1. The Title of Your Webpage
There is no magic formula here but remember, each title tag has to be relevant to the words on the page. The most effective page titles are created with keywords and keyword phrases and how people search for things that you are offering on that specific page.
2. The Meta Tags on your Webpage
Meta tags are little bits of text that describes a pages content that only the webmaster can see. The 3 main Meta Tags you should familiarise yourself with are:
Meta Keywords Attribute – A series of keywords relevant to the page.
Title Tag – The text at the top of your browser.
Meta Description Attribute – A brief description of the page.
Meta Robots Attribute For search engine crawlers (robots or “bots”) as an indication to what they should do with the page.
3. The Headings on your Webpage (H1, H2,H3 tags)
If you place keywords in your heading tags your SEO Rankings will increase, but you also run the risk of sounding like a repetitive robot. The h1 is the most important tag and it should basically explain what the page is about.
4. The URL Structure of your Webpage
SEO friendly URLs are vital for search engines to crawl to the most important pages on your website.
5. Canonical Link Elements
A canonical link element is an HTML element that helps to prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the “canonical”, or “preferred” version of a web page.
6. Alt text in images
All images on your site should be optimised, but also, the Alt text box should not be empty.
Once you have your head around these six elements, you can move on to a more advanced outlook of SEO. It’s not rocket science, but it’s necessary. Part 2 Next week!