Mediumcube
12-09-2011, 01:42 PM
When people create a new website, most of them want to be the first website that shows up when someone searches a related keyword, or to be in the top five at least. The reality is, is that getting your website good search results does require work. Climbing the Google search results can take weeks, months or even years. This tutorial will only help you get started. There are many more aspects of SEO to study and practice.
Before we start, please take a look at the list below to get used to some of the jargon I’ll be using in this tutorial.
* SEO = Search Engine Optimization
* SE = Search Engine
* Google bots = Google bots are “spiders” that Google send out to crawl through websites and index them.
Code. If you build your website using tables, you are already at a disadvantage. Google prefers websites that are built using <div>’s and external CSS. Using <div>’s and external CSS, reduces code bloat which means Google bots have less code to crawl through, and your content gets all the attention.
<title> - Using words like “Home”, “News” etc within the <title> tag is bad idea. Why? Well words like “Home” tell the person browsing your website nothing about the page. And if the person browsing your website doesn’t know what your page is about after reading the <title> tag, a Google bot won’t know either. Use relevant and descriptive keywords within the <title> tag.
For example. If your website was a web portfolio focusing in on the websites you have created, a suitable title would be <title>YourName.com - A Web Design Portfolio</title>. However, if you have a target audience, then your title could be <title>Website Design In Ireland</title>.
<h1>, <h2> … <h6> - Google love heading tags. Heading tags go from <h1> to <h6>. A common mistake made by web design newbies (or sometimes even oldies) is that they put words like “Welcome” within the <h1> tag. Google treat the <h1> tag with high regard, so its important that you use relevant and descriptive keywords within them.
For example; if your website was about the latest news within the computing world and tutorials related to computers, your <h1> tag should be something like the following.
<h1>Computer News & Tutorials</h1>, or you could be even more specific and go with <h1>Apple Computers News & Updates</h1>. Once Google see this, they will already have a fair idea what your website is about without looking at any of the content. It will also give the person browsing your website an idea of what your site is about.
Content - You should have a healthy amount of descriptive, keyword rich content on your web page. You should try to use keywords frequently within your content, but that doesn’t mean you throw them into every sentence. Your content should be natural, and not sound robotic.
When you do use a keyword within your content, it helps to use tags like <strong> and <em> around it. This way, you are putting an emphasis on the keywords and Google bots will recognize this.
Link Text / Anchor text - should always be descriptive. A visitor should have a fair idea what they are going to find at the end of a link, and a Google bot is no different. Use a 5 - 6 word description for links.
Submit your website - This may or may not make a difference, but it never hurts to submit your website to Google. You can do so here.
Meta tags - Some people think that adding meta tags to your website is a pointless exercise. However, I still do it, and I believe that it does play a small part in SEO your website. The <meta> tags that I find most useful are the following:
<meta name="keywords" content=" Insert, some, descriptive, and, relevant, keywords, here " />
<meta name="description" content=" Insert a good page description here " />
You should have different keywords and a different description on each page that suits the content.
These are only some of the very basics of SEO, but it will help you get a foot hold if you are keen on improving your search results. You must also remember that there are many different search engines out there, and that there is not right or wrong way to SEO your website, but there is a right approach.
I hope that you found this article useful and informative.
Before we start, please take a look at the list below to get used to some of the jargon I’ll be using in this tutorial.
* SEO = Search Engine Optimization
* SE = Search Engine
* Google bots = Google bots are “spiders” that Google send out to crawl through websites and index them.
Code. If you build your website using tables, you are already at a disadvantage. Google prefers websites that are built using <div>’s and external CSS. Using <div>’s and external CSS, reduces code bloat which means Google bots have less code to crawl through, and your content gets all the attention.
<title> - Using words like “Home”, “News” etc within the <title> tag is bad idea. Why? Well words like “Home” tell the person browsing your website nothing about the page. And if the person browsing your website doesn’t know what your page is about after reading the <title> tag, a Google bot won’t know either. Use relevant and descriptive keywords within the <title> tag.
For example. If your website was a web portfolio focusing in on the websites you have created, a suitable title would be <title>YourName.com - A Web Design Portfolio</title>. However, if you have a target audience, then your title could be <title>Website Design In Ireland</title>.
<h1>, <h2> … <h6> - Google love heading tags. Heading tags go from <h1> to <h6>. A common mistake made by web design newbies (or sometimes even oldies) is that they put words like “Welcome” within the <h1> tag. Google treat the <h1> tag with high regard, so its important that you use relevant and descriptive keywords within them.
For example; if your website was about the latest news within the computing world and tutorials related to computers, your <h1> tag should be something like the following.
<h1>Computer News & Tutorials</h1>, or you could be even more specific and go with <h1>Apple Computers News & Updates</h1>. Once Google see this, they will already have a fair idea what your website is about without looking at any of the content. It will also give the person browsing your website an idea of what your site is about.
Content - You should have a healthy amount of descriptive, keyword rich content on your web page. You should try to use keywords frequently within your content, but that doesn’t mean you throw them into every sentence. Your content should be natural, and not sound robotic.
When you do use a keyword within your content, it helps to use tags like <strong> and <em> around it. This way, you are putting an emphasis on the keywords and Google bots will recognize this.
Link Text / Anchor text - should always be descriptive. A visitor should have a fair idea what they are going to find at the end of a link, and a Google bot is no different. Use a 5 - 6 word description for links.
Submit your website - This may or may not make a difference, but it never hurts to submit your website to Google. You can do so here.
Meta tags - Some people think that adding meta tags to your website is a pointless exercise. However, I still do it, and I believe that it does play a small part in SEO your website. The <meta> tags that I find most useful are the following:
<meta name="keywords" content=" Insert, some, descriptive, and, relevant, keywords, here " />
<meta name="description" content=" Insert a good page description here " />
You should have different keywords and a different description on each page that suits the content.
These are only some of the very basics of SEO, but it will help you get a foot hold if you are keen on improving your search results. You must also remember that there are many different search engines out there, and that there is not right or wrong way to SEO your website, but there is a right approach.
I hope that you found this article useful and informative.