Beginners SEO – 8 Free & Easy SEO Tips
Everyone who has a website would love to get lots of traffic that doesn’t cost them anything. This is the cornerstone of SEO or Search Engine Optimization; to get you that free traffic so that your website turns up in the top ten search results of any major search engine. While there are innumerable details that go into driving an extremely successful SEO campaign, one area of SEO can be easily managed by just about anyone simply by using some simple on-page tweaks that won’t cost you a dime.
1. Your Website Design
One neglected factor to be sure that the search engines rank your site well is the overall design and layout of your website. Using basic text-based navigation rather than images, restricting the use of JavaScript and Flash on your site in addition to having an orderly navigation with categories that help to organize your website will all help push your site in the right direction.
2. The Keywords
Each and every last one of your web pages on your site needs to have it’s own unique keyword phrase that it’s being optimized for. When you’re exploring keywords for use on your site, you’ll want to begin with those keywords that are easy to rank well for. These are commonly those keywords that don’t have a lot of searches done on them but also don’t have much competition in the search engines. The goal is to start and slowly build up to the more competitive terms.
3. The Title of Your Web Page
Every web page on your website should be centered on a specific keyword. That is, a word or phrase you want that web page to turn up for in the search engines. The title of your web page tells the search engines exactly what that web page is about and what it can expect to find within the rest of the content on that page. Always use the keyword or keyword phrase that you would like to rank well for in the title of your web page and keep it contained within the <TITLE> </TITLE> tags of your HTML code. Additionally, refrain from using your business name in the title. Doing this will only dilute the importance of the keywords you’re trying to rank well for.
4. Your Meta Description Tag
While many meta tags, such as the meta keywords tag, are rarely used by the major search engines anymore to determine what’s contained within your web page, the meta description tag is one of them that is used. The description is what shows as the text just below the link to your site in a search engine results page or SERP. While it won’t provide a huge hike in rankings, it will help your possible site visitors to make that all-important decision to click your link over your competitions. Use your keywords within the meta description tag, but also make it enticing to your would-be site visitors by offering an incentive to visit you such as a free report or free tips.
5. Keywords in a Header
You can think of a heading on your web page like a headline in a newspaper. The headline generally gives basic information about what’s contained within the rest of the article. The heading on a web page works much the same way as a newspaper article only within the web page, the heading contains the keywords you’re optimizing that page for. When you write the heading, incorporate the keywords you’ve chosen for that page. The heading doesn’t have to contain ONLY the keywords but it should work them into a clear format.
Additionally, not all headings are created equal. Headings range from <H1> header tags all the way to <H6> header tags with <H1> being the most important, <H2> the second most authoritative and so on. So always make certain you’re using the <H1> tag when writing a heading for your web page.
6. Keywords in the Content
When you begin to write the content of your web page you’ll want to incorporate the keyword phrase you’ve chosen for that page where it would fit naturally. Whatever you do, forget keyword density; put differently, using your keywords a certain percentage of time throughout your content. Instead, concentrate on using your keyword phrase naturally while also using words and phrases related to the keyword itself. You can generally see what Google believes to be similar terms to your keyword phrase by simply using Google’s free keyword tool which you can find by doing a Google search, entering in your keyword phrase and then scrolling down to the section “Additional keywords to Consider”.
7. Linking Your Pages
Links are very important to search engines. Especially Google and this not only means links coming to your website but how you link up your own website’s pages. When you link to another page on your site, be sure you’re using the keywords of the page you are linking to within the anchor text. In other words, the “clickable” portion of the link.
8. Using Images
Images are very important to add to a web page because they add to the visual appeal. However, when you do use images on your web pages its important that you do two things with that image. First, give the image a description within the <alt> tag. This means that if you’re writing a web page on “dog training tips” that you’d have an image on your page associated with that topic and that the alt tag of that image contains a description of that image. Second, add a caption underneath the image again describing the image. Whatever you do don’t make the mistake of stuffing keywords within these areas; in other words using the keywords you’re optimizing your page for time and time again within the alt tag or the caption of the image. Instead just use a brief message depicting the image.
All of these on-page SEO techniques will work to your favor if you simply use them with each and every web page. Although for a one-man or woman operation it can get very time-consuming so if possible, outsource these simple tasks to someone willing to do the work for you. This will allow you to focus on building incoming links to your website from outside sources which is a very large contributing factor as to how well you rank for all of your keywords including those more competitive keywords that you’ll eventually begin working with on your site.
Related posts:
- SEO Tips – 25 of Them…
- 14 Slick SEO Tips (and some myths)
- Meta Tag Optimization Don’t Confuse Meta Tags With SEO
- Bing’s Free SEO Toolkit Review
- Where to Find & Get FREE Content & Links
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