Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the hardest thing I do for clients. Even though I try to thoroughly explain what is required by the search engines for the page to be optimized, it just does not sink in. I have some who want it to show up in the first 10 results on the search engines the first day it hits the Internet and they just don’t understand that we have no control over when the search engines will spider the websites, we just know the site has been optimized and submitted to the search engines. On the average, it takes about one month for the search engines to spider your website once it has been submitted. How do you optimized a website? One page at a time.

Page Title – The “Joe’s Fish Shack”. This is the title of the website that shows up in the top left corner of the browser window. the recommended title length should be between 30 – 60 characters. If it is over 60 characters in length, it is likely to get cut off on search engine results. It helps if you can incorporate the most relevant keyword into your site title. Be sure to begin the site title with your business name.

Keywords – The recommended number of keywords (or keyword combination) is between 10 and 20. If you have too many keywords the search engines will frown on the site and possibly penalize it. Each page can have a different combination of keywords. The important thing is if you use keywords in the meta tag of the page, you need to make sure the spiders can find it several times on the page.

Description – The information you place in the description meta tag is what the search engines use to display giving a brief explaination of what the page is about. The description should be no longer than 150-160 characters (not words).

Content – For search engines to find the keywords from your meta tags on your page, you have to have “content” on the page. There are people who just want pictures on the page and no text. This means the page will probably never show up in the search engines for any keyword listed in the meta tags. For each keyword you want the page to be found, you need at least 300 words with that particular word repeated several times. For example, if you had six different keywords (keyword phrases) you want one page to be found on the search engines for, then the page would have to have at least 1800 words on the page with each block of 300 dedicated to each keyword/keyword phrase. It’s best if you start the first sentence with your keyword. Using H1, H2, and H3 tags with your keywords in them is also good optimization. Use the “alt” tags of your images for your keyword/keyword phrase on the page.