Web Design and Search Engine Optimization should always be considered necessary for each other on any website. However, many people never take the time to perform even the slightest SEO strategies when adding pages, and images to a website.
Simple steps that are consistently taken will ensure a website that has the necessary factors for search engine readiness. There are many different philosophies, software programs, and expensive courses from some guru on how to get traffic to your site all will point back to the basics at some point. Funny how the basics never seem to go out of style.
Basics in SEO are pretty straight forward. They can be put into two categories, on page optimization, and off page optimization. Let us define what these are.
On Page SEO
- <title> The title of the site should always include the page name as well as the site name. Shows in search results.
- <description> Grammatically correct description of what the page is all about. Shows in search results.
- <keywords> The words placed here should accurately reflect what is on the page. Spam in this area only hurts ranking.
- Content is where the magic really happens. Think of the content that you like to read, and create keyword rich text with anchor links/links.
- Images should be optimized for size, name, title, and alternate text. Always replace 45020929.jpg with something meaningful like red-robin.jpg.
- Navigation title should reflect keywords, and frequently are also the title of the page.
- Use the footer area to list an auxiliary navigation to legals, contact, etc., as well as copyright info.
That is pretty much the recipe that all SEO professionals will work with in the on page optimization of a website. These principals have proven to be somewhat timeless in these early years of the world wide web, and should always be considered necessary for traffic.
Off Page SEO
- Submit url with accurate descriptions to Google, Yahoo, Bing, and DMOZ at a bare minimum.
- Become interested and educated in using the webmaster tools provided by the large search engines.
- Place business on every map, and subscribe to business listings with search engines.
- Join social media groups and get involved.
- Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon your good work.
- Find communities, and forums that resemble your business then get involved.
- Start a link building program.
There are many off page avenues that can bring traffic to your website so be creative. Getting involved in worthy areas is always worth much more than the fly by night push button software that solves all your problems.
Search Engine Optimization is a very demanding, precise method that can make a website attractive to the search engines, and to the visitor as well. SEO that is done correctly will place a site somewhere in the mix of the competition, and provide a good foundation from which to improve. There is no secret code, magic bullet, or super program that does this work for anyone. Take the work at hand one step at a time, do things correctly, and most of all be patient because good ranking takes time to build.