Search engine optimization, better known as SEO, is how websites are developed to allow them to be found online when someone searches for a key term. By optimizing your website for individual keywords, and following basic Google algorithm requirements, your website will easily show up on search engines.

 

SEO is used for both people and search engines to know exactly what your website is about. You have to optimize your website for both the user experience and the search engine crawlers, they are equally as important.

 

User Experience

The user experience will ensure that people visiting your site can find the information they are looking for quickly and easily. Focusing on design as well as placement of information, white space, graphics, photos, etc. makes sure you provide a great experience for your visitors.

 

Also, writing styles should be done in a way that it feels like you are talking directly to the user on your website. You should tell them what you can do to solve their problem and do it in a way that is clear and easy to understand.

 

Pictures, graphics, and videos show additional information to your visitors with ease. There is a ton of information that can easily be conveyed when someone looks at a photo or video since there is so much more data that can easily be digested.

 

Finally, a clean layout without a lot of clutter makes the whole experience much easier to follow through. Using white space, clear headers, easily readable fonts, and more will make your website look professional and uncluttered.

 

Make the people that reach your website understand exactly what you want them to do and what the next steps would be when on your website.

 

Meta Title Tag

Meta title tags are used to provide a quick title on what your webpage is about. This is typically between 40 and 70 characters, though there are no actual character requirements or restrictions. This is the blue (or purple if you already clicked on it) link that shows up when you Google something.

 

The title tag is what the reader is going to see first so this needs to be catchy and grab their attention. Have fun with it, but make sure it accurately describes what is on the actual web page.

 

Meta Description Tag

The meta description tag is used to describe the page in more detail. This can be around 140-150 characters in length and can be more descriptive than the title tag.

 

This is the gray text shown below the blue lines in the search results.

 

The description tag should also contain relevant keywords to the page and provide more context. Optimizing this for the reader as well as search engines will ensure your page is the one clicked on more frequently.

 

Header Tags

Header tags are labeled as H1 through H6. For example, the words above are actually H2 and the title to this post is an H1. These tell search engines what the primary subject of the page includes and in what order.

 

There should only ever be one H1 tag per page; however, with certain formatting, this can be difficult and would need to be changed in the code section of a website. H2 tags are the next step down followed by H3.

 

H4 through H6 tags are not used as often but are still valuable to building websites and should not be overlooked.

 

Basically, as the titles become less important, the H heading becomes a higher number. Think of it like a bullet point list or chapter subheadings, the most important is the H1-H3, where the less important and less uses, are the H4-H6.

 

Image Alt Text

Search spiders cannot see what is on a picture. It has no clue if that photo you are looking at is of a person, a landscape, a building, or anything else for that matter. Image alt text is how crawlers can tell what the photo is about.

 

Image alt text should be descriptive and contain keyword phrases if relevant to the site.

 

Basically, if you have a website about puppies and you post a photo of a puppy in a basket, you can describe the photo as a puppy in a basket.

 

There are no character limits to alt text for images, so be as descriptive as possible when writing out your image alt text. The more you describe your image, the better Google can categorize it for its search engine results page.

 

Conclusion on SEO

All of the above aspects are what search engines look at to determine if your pages match the search term that the user is looking for. Using the correct formats and following this technique will ensure that when someone is looking for what you provide, you will show up in their results.

 

Have a WordPress website? There is a great plugin to ensure that you have followed the correct SEO protocol for each one of your web pages. Check out SEOPressor and see how your site is doing for SEO optimization. Best of all, one license is all that is needed for all your WordPress sites.