Creating search-engine-optimized Web pages is the core effort of a successful Internet marketing campaign. Taking care of technical on-site factors such as file names, title tags, meta description tags, meta keyword tags, and meta robots tags is crucial to making sure the search-engine spiders can determine the relevance of your web site.
Optimization of images is important for those Web browsers that do not support images, and because search-engine spiders cannot read the content of an image, optimizing images presents an extra avenue to squeeze in more content.
Choose File Names
Using file names that are relevant to the content of you Web page is important for numerous reasons. The search-engine spiders see your file names before anything else.
Besides your domain name, the first thing search engines discover when spidering through the pages of your Web ste are your file names. Make sure your file names are relevant! Have a specific topic in mind. A good practice is naming each Web page after the main key phrase that the page is about.
Tip: Search engines specialists have stated that hyphens in URLs and Web page file names are viewed as spaced by the search-engine ranking algorithms. But an overuse of hyphens is considered to be a spamming technique and can result in a penalty. So try to limit hyphen usage to no more than three hyphens per file name. The search engines have begun to treat underscores similarly to hyphens, so limit this one as well. Also keep URL lengths as short as possible. A 30-character URL is far easier to remember than a 300-character URL.
Optimize Title Tags
The first thing a visitor sees when finding your page on the search-engine results is your title tag. Title tags should be descriptive of what your Web page is about and compel potential visitors to visit your site.
Also search engines use the text contained within the title tag as primary factor to determine what the content of a certain Web page is about.
Tip: Limit your title tag to 65 characters or less. Write concise statement summarizing the main point of your content. Be unique with each title tag and include keywords you want to rank for. Another hot tip is that the web page file name should relate very closely to the page title tag.
Optimize Meta Description Tags
Some search engine use the meta description tags in their result pages directly underneath the Web page titles.
Because this information is displayed in the search results you can use it as a method to deliver your marketing message and entice search-engine visitors to click on your listing versus clicking on your competition.
Make sure that all you pages have a unique meta description tag.
Whether Google uses meta description tags in its ranking algorithms is not know. I think you should still take advantage of search-engines spiders that do use the mega description tag in their ranking algorithms.
Tip: Try a free meta tag generator from SEOBook.com at http://tools.seobook.com/meta-medic.
Optimize Meta Keyword Tags
Although many search engines ignore this tag, some likely still use it in their ranking algorithms. For that reason I recommend you implement this tag on all your Web pages.
The mega keyword tag contains a list of keywords or phrases, separated by commas that describe the subject matter of a particular Web page.
For each page generate a short list of no more than ten keywords or phrases and include them in the meta keyword tag. Do not repeat keywords or phrases and be sure that each Web page on your site has a unique meta keyword tag.
Tip: Widexl.com offers an invaluable tool to help analyze meta tags. Keep your title, description, and keywords meta tags within the length requirements. The tool can also be used to analyze your competitors’ meta tags if you are curious to see what they have done differently.
Create a Meta Robots Tag
There are situations where the privacy of a particular Web page or Web site is of utmost concern. This is especially useful if certain sections of your Web site require payment to access. The last think you want is search engines sending visitors directly to those locations.
You can use the meta robots tag to tell a search-engine spider whether or not the Web page it visits should be indexed or if links on that page should be followed. These search-engine “robots” often need to be controlled.
Depending on your web hosting, you may or may not have the ability to create and add a robots.txt file.
Benefit with Header Tags
Emphasize your main topics and ideas. A well structured Web page has a logical hierarchal flow with headings and subheadings fortified with content.
You can use HTML header tags to apply significance to keywords or phrases within a web page. Header tags are arranged in preset levels of importance ranging from <h1>, the most important, to <h6>, the least important.
Header tags can be used anywhere within the <body> tag of an HTML document.
Using Text Modifiers
Emphasize appropriate keywords and phrases within your content. Your Web page content should speak to visitors, emphasizing words and phrases to express urgency or significance. You can emphasize certain blocks by bolding, italicizing, or underlining.
Optimize Images
Spiders still cannot read any images present on your pages. Using ALT Image tags to describe your images gives the search engines a readable text description of those images and also aids in compatibility with non-graphical Web browsers.
Do not repeat the same words over and over again, and never repeat the same Alt Image tag more than once unless the image itself is repeated.
Create Links
The structure of your links tells the search engines what the linked Web page is about. Your internal linking structure is taken into consideration by ranking algorithms that determine where your Web pages rank for target keywords and phrases.
Link creation may be a basic task, but if done correctly, it can be tremendously influential to your overall search-engine rankings.
Generally speaking, the higher a link appears on the page, the more it assists the rankings of the Web page it links to. Also, links embedded within blocks of content hold more value than isolated links. If possible, avoid using images to link to other pages or your Web site.
Validate HTML
Writing valid HTML is just as important as speaking proper English. Search engines read Web sites line by line, and errors in your HTML syntax can trigger a penalty if the invalid code prevents the search-engine spider from reading the content.
Optimize your Web pages by not having excess markup code surrounding your main page content. Although it has not been proven to increase search-engine rankings, writing valid HTML is another weapon in an arsenal of best-practice techniques that are likely to have a cumulative effect on overall search-engine approval.
