As I met with some very large companies this last week, I was asked a few times about what the most important things are to do when considering SEO. Linking? Content? Alt tags? I think it’s important to remember one thing before answering that question, why are you doing SEO? Is it just to get the number one ranking on a search engine? I doubt it!
While having that ranking may be nice so you can pad your resume (yeah, it does feel nice to have that on there) your real goal is for those visitors to come to your site. Remember them? The people who are searching for your website? The reason why you’re coming up number one on the search engines? Yeah, them. They’re kind of important.
That said, my number one thing to worry about when doing SEO is content, for two reasons. #1 - you want to have the information that your visitors were looking for so they don’t hit the back button and go looking somewhere else. #2 - the search engine spiders and bots need to have good “food” to eat. So you want good, rich (keyword rich), content. Plentiful, somewhat like an all-you-can-eat buffet bar, with a variety of subjects available to be devoured, but all centered around the same theme. That’s what your visitors will be interested in too.
The next thing is your incoming links. You’ve got to have incoming links so people can find your site. I mean, seriously, how’s someone going to find you if you don’t have incoming links? Right, they’re not! So you need to get busy with your social networking, your business associates, all your clients, send out press releases, and so on. Get those links coming in!
Third, title tags. Those tags that come up at the very tip top of the browser window. I know this has been said so many times that it’s almost nauseating to have to say it again, but evidently it needs to be said again. Each and every page, yes every page, needs to have an individual title tag for it. No duplicate title tags on the site. If you’re using a Content Management System (CMS) that doesn’t allow you to do this, find another one now! Each page has different content, right? So each page needs a different title tag. It’s like the chapter heading in a book.
Meta tags and alt tags. Yes, I still believe in them. The reason why I believe in them is because I’ve seen them make a difference in the results of a site and I’ve seen them be shown on sites such as Google. So yeah, argue with me if you must, but you won’t convince me otherwise cuz I’ve run my own tests and meta tags need to be completed. Meta tags include the keywords and the description tags. Alt tags. The reason for using these is again two fold. #1 - usability. There are people out there with bad eyesight or who have a hard time downloading images. The alt tags make it easier for them and they can determine if your image is something they want to wait and see or not. If it’s a link, they know if it’s the link they’re looking for.
Headings. Using H1, Bold, Italics. These tags tell the spiders/bots that what you’ve got within these tags are important. Now don’t go crazy and create a page that has everything in bold or everything in an H1 tag, that would just be stupid. Remember you want a user, a real live person, to read this stuff and think you’re good to do business with? When you have titles, don’t use images, use text and then make it look like it’s a chapter heading; make it stand out with bolding or italics.
