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SEO: search engine optimization

This is NOT an all-inclusive article on how to make it rich with great Google rankings. It is a getting started guide for setting up a website that will get will be well-received by automated search engines.

If you want to learn more, there are a multitude of great websites out there (just search the web for SEO), or check out this great book: Search Engine Optimization, an Hour a Day.

It's all about Content

If you really want your website to be a rising star, give your audience a reason to visit. Provide quality information that is well-organized and chock-full of meaningful, keyword-rich text.

The actual page copy should be short and informative (expect that website users are lazy, and don’t want to read much). If you want information to stand out, take advantage of headlines and photo captions.

Link text and Alt tags and great code (oh my!)

Okay, it's not ALL about the primary content, but the end-goal of search engines is to move sites with great content to the top of the pile. There are a few tricks we can use to help get your site there faster.

Consider your link text

Search engines consider the text you link from to be more important than the surrounding text.

This is is an example of a missed opportunity:
"To learn more about red pebble web design, click here."

This is an example of grabbing the gold ring:
"Learn more about great web design in Duluth, MN."

Think about the words your audience will be searching for, and put them in your link text!

Alt text for photos

Behind every photo is an opportunity to provide some alternate (Alt) text that can both be indexed by search engines AND that can provide users who can't see your photos an idea of the message they convey (someone using a screen reader, for example).

Great code

There are a few coding-tricks that make your website more "legible" to the search engine robots. I'll use those tricks, so you don't have to!

Meta-tags: Keywords, Page Titles, and Descriptions

This is the often-hidden text that you can use to improve the ranking of your site. You should have unique tags for EVERY page of your site. The more unique keyword lists, page titles, and descriptions you have, the more likely an internet search will find one of your pages.

Keywords

What words are people going to be searching for in order to find your site? Make sure to consider any misspellings and add them to your list.

You will want write your page titles, page descriptions, and page copy to be keyword-rich. Make sure each keyword (except for common misspellings) shows up at least once between those three areas.  We will also add a hidden list of keywords to the .html code, (which is where we’ll throw the common misspellings).  However, this is not relied on very heavily in search engine indexing.

Page title

This is the text that shows up at the top of the browser bar, and is the text highlighted at the top of the Google Search results entry.  It is the first thing a searcher will read – so you want it convey the purpose of the page.

Description text

This text is “hidden” in the html code.  However, it is heavily indexed by Google, and is often the text that shows up under the title on the Google Search results.  It should be written to compliment the Page Title, as that is often how web searchers will see it.

Confused?

Look at this Case Study for True North Cedar, with targeted Keywords, Titles, and Descriptions for all pages of a manufacturing business website.