Over the years we seem to run into similar situations with clients. Whether big or small, many organizations are making similar mistakes with their websites. Sometimes fixing the simple things can make a big difference in your search engine rankings.
Is it really that important to be listed on the top of page one? A recent research study suggested that 90% of internet searchers clicked on one of the top three organic links 100% of the time. Being on the top of page one, clearly results in more targeted traffic to your site.
So what are the easy mistakes to avoid?
1. Page titles
The page title is found at the top of your browser window. It tells both the page viewer and Google what that specific page is about.
Page titles should be less then 70 characters in length, or they run the risk of being truncated by the search engines. Be sure to use your targeted keyword phrases in each page title. Every page on your website should be optimized for a unique page title.
Page titles should be concise and use only targeted keyword phrases where possible. Don’t waste characters on filler words. It is important to consider that these page titles are written as much, if not more for search engines, then they are for web viewers.
2. Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions are important in motivating searchers to your site. The meta description is the text beneath the page title in the search engine results page (SERP). This needs to be written to communicate clearly the benefit of this particular page. And like page titles it can also be cut off if you use too many characters.
150 – 160 characters is commonly thought to be optimal.
The example below illustrates a random search term for “hair design studio”. The first line in blue illustrates the title tag and the meta description follows below.
3. Alt tags and header tags
An ALT tag is the search engines way to understand images on a page. Because search engines cannot “read” images, the use of ALT tags on all images ensure search engines know what the content is about.
The header tag tells search engines what the primary purpose of the page is. It is usually situated near the top of the web page much like an actual headline. In the example above, you will see that the number one result for the search term “hair design studios” uses the header tag as described.
<h1 id=”fw-title”><a id=”fw-titlelink” href=”http://www.studiohairdesign.org/”>
Studio Hair Design</a></h1>
<h2 id=”fw-smalltitle”>Hair Salon and Esthetics</h2>
4. What are your website’s targeted keywords?
Before your company embarks on any major internet marketing initiative or a website redesign, be sure to know exactly what the keywords your site is targeting. Knowing this will help determine the setup of your page structure and navigation naming conventions.
Even for existing sites, each page is an opportunity to be found for unique and different content. Some of your targeted keyword phrases may be more competitive then others to be listed for. Be sure to diversify and target a variety of keyword phrases throughout your site. Each page can realistically target no more then 1 – 3 unique keyword phrases.
5. Not measuring your results.
So you’ve optimized your site for title tags, meta descriptions and all the other important factors. Now what? Do you know what the fruits of your labors have been? If your not measuring and tracking the results, you have no accurate way to determine if the work you are doing is on track and providing positive results.
Be sure to install and start tracking results on a monthly basis. The most popular tool at this point is Google analytics. It’s easy to install and provides an enormous amount of data to measure how you’re doing.
If you’re ready to start moving those search engine results in the right direction, but aren’t quite sure where to begin, give us a call today.
