As many web developers are aware of, many rate Google as the world’s top ranked search engine. It can be a pain sometimes to get indexed by Google, but gaining high ranking for their specific keywords seems to be something that is quite difficult for many web developers who do not have specific search engine optimization (SEO) training or experience to achieve.
The following is a brief tutorial on search engine optimization basics. We use many of these techniques every day to optimize websites and stay ahead of the competition.
Better Rankings in 4 Steps
Step 1. Select The Right Keywords
The first important step is to select the right keywords for basing your website optimization around. The best approach is usually not to choose generic or general keywords. It is usually better to focus on more specific, niche keywords that directly relate to your service or product.
In order to do this you need to target a suitable market, compete with fewer websites that are targeting the same or similar keywords as you, and optimize for the keywords that searchers actually use when they perform their searches.
How you target a suitable market depends on what specific services and products you offer and on your website. You need to be as specific as possible when it comes to your keywords. Also keep in mind that people don’t usually search using single keywords, example FoS0zsYcA5BP30 . Most search phrases are 3-5 words long.
For example, if you were trying to optimize a web development website based in Dublin, Ireland you would want to use keywords like “web development Dublin” or “web development services Ireland.”
In order to figure out the number of websites competing with you on your keywords, just do a Google search and take note of the number of results that are returned. The more sites there are competing with you on your keywords, the more difficult it will be for you to get your website on Google’s first page of the search results.
To get a rough idea of the number of people searching for your keywords that you would like to optimize your website for, the Google External Keyword tool can be used. It isn’t exact but will give you a fairly good estimate. You will also be provided with other keywords in a list that are similar to the one that you enter into the keyword tool. It can a great way of finding more keywords to use when optimizing your website.
A general guideline you can go by is to use a different search phrase for each page of your website. Your search phrases should consist of 2 or 3 keywords that are highly targeted.
Step 2. Title Tag and URL
Two of the major factors determining your website’s ranking in Google are your title tag and domain name. Having your main keywords in your domain name can help to get your website ranked higher for that keyword. Some people might think that having keywords in our website’s domain name looks unprofessional or our domain name is already registered. An alternative and useful tactic is to add keywords into your page names.
Title tags are also very important. Using your keywords in the title tags can significantly improve your Google rankings. However, it can sometimes be a bit more difficult to balance keyword density with professionalism when using the title tags. Try to get your keywords as close to beginning of the title tag as you can.
Step. 3 Keyword Density and H1 Tags
These days the <h1> tag isn’t used as much in stylesheets as it once was. The ranking algorithm of Google dictates that when you use a </h1>
<h1> that the text enclosed in the tag has more importance than the rest of the content on the page.
Sprinkling your main keywords throughout the content of your pages also can help to improve the keyword density on your site. What keyword density means is the ratio of the keywords you are optimizing for in relation to all of the other content that is on your page. Usually keyword density is expressed in the form of a percentage. Some experts recommend that your keyword density should be around 7% for each page, while others recommend less. The key is to not overdo keyword density but also to not overlook it.
Step 4. Links, Links, Links
Now for the hardest part of the Google optimization process: back links. A back link occurs when a website links directly back to your website. In general the more websites linking back to your site, the higher ranked your pages will be. The assumption is that you must have a good website if lots of other sites are linking to it.
Submitting your website to directories like dmoz.org and Yahoo is another step that can help increase how many websites link back to your site. Keep in mind that it does take time to set up back links. I would recommend that you email 5-10 websites each day requesting a partnership link or back link. You should contact sites that are relevant but not necessarily direct competitors. Within a weeks, you could have around 100 or so sites linking back to your website.
Google can be a hard search engine to rank for. Hopefully these basic tips will help you get off to a good start in optimizing your website or client websites.
