Post on 17-May-2015
description
Knows Best
A Discussion of SEO Best Practices
and How to Use Them
Hall Web Services
Who We AreHall Web Serviceswww.hallme.com
10+ Years in Business Over 80 Search Marketing Clients 98% of Customers "Very Satisfied"
Kasi GajtkowskiOrganic Search Specialistkasi@hallme.com
Ask Us Questions!
* Use GoToWebinar “Chat” or “Ask a Question”
* Twitter with #SEOvision tag
What We Expect You To Know:
• What "SEO" Means (Search Engine Optimization)
• The importance of having a site that does well in search engines
• What “keywords” are (and you should have some ideas around what the keywords are for your business/website)
What You'll Learn: An overview of what the basic SEO “best practices” for on page SEO elements
How to apply them to a website
What longtail keywords are why they help drive qualified traffic to a site
How Does It Rank?
How Best Practices Work
On Page SEO Optimization(What the heck is that?)
“On page” just refers to the elements, text, and content of a web page.
“On page SEO” means optimizing this information so that it is easier for search engines to find those web pages.
And the important elements are...
Important Elements of a Web Page for SEO
HTML code that provides information about each web page:
•Title Tag
•H1 Headline
•META Description
•META Keywords
•ALT Image Attribute
Source Code of a Web Page
Title Tag
Title TagONE OF THE MOST IMPORANT THINGS A SEARCH
ENGINE LOOKS AT!
• 5 to 12 words in length (or 65 characters)
• Use the keywords that describe the content of that specific page
• Title Tags should be unique for each of the different web pages of your website
BAD TITLE TAG
The title of this web page is: “Home – A WebsiteBuilder Website”
GOOD TITLE TAG
The title of this web page is: “Maui Condos, Vacation Rental Villas, Hawaii Vacations”
GOOD VS. BAD TITLE TAG
H1 TagHere is what it looks like on a web page
(it's a heading):
Maui Vacation Rentals, Condos, Hawaii VacationsExplore all of our glorious vacation rentals, condos, and other properties for
your Hawaiian vacation.
H1 TagThis is the HTML code for a “heading” in the content on a web page
Straight from the horse's (Google's) mouth:“The Google ranking algorithm dictates that if you're using a <h1> tag, then the text in between this
tag must be more important than the content on the rest of the page. Here's a quick example:
<h1>Google sees this text as more important</h1>
<p>... than this text</p>”
• Use the keywords that describe the content of that page – be specific
• Can be similar to the title tag of the page
Bad H1
Good H1
Maui Vacation Rentals, Condos, Hawaii VacationsExplore our beautiful Maui vacation rentals, condos...
Welcome to our Vacation SiteWe specialize in vacations.
META Description Tag
often appears here
META Description TagDescription of the web page
• Used to describe what the web page is about
• Google often uses the description tag as the “snippet” of the web page in the search results
• Important place to use keywords of the page due to the "bolding" that occurs in the visual snippet of the search results:
Bad META Description
Good META Description
Welcome to our vacation website. We specialize in vacations.
Vacation rentals in Maui including condos and vacation villas...
META Keywords TagHidden from web users except when a web page's source
code is viewed.
• It's a tag in the HTML code that contains the keywords of a web page (2 or 3 most important terms)
• Google and other search engines ignore because of previous abuse – Google confirmed that it does not look at this tag when ranking pages.
• Yahoo! does still use it to a very small degree, but Yahoo! Search technology will be replaced by Bing next year.
• I am personally phasing it out due to it's diminished value.
Alt IMG AttributeThe text used to describe an image on a web page
(Not visible to the eye unless you mouse over an image in Internet Explorer or right-click and view “Properties”)
• Text-voice software for visually impaired uses this text
• Search engines can index the alt IMG text that is supplied
• Use 1 or 2 keywords in your alt IMG attribute to help contribute to web page's relevancy for those search words
Bad Alt IMG Attribute
Good Alt IMG Attribute
“Missing”
Maui Vacation Rentals – Aloha Villa
A Few Words on Keywords• Short Tail Vs. Long tail
– 1 or 2 words vs. 3-5 words
• Generic Searches vs. More Specific
– 4-word searches grew 2% in the past year (source: Hitwise Report Feb 24th, 2009)
• Longtail = less visitors but they're more qualified
Maui Condos: Longtail
• Maui vacation condos
• Maui vacation condo rentals
• Maui vacation condos Kihei
• Beachfront Maui vacation condos
Time for a Recap!
Title Tag: - most important element- use 2-3 keywords- unique for each web page
H1 Headline: - “heading” in content- use keywords- can be similar to title tag
META Description: - description of web page- use keywords for web page- will be bold in search results
META Keywords: - contains the keywords targeted on web page- I don't recommend using it (Google doesn't look at it)
ALT Image Attribute: - text description of an image, use keywords- search engines & voice readers can process the text
Longtail Keywords: - 3 to 5 words in length- drives less traffic but the searchers are more qualified
Learn More!
= Free Professional Look at Your Website
• Free Internet Strategy Consultation: http://www.hallme.com/free-internet-strategy-consultation.php
• Web Vision Blog - http://www.hallme.com/blog
• Webinars – http://www.hallme.com/webinars
• Follow Hall on Twitter - @Hall_Web
• Call us! 1-877-425-5932 (HALL-WEB)