SEO Check List
November 25th, 2009 | 
Author: Understand your market!
Keyword research will play a big part in understanding your market. Don’t guess what your potential clients are searching for, find out using keyword research. Your keyword research will drive your site’s content and getting this right is essential. Don’t just chase keywords with huge search volume. Unless you are lucky thousands of other sites will also be chasing them and ranking for them could be tough. Look at the long tail of search.
Make your website search engine friendly!
Make sure each page has a unique title element, make sure each page has a unique meta description element, make sure each page has a unique meta keywords element (this one isn’t critical but it’s still worth doing). Use HTML H elements to organise your page content logically and use a CSS based design, not table based. In short use simple web page quality control. The majority of the sites we review miss these basics.
Create content that will help your users
Put your self into the shoes of the people you hope will visit your site. Don’t Make Them Think! No aspect of your site should be a compromise, consider your users at every turn.
Have a link building strategy!
Links to your site are vital. You can build links by asking other sites to link to you or you can attract links by creating content others will want to link to. Don’t expect quality sites to link to your site unless there’s a good reason. Link building is a vital aspect of search engine success.
Be patient!
It’s pretty much impossible to build a site and attract lots of search engine traffic quickly. There are exceptions but they are rare. Unless you have something earth shattering to say you need to understand that search engine success takes months and years, not days and weeks. For immediate search engine exposure consider using Pay Per Click advertising.
Be persistent!
Don’t expect to build your site and then wait for the visitors. Most sites require constant effort and work if you want to see results. Think of your website as a diary, not a novel. If you haven’t got the resources to do this in house consider using a website management service.
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Robots Meta Tags
Your search engine ranking can improve with a robots meta tags
Unlike human editors, search engines use digital robots, which act like mini vacuum cleaners, sucking up information about your web site that will allow it to add each web page it visits to it’s search index accurately.
In the meta tags <robots> you should instruct the visiting robot on whether you want it to see what you have on a web page, or decide not to allow it to see your private content. To allow this to happen, you have 2 choices. You can either add the <robots> meta tag or add a robots.txt file. Both are explained here.
The robots meta tag is a tag to tell a robot if it is ok to index this page or not. It also is used to invite a spider to walk down through all your pages. It is growing in importance.
Some search engines, such as Inktomi now fully obey the Robots Meta Tag. Inktomi will crawl down through a site if the Index,Follow syntax is used.
Robots meta tag format
The Robots META tag is placed in the HEAD section of your HTML document:
The format is quite simple: (case is not significant)
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Your web page title </TITLE>
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW">
</HEAD> <BODY>
Robot meta tag options
There are four directives that can be placed in a robots meta tag. The CONTENT section of the meta tag can contain: index,noindex,follow,nofollow and are separated by commas.
At this point, only the following combinations make sense:
The INDEX directive tells the robot it is ok to index the page.
The FOLLOW directive tells the robot it is ok to follow the links found on this page. Some search engine articles on Robots Meta tag say the predefined defaults are INDEX and FOLLOW, not true with Inktomi. The default with Inktomi is index,nofollow .
There are also, two global directives that can specify both actions: ALL=INDEX,FOLLOW, and NONE=NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW .
Robots Meta Tag Examples :
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,FOLLOW">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,NOFOLLOW">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW">
Tags:
Description Meta Tags
Your search engine ranking can improve with great description meta tags
Description meta tags appear in the <head> section of a web page. It is displayed in some search engines and should contain one or more repetitions of the primary keyword associated with your web page.
In addition to the title meta tag some search engines will display your description meta tags in the search engine results pages.
Google doesn’t, but other engines such as AltaVista, Inktomi and FAST do. If you have unique titles on all your web pages and the copy on your site is in final form, description tags are a next logical step.
Your web page description meta tags need to compliment your title meta tag. It needs to tell your audience why they should click on your listing. What’s in it for them? Why should they click? What will they find that sets your site apart?
For an improved search engine ranking, it’s important to have keywords in your description meta tags, but more importantly , use the description tag to sell your website to your visitors.
Search engines that display the description meta tag typically display around 150 characters of it. Unlike the title tag, which is often limited to displaying 70 characters, you can put a more complete sentence or sales pitch in the description tag.
Meta description tags goes in the <head> section of your web page just like the title meta tag. If you already have title tags in the <head> section of your webpages, when your description tags are added it will look like this:
<html>
<head>
<title> Searching for my keywords? Find keyword here! </title>
<meta name=”description” content=”Tell me why I should click here and make sure to use your keywords in this description”>
</head>
The bold text is where your actual description will be in the code of your web page.
Be creative and use your primary keywords in your “description meta tag”.
Homepage | Blog | Internet Speed Test | Meta Tag Generator | Google Indexing Tool
Title Meta Tags Explained
Now it’s time get down to the meat! In this article we’ll drill into one of the most important factors in achieving high search engine rankings, the title tag.
Where is the title meta tag on a web page?
A title meta tag is essentially an HTML code snippet that creates the words that appear in the top bar of your Web browser, for example, “Title meta tags.” These words were entered into the title tag of the site’s HTML code. They don’t appear anywhere on the actual Web page. The HTML code for a title tag looks like this:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Title meta tags</TITLE>
</HEAD>
The title tag is usually the first element in the <HEAD> section, followed by meta description and meta keywords tags.
Some Web site creation tools automatically generate the title tag from information you provide. You may have noticed Web pages that are labeled “Page 1,” “Page 2,” or “Home Page” in the browser bar. Labels like these are used by beginning Web site designers who simply don’t know how to use title tags for maximum benefit.
Title meta tags and search engine ranking
All search engines use title tags to gather information about your Web site. The word(s) in the title tag will appear in the hyperlink listings on the search engine results page; people click the hyperlink to go to your site. Arguably, your title tag is second in importance only to the actual text on the page in determining your search engine ranking.
So far as placement of your title tags is concerned, most search engine experts agree that it probably doesn’t matter if the title tag is the first element in the <HEAD> section. However, I believe that good coding practice argues for placing it first.
What not to put in your title met tags
More important than the placement of the title tag are the words you put in the tag, and the order in which those words appear. Many site owners mistakenly believe they should put their company names in this tag. This is only a good idea if you are a well-known company that people will be searching for by name, such as Coca-Cola or McDonalds. Otherwise, you should assume that most potential customers will be searching for specific products or services, not a particular company name.
For example, if your company is named “Johnson and Smith Inc.” and you are a tax accountant in Utah, putting only “Johnson and Smith Inc.” in your title tag will probably be fruitless. If you absolutely insist on including your company name in the title tag, put it at the end of the tag, after the more important keyword information. (A number of search engine gurus believe that some search engines give more weight to words that appear first in the title tag.)
Title meta tags should be specific keywords and keyword phrases
As the Utah tax accountant, you would want your company’s site to appear in the search engine results for searches on keywords such as “Utah tax accountants” and “CPAs in Utah.” You would need to be even more specific if you prefer to work for people only in the St. George area. In that case, use keywords such as “St. George tax accountants” in your site’s title tags. This is a key point: If you’re only seeking customers or clients in a specific geographical region, your keywords need to reflect that geographical specificity. People looking for a tax accountant in St. George may begin their search by simply entering “tax accountant” in the search engine. However, once they see that their search is returning accountants from all over the world, they’ll narrow the search by adding “St. George” to their search terms. When they do, you want your site to be right there on the first page of new results.
In our St. George accountants example, you could create a title tag that says
<TITLE>St. George tax accountants</TITLE> or you could say <TITLE>St. George CPAs</TITLE>.
However, there’s more than enough space in the title tag to include both of these important keyword phrases. (In fact, search engines will display 60 to 115 characters of your title tag.) Here’s an example of a better approach:
<TITLE>St. George tax accountants St. George CPAs</TITLE>
Most search engines are not case-sensitive. In the past, a few of them were, so it was important to try and utilize both lower and upper case in your Title as necessary. Since most engines don’t make any case distinction any more, I recommend creating Titles that look the most enticing; that is, something that will get the user to click on your listing. Whether this means you prefer ALL CAPS to make it stand out, or first letter caps, is up to you.
As for placing the word “St. George” twice in the title tag, I have found this approach to be both permissible and effective. Just make sure that you don’t put the same words right next to each other. For example, a tag that reads “Accountants in St. George — St. George CPAs” is very likely to trigger a red flag with the search engines, so that the word could get ignored entirely. It’s also not a good idea to use a word more than twice or to repeat more than one or two words total in the title tag. However, if you keep these caveats in mind, it’s fine to repeat one or two keywords in your title tags.
Use only keywords and phrases that are in the text on your web site
If you’re not sure what to put in your title tag, take a look at the text within the page itself. If you’ve done a good job with your writing, you should find all the keywords you need right there on your page. Simply choose the most relevant ones for the title tag. If you can’t find any good keywords on your page, it’s time for a rewrite.
The optimal approach when creating a Web site is to think of all the keyphrases that best reflect your business, and then compose text around those phrases. When you go to write your title tag, you simply revisit the keyword list, make sure the keywords are being used on the page, and poof, you’ve a good, keyword-rich title tag.
But remember: If the words don’t appear somewhere in the text of your page, they shouldn’t be in your title tag.
Using our tax accounting firm example, suppose you look at the text on your page and notice that the phrase “Utah tax accountant” doesn’t appear anywhere on the page. Does this mean you shouldn’t use this phrase in the title tag? Well, yes and no. If you’re not willing to change the text on your page, then no, you shouldn’t put those words in your title tag. However, you can also forget about ranking high for those words! The smart thing to do is to rewrite the text on your page so that it utilizes the keywords that are important to you. This doesn’t mean to just stick the words at the top or bottom of the page. It doesn’t mean to hide them in the background. Nor does it mean to put them in a tiny font so that no one will notice them. And it doesn’t mean to simply put them in your meta keyword tag. If keywords are important enough that you want your site to be found under them in the search engines, they are important enough to be elegantly incorporated into the body text of your page.
Once you have incorporated important keyphrases into the text of your site, all you have to do is take these same phrases and put them in your title tag. It really is that simple.
Meta Tags Explained
Meta tags improve your search engine ranking
Getting a better search engine ranking in the major search engines is important, but do not fool yourself—it is not the “be all.” How many times have you conducted a search and ended up with over a million results? If your site is listed at 999,000, how many people do you think will visit? If you rely only on the search engines for your customers to find you, they probably won’t.
That being said, there are some things you should do before you submit your web site to the search engines. To make your site competitive, you need to “optimize” your web pages. What does that mean? It means making your pages “search engine friendly.”
Although meta tags do not weigh that heavily anymore in search engine rankings, they are still important.
Meta tags placed between the <head> </head> tags.
- <title>Use Web Page Titles To Improve Your Search Engine Rankings</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”Improve your search engine rankings by using your title.”>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”web, page, titles, improve, search, engine, Rankings”>
<meta name=”robots” content=”index,follow”>
Found by adding a comment like this under the meta tags is benefitial.
<!– Best prices on pet exotic frogs anywhere on the internet. These White’s Tree Frogs can be shipped overnight to arrive healthy and happy. Order online today. –>
Unlike human editors, search engines use digital robots, which act like mini vacum cleaners, sucking up information about your web site that will allow it to add each web page it visits to it’s search index accurately.
My First Blog
Does anybody really know how to do SEO?
Yes, absolutely! There are many reputable companies and freelancers (including me) that can help you optimize your website. But there are far more that will take your money without even a second thought.
If you own a website you probably get the emails once or twice a week saying “We can get you top Google rankings overnight”. Yeah right and if you believe that, I have a bridge in San Francisco that I’d like to sell to you.
Always do one thing if you are considering their proposal and that is to see if you can find their website on the Internet buy searching for logical keywords and phrases. Surely if they are good enough you should be able to find them. In my experience I haven’t found one yet that was legitimate.
Another thing you should do is have them provide a list of websites they have optimized. You should be able to find these websites on the Internet as well but not buried in the results. They should be on page one.
During my 20-year experience in the SEO (search engine optimization) world, I can easily say that self-taught individual site owners seem to know more than most SEO companies.
Why do I say this?
A site owner that relies on traffic for business income has much more interest in making their site work. They know their business, industry, and presumably adhere to a code of ethics an SEO company might not understand. They play with their site data, constantly massaging SEO data and obsessively check search engine results to see it their SEO is working. An SEO company probably wouldn’t come close to this type of attention.
Unfortunately, there are a growing number of bad SEO companies and SEO scams that prey upon naive site owners. Before you consult with an SEO company protect yourself from falling prey to an SEO scam artist and educate yourself first:
A good SEO professional will tell you everything you need to know and more when it comes to working on your website and there’s absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t. SEO is tedious and time consuming work. Even if most people knew what to do they still wouldn’t have enough time in the day. That’s why people need to hire a professional.
I have provided numerous free tools here for those of you who want to give it a shot yourselves. You may also feel free to contact me as I am always willing to help.
The Keywords Meta Tags
The Keywords meta tags improves search engine ranking
Your search engine ranking can improve with great "keywords" meta tags.
Keywords Meta tags improve your search engine ranking.
The keyword meta tags is placed after the description meta tag, just before the copyright meta tag, as shown below.
<meta name="description" content="Add your description here">
<meta name="keywords" content="add keywords here">
<meta name="copyright" content="©2005 WebSeo ">
Primarily the keywords meta tag contains a series of keywords which represent the content of your web page. The tag must only contain keywords already within the content of the page and should be seperated by a comma. The comma however is a point of discussion, as some SEO’s differ on opinions to whether no commas is as effective. I for one have always had success by using the comma technique.
Not all search engines use the keyword meta tag, but a lot of the large search engines and directories do, so it is a good practice to use it.
Use our Keyword Extractor to take keywords from your web pages and add them to a correctly coded keyword meta tag.
Optimized keyword meta tags is becoming search engine friendly!