7 Website Optimization Essentials for the SEO Novice

While it can take a village to optimize a website for red hot rankings, there are a few quick and dirty DIY SEO tricks that almost anyone can employ. Want to give basic website optimization a try? Here are seven optimization essentials that are the must-dos of the SEO world:

Optimize Your Title Tag ():</strong> The title tag is the most important tag on the page. It’s the first element a search engine encounters, and it’s the title of your pages as listed in the search engine results pages. This is one place you DO NOT want to leave out those precious <a href="http://deeperclicks.com/2009/12/selecting-keywords/">keywords</a>.</p> <p><strong>Optimize Your Headings and Subheadings:</strong> The page heading and subheadings are the next most critical elements on the page. Add keywords at the beginning of the headings whenever you can. Don’t ever, ever use graphics for these tags – search engines only speak text. BUT If you are stuck with graphical headers, use alt tags (which unfortunately give you only a fraction of the SEO of text headings, but what are you going to do?). </p> <p><strong>Optimize That Intro Text:</strong> Presumably, your page has something to say, and it should be clear to search engines what exactly that is. Always use keywords and keyword phrases in the top portion of your content – but never at the expense of usability. If your content looks like gobbledygook, you’re not going to get many links or repeat visitors.</p> <p><strong>Emphasize With Bold and <em>Italics</em>:</strong> Putting keywords and keyword phrases in bold and italics doesn’t just make things easy for readers who love to skim; using emphasis is also an easy way to make your site more search engine friendly. Keywords and keyword phrases that are bold or italicized help the search engines understand your pages’ key topics!</p> <p><strong>Optimize That Main Page Text:</strong> Keywords are most effective in the top section of your pages but using keywords judiciously throughout is a good way to make sure the whole page has a theme. But again, don’t just toss keywords in and cross your fingers. Your content should read naturally… or no one is going to read it. </p> <p><strong>Don’t Forget Your Hyperlinks:</strong> Always use keywords when linking to another page on your own site. What do we mean by <a href="http://deeperclicks.com/2009/12/what-is-a-link/">linking with keywords</a>? E.g., Link to the green widget page by saying something like “Check out our Green Widgets,” not “Click here.” </p> <p><strong>And Finally, Optimize Your Alt Tags and Photos:</strong> Make sure your images are named with keywords and not something like 123345_adn.jpg. Also add alt tags to each image to describe what it is in a logical way, using keywords whenever possible. Hint: This is an easy way to make your site more accessible to the disabled, to boot! </p> <p><em>Image: <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.flickr.com/photos/craigmdennis/');" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/craigmdennis/">craigmdennis</a></em></p>  </div> </div> <div id="comments"> <div id="respond"> <div id="respond_intro"> <p>Leave a Comment</p> </div> <form action="http://deeperclicks.com/wp-comments-post.php" method="post" id="commentform"> <p><input class="text_input" type="text" name="author" id="author" value="" tabindex="1" aria-required="true" /><label for="author">Name <span class="required" title="Required">*</span></label></p> <p><input class="text_input" type="text" name="email" id="email" value="" tabindex="2" aria-required="true" /><label for="email">E-mail <span class="required" title="Required">*</span></label></p> <p><input class="text_input" type="text" name="url" id="url" value="" tabindex="3" /><label for="url">Website</label></p> <p class="comment_box"> <textarea name="comment" id="comment" tabindex="4" cols="40" rows="8"></textarea> </p> <p> <input name="submit" class="form_submit" type="submit" id="submit" tabindex="5" value="Submit" /> <input type='hidden' name='comment_post_ID' value='236' id='comment_post_ID' /> <input type='hidden' name='comment_parent' id='comment_parent' value='0' /> </p> <div style="display:block;" id="captchaImgDiv"> <p style="color:maroon">ERROR: si-captcha.php plugin says GD image support not detected in PHP!</p><p>Contact your web host and ask them why GD image support is not enabled for PHP.</p><p style="color:maroon">ERROR: si-captcha.php plugin says imagepng function not detected in PHP!</p><p>Contact your web host and ask them why imagepng function is not enabled for PHP.</p></div><script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ function gethash(){ document.getElementById('commentform').onsubmit = null; 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