Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an ever changing landscape of trends, keywords and analytics. I’m going to go over some simple steps to help you with your site’s SEO. These tips will give you a basic foundation to build from but they should be seen as first steps in a long term project.
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Keywords
Keywords are the searchable terms we type into a search engine bar when we’re looking for something online. Having a good understanding of what your target audience is searching for will help you refine your keywords. If your site is selling shoes and you’re calling them ‘Smashing Slip-On Soles’ it will be hard for anyone searching for ‘shoes’ to find you.
When choosing the your site’s keywords it can be helpful to make use of the Google Keyword Planner, you will need to have an Adwords account to use this tool but you dont’ have to spend anything. Google Trends is another good resource to familiarize yourself with.
URLs and Page Titles
When the web was a simpler thing your site’s URLs and page titles could be ‘home’, ‘gallery’, ‘about’ etc., but no longer! The web and search engines have evolved and need more relevance these days to be satisfied.
Based on the keywords you’ve choosen for your site, make each page’s URL unique and relevant. If you have multiple services or products, you should have a page for each that is customized for that item. For example, at Pod Creative we have separate pages for Web Design, Graphic Design, etc. Each of those pages has a unique URL and title.
Headers and Descriptions
Including your page keyword in the header text and description may seem obvious but it’s a good step to practice. A search engine’s algorhythm will see the use of these keywords and will rank your page because of this.
Your meta description is more of a sales pitch to your site’s visitors when the see your listing. We’ve chosen to use a few of our keywords and focus on what sets us apart.
Image Meta Information
Naming and filling out your image meta information is vital to having an optimized site. The crawlers used by the major search engines do not understand images as we do, they need the meta information to know what the file is about.
In Conclusion
SEO doesn’t have a set-and-forget solution; it requires constant attention, analysis and fine tuning.
There are many powerful tools and metrics that will help you process your SEO data. We recommend Yoast SEO because it’s straightforward and the analysis it provides includes suggestions on how to improve your page’s ranking in relation to the keyword you select.
