Whether your website sells Mustang parts, provides people with health insurance information, or collects rumors about upcoming movies, you want to rank high in search engine results and that means understanding search engine optimization tactics.
Here are some of the best ways to maximize your SEO results.
1. Content is, and Always Will Be, King
Despite all the effort some websites put into trying to “trick” search engines into giving the site a high ranking, one simple truth holds clear. Subject appropriate content, regularly updated, does more for your search engine ranking than any other SEO technique.
If you can’t write, don’t fret. Content needs to be fresh, informative, and related to your website’s major theme, but it doesn’t have to be Pulitzer Prize material. Adding new content and updating older content keeps the search engines interested in you. To get the most out of content-building, archive your old articles and link back to them with new content. Adding a blog to your site provides a quick and easy way to add new content.
2. Keywords, Keywords, Keywords (But Not too Many)
When someone searches for, say, Mustang parts, they type “mustang parts” into the search engine. The search engine then looks for websites where that search term shows up. So if you sell classic Mustang parts, you should have that keyword scattered throughout your content, in article titles, and in image descriptions.
Two points on keywords. First, people search online using a wide variety of phrases. People might search for duck decoys by typing in “duck decoys,” but they might just as often type in “decoy for ducks,” “mallard decoys,” “wooden decoys,” “wooden ducks,” and so on. Using a range of keywords and synonyms for those keywords will improve your chances of showing up in search results.
Second, don’t give into the temptation to cram as many keywords as possible onto the page. Search engine algorithms are wise to that trick. If the Google bot sees 50 instances of “duck decoy” in 500 words, your page will be dismissed as spam.
3. Keyword Your URLs
Here are two imaginary URL addresses for the same page:
- www.classicmustangparts.com/mustang accessories/hubcaps
- www.classicmustangparts.com/376dfjf846/a325b.htm
The first example clearly tells readers – and search engines – what they can expect to find on the page. The second may reflect a highly sophisticated classification system (yeah, right), but looks like gibberish to readers and tells search engines nothing. Always use keywords in your webpage URLs.
4. Social Bookmarking
Make it easy for viewers to like and share your page with their Facebook accounts or tweet your URL. Add some social media bookmarking tools to the website so viewers can share information with a single click. Search engines view all those “Likes” and tweets positively, upping your traffic.
5. Don’t Obsess over PageRank
Google PageRank is not the be-all and end-all of search rankings. Sure, it’s great if your classic Mustang parts website has a high PageRank, but you can still generate significant traffic with a low PageRank. Google’s search engine algorithms are much more complicated than PageRank alone, which only estimates a site’s general importance compared to similar sites.
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