A FEW TIPS ON SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Okay, this post is probably overdue. We get asked all the time… “Does LOUD! Creative provide SEO (Search Engine Optimization for you newbies) services?” Our answer is always “no.”
Well… that’s not entirely true. While we don’t market or sell SEO services per se… we certainly understand it, and we offer our knowledge on an unpaid, value-add basis to our clients. We don’t sell SEO services… simply because the average US consumer wants to get an immediate gratification for their hard-earned dollars spent. There are SEO companies that ask for thousands of dollars up front, and thousands of dollars per month, and then the client has to wait around for 6 months to decide if they’re happy with the vendor’s performance.
The truth is… providing SEO services is a risky proposition, because it requires companies to educate their markets, and they risk losing their credibility of Joe-customer doesn’t beat the other 8 billion or so website listings for the front page of Google.
So… while we don’t sell SEO services… we don’t mind sharing with you a few tips on optimizing your website. We hope this is beneficial to you and your business development efforts. Happy SEO’ing.
1. THE CODE NEEDS TO BE AS BEAUTIFUL AS THE DESIGN
When building the front end of your site, make sure to use semantic code. By using descriptive tags to structure your pages, search engines will be able to read and have a better understanding of your content. This will also make the process of styling your site much easier and cleaner.
2. KEEP YOUR KEYWORDS UNDER SUBMISSION
Keywords are the words that describe your content. It’s important to have them appear in strategic places throughout your page, such as: URL, title tag, and main heading tags. It’s also important to have it appear often in the body of the content, but not too often, which might cause your content to be penalized for keyword stuffing.
3. KEEP YOUR PAGE TITLE UNIQUE
Each page on your web site should have a title attribute, and each title should be unique. If you use the same title for every page, search engines will think that every page on your site is about the same subject.
4. YOUR IMAGES ARE IMPORTANT TOO
Make use of the alt attribute of an image to properly describe it. As smart as search engines are, they can’t see what an image looks like. Failing to this can cost you substantial traffic from image searches.
5. DON’T USE IMAGES TO REPLACE TEXT
As designers, we always want to make things look as good as possible. This means sometimes replacing ugly browser rendered heading text with a nice smooth image. Try to avoid doing this. Again, search engines can’t see the contents of an image, and this is where you should be putting your keywords.
6. SUBMIT YOUR WEBSITE TO SEARCH ENGINES
To get your site indexed in search engines in a timely manner, try getting it linked to by a popular site in a related niche. Submitting it to Google also works, but sometimes it can take several days if not weeks.
7. BUILD INCOMING LINKS
The number and quality of incoming links plays a big role in the placement of your site in search results. Having quality and unique content is a good way to get people to link to your site. Another way is to be generous with your own links.
8. KEEP THE URL CONSISTENT
When you build a site, decide from the beginning if you want to use or drop the “www”. Once you decide, stick with it. Search engines, for example, see www.webdesignledger and webdesignledger.com as two different sites and as duplicate content, which they do not like.