Ask The Web Developer

SEO part Deux

My last blog about SEO was kind of a high level overview.  This time I want to touch on one very important aspect of it.

One major key to SEO is the text.  It's not enough to rely on keywords and other [meta] tags.  Granted, they still help to a degree.  However, over the last few years, the search engine companies have been moving more towards organic* searches.

*An organic search result is one that offers up a list of sites based on the overall relevance to the search word or phrase.

So, since the search engine ranks sites based off of keyword relevance, it's vital to pepper your site with the keywords that you want to target.  However, you have to be careful that it's done in such a way that you don't look like an idiot because you've used your keyword(s) too many times.  You also don't want to do some of those "black hat" tactics that we mentioned in the previous post (i.e. hiding keywords out of the main field of the site and using the background color as the font color to mask them).

You also want those keywords show up on the other pages of your site and not just the home page.  By way of a side tangent; you want to put a unique description (meta name="Description" content="lobster bisque...yada, yada, yada") on each of the pages of your site.  That way, they come up as separate listings or at least as sublistings to your site.  It's also beneficial since each page has the target keywords and with different descriptions, it will help your page ranking.

Another good thing to do is use the ALT image tag.  Firstly, it's just plain kind.  The blind rely on web browsers that read the text of the code back to them.  So, if you have an image without a description, the screen reader skips over it.  It's vital that you provide as positive an experience as you can to all your visitors.  Secondly, those descriptions must be appropriate to the photo.  For example, if you have a photo of a Hawaiian sunset, you're not going to put your copyright as the ALT text.  You'd label it something like "A relaxing day on the beach".  Now, let's take it a step further and say that your keyword is "Corona" - as in that beautifully golden summertime beverage (BRB... excuses self to grab a cold beer).............................  Okay.  So we're going to take this a step further; maybe you want to make this your description:  "A relaxing day on the beach enjoying the Hawaiian sunset with a Corona and a lime."  See in that example, not only is there a great description of the picture, but you've also used your target keyword in a unique way.  Yes.  That will help with your rankings, too.

However you have to remember that it all takes time.  I mentioned that in the last SEO post and I'll mention it in subsequent ones.  There's no "magic bullet" to getting SEO "right".  However, there are a number of factors that when done properly will yield results.

In our next SEO post, we'll look at backlinking and social networking and how it affects your page rankings in organic searches.

About: Chris: I own Flying Tomato Design, a small web design company based out of Spokane, WA USA. I'm not afraid to admit it; I'm a geek. I'm into Transformers and Star Wars. Although I'm not so far into it that I still live in my mother's basement. I've got a great wife and two wonderful kids. I enjoy playing my guitar when I get time, I like sushi and long moonlit walks on the beach. : ) Thank you for taking a few minutes to read this, and thanks for your support. Check me out on Facebook and Twitter.

Related Websites

• Search Engine Placement Through SEO Services No Fluke Affordable SEO services don’t necessarily mean lower quality of service. Rather, it really takes some...
• How to Get Blog Readers Many people start blogging and just assume their blog will have readers. They don't promote...
• SEO Tip: How Do Search Engines Choose Page-One Sites? You may be wondering how search engines arrange the top pages from millions of others....
• SEO Tips for Bloggers on WordPress There are several million WordPress blogs that you can find on the internet, but unfortunately...
• SEO Tips for Blog Traffic Generation While it may be true to say content is king when it comes to blog...