SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

SEO Tips, Techniques and Strategies

1. Where possible, avoid use of Frames, Flash, Javascript, Image Maps, or Dynamic URLs.

2. Optimize for correct keyword phrases.

• Be specific, think like your target audience, look at competitors pages, and optimize each web page.

3. Optimize your title tag.

• We recommend that your title tag be between 50-80 characters long — including spaces! The length that the different search engines accept varies, but as long as you keep within this limit you should be ok.
• We recommend that you include 1-2 of your most important keyword phrases in the title tag, BUT be careful not to just list keywords. If you just list keywords you risk being viewed as a spamming the engines which can ultimately lead to you being blacklisted by the search engines. Your title tag should include your keyword phrases while remaining as close to a readable sentence as possible to avoid any problems.
• Make your title enticing! Don't forget that even if you get that #1 listing in the search engines your listing still needs to say something that makes the surfer want to clickthrough and visit your site.

4. Optimize your page copy.

• For best results we recommend that each page you submit has at least 200 words of copy on it. This text should include your most important keyword phrases, but should remain logical and  readable.
• Add additional copy filled pages to your site. For example, how-to articles, tips or tutorials. These types of content pages not only help you in the search engines, but many other sites will link to them too.

5. Optimizing your meta tags.

• We recommend that your Keywords Meta not exceed 1024 characters including spaces.
• You should only use those keyword phrases that you also used in the copy of your page, title tag, meta description, and other tags. Any keywords phrases that you use that do not appear in your other tags or page copy are likely to not have enough prominence to help your listings for that phrase. Don't forget plurals. For example, a travel site might have both caribbean vacation and caribbean vacations in their keyword meta tag to make sure they show up in both searches.
• If you know of a common misspelling of a popular keyword that could be used to find your site you should enter it in your keywords meta tag. For example, a travel site might use caribean in their keyword meta since it is a common misspelling for caribbean.  Watch out for repeats! You want to include your most important phrases, but when doing so it can be difficult not to repeat one word many times. For example, caribbean vacation and carribbean vacations are two different phrases, but the word caribbean appears twice. This is okay to do in order to make sure you get the phrases you need in there, but be careful not to repeat any one word excessively. There in no actual limit, but we recommend that no one word be repeated in the keyword meta more than 5 times.
• We recommend that your Description Meta tag not exceed 250 characters including spaces.
• Make sure you accurately describe the content of your page while trying to entice visitors to click on your listing. Include 3-4 of your most important keyword phrases. Especially those used in your title tag and page copy. Try to have your most important keywords appear at the beginning of your description. This often brings better results, and will help avoid having any search engine cut off your keywords if they limit the length of your description.

6. Optimize your images "alt" tag.

• Do not try to cram a bunch of keywords into the attribute. We recommend using no more than 2-3 per image.
• Describe the image - do not just list keywords.
• The attribute is also a good place for misspellings and plural keyword phrases that you may not have used elsewhere

7. Optimize inbound links.

• Inbound links to your site are part of some search engines' ranking algorithm.
• An Inbound link from a heavily trafficked site is more desirable than a less frequented site.
• Do exchange links with popular sites related to your industry.

8. Search engine spamming. 

Do not:

• Do anything to trick the search engines into listing your site better.
• List keywords anywhere except in your keywords meta tag.
• Use the same color text on your page as the page's background color. This has often been used to keyword stuff a web page. Search engines can detect this and view it as spam.
• Use multiple instances of the same tag. For example, using more than one title tag. Search engines can detect this and view it as spam.
• Submit identical pages. For example, do not duplicate a page of your site, give the copies different file names, and submit each one. Search engines can detect this and view it as spam.
• Submit the same page to any engine more than once within 24hrs.
• Use any keywords in your keywords meta tag that do not directly relate to the content of your page.

9. Google Specific Optimization Variables

• keyword in title
• keyword in H1 and H2
• keyword in URL
• keyword density (total word count being considered)
• keyword in title
• keyword in links to page (anchor text)
• keyword in bold / strong, etc.
• keyword in other parts (full text, alt, title, meta description)
• keyword proximity (if search for 2+ keywords)
• keyword order (does or not order in page match order in query)
• keyword prominence (how early in page/tag)
• URL length

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