Search Engine Visibility involves a number of methods and techniques that will go towards positioning your site for top search engine results. Optimization techniques are employed both on site and off site.

Off site optimization activities include link exchanges, web rings, blog carnivals, etc. - all geared towards producing relevant and authoritative inbound links. This post relates to on site optimization.

“On-site optimisation, on the other hand, ensures that website coding is as efficient as possible for search engines and maximises click-through rates from search engine results.”

Very simple mistakes can be costly in terms of lost traffic. Consultant David Pain offers several basic rules of thumb to adhere to. Five often overlooked items appear below.

• Wrong page title

This is the title that appears in the blue bar at the top of your browser when viewing a web page. This also gets displayed as your page title in search engine results, so it has to contain your keyword phrase as well as a reason to click on the link.

• Wrong ‘meta’ description

This is the description that appears underneath the page title in search engine results. Again, improving this can drastically improve your ‘click-through rate’ after being found in a search engine.

• No heading tags

Heading tags are little pieces of code that surround the most important heading on your web page. These tags simply say to search engines that this is the topic which is covered in the page. Remember to include your keyword phrase.

• No ‘alt’ or ‘title’ tags

These are the tags that display alternative text if an image can’t be displayed. However, they also give you a further opportunity to communicate your page topic to search engines.

• Wrong URL format

A URL is simply a web page address. By making your URL’s as simple as possible and by incorporating your keyword phrases within your URL, you improve your search engine optimisation.

Sphere: Related Content

Tags: keyword_phrase, keyword_phrases, meta_description, search_engines, search_engine_results, search_engine_visibility, site_optimisation, site_optimization, url_format

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 7:44 am and is filed under Search Engine Visibility. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.