It’s pretty apparent, the Internet is here to stay. And if you want to succeed in nearly any kind of business today, you need to have a presence on the Web.
Developing a strong online strategy to market your Web site has been evolving into two distinct areas over the last couple of years. These two internet marketing arms are increasingly referred to as On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO.
On-Page SEO involves getting everything that lives within your site optimized to improve our searchability. This includes things like changing page titles, headings, content, and URLs to improve search engine rankings. Off-Page SEO involves, you guessed it, all the things you do to promote your Web site that are external or not on your site. This includes getting more inbound links to your site, registering with directories relevant to your industry, utilizing Social Media and getting more pages into the search engine indexes.
The days when keywords were the driving force behind a site’s success in the online race for top rankings are no more. In fact, Google states on their site that they don’t even look at keywords in the metadata anymore. That is not to say that you should simply dispense with them.
Think of your keywords as the building blocks to your site. Once you have identified them by doing keyword research, you then need to use them strategically throughout your site. Organization is very important and creating a hierarchy of how to present your information is critical. The fewer number of keywords you target per page the more relevant those words will be.
The following are a few key pointers to keep in mind while integrating keywords into your site:
1. Your title (what appears over the browser window) should contain your most important key word for that page. This will tell Google what the page is about.
2. Choosing an SEO friendly domain name. Although not a guarantee of instant online success, using your most important keyword in your domain does help to make you more searchable. Read my post for more detailed information.
3. When filling in metadata keep these character numbers in mind: Page Title – no more than 60; Keywords – no more than 250; Description – no more than 150.
4. Be selective in using H1 and H2 designations. These tell Google what the main subjects are on the page and if you overdo, then they lose their importance. (A good rule of thumb is to use no more than one H1 per page).
5. Make sure your content is well written for human consumption using your keywords throughout. If you cannot do this yourself, you should consider hiring a professional. Because keyword density is important, the fewer keywords you target per page the easier it will be to write consumer-friendly as well as SEO-friendly copy.
My next post will answer the question: Why Does My Company Need a Facebook Page?
