Beginning SEO (Search Engine Optimization). 4 Useful Tips.

Nowadays, there are so many rules one must follow for a good rank in the top search engines. Search engines are almost as smart as humans reading your page content making sure your site is where search engine visitors want to go.

The best way for potential customers to find your site is organically. After all, if someone clicks an ad to your website, and can’t find what they are looking for or the landing page isn’t relevant to what they are looking for, they will bounce (leave your site), leaving you paying for your ad that did no good. If you run an event planning company and someone searches for ‘wedding planning’ on google and ends up on the ‘Wedding Planning’ section on your site, that visit is organic.

Over the past few months, I have been researching SEO and how to improve my websites. I have of course compiled a list of tips I thought were useful. They are in addition to my previous article, How to be Web 2.0 Compatible. I am still learning every day, but I think they will help!

Optimize your website. Trim away the fat: extra javascripts, excess tables, unnecessary HTML code and inline css styling. Try to separate your good content from the design. Use a developer toolkit like Firebug for Firefox or Apple’s Webkit to debug your site and check for long loading times with your website. Use text rather than images where possible. Validate your pages and use the alt and title attributes in image and link tags.

Use well-written copy that is relevant and uses strategically place keywords relating to your business. Keep paragraphs concise and don’t explain too much on one page. As a website visitor, I usually don’t read past the first few paragraphs on a webpage. The more relevant and condensed the content on your page, the more likely visitors (and search engines) are going to find your website useful. If something is really important, such as a product you are selling, use header tags (h1, h2, h3, etc.). Search engines place more weight on header content.

Let your website visitors know why they came to your site. If you run an online store, your site navigation should let a visitor find what they are looking for easily, but sites become hard to navigate when there are way too many choices. If you are selling a service, let them know what your service is and provide a convenient way for them to contact you. If visitors have to register and provide a bunch of information on your site, chances are they won’t use all the great features on your website if they are a first time visitor.

Use a traffic tracker such as Google Urchin. I just started using Google Analytics and it’s great. It provides tons of information in useful form. You can view where your traffic is coming from at a glance, in pie-chart form, or dig deeper and find out what keywords your visitors searched for to find your site. If you decide to run ads on other websites, you can see the results right in Google Analytics. It’s a great tool and I highly recommend it for every site you develop.