SEO Best Practices: How to Optimize Your Site and Get Ranked

I’m constantly being asked how I go about optimizing a business site for the search engines, so today I’d like to share the following best practices that you can follow (or keep tabs on your web master) to ensure your site is being indexed correctly in Google.

Who’s this for?

Anyone wishing to improve their sites’ interaction with both users and the search engines.

These tips should also be applied to sites of all sizes and types as they are universal SEO practices that have stood the test of time.

Keeping in mind, I would like to say that you should base your optimization decisions first and foremost on what’s best for the visitors of your site.  Because at the end of the day, they are the consumers of your content and it just so happens that they have used a search engine to find your work.

I hope this gives you some fresh ideas on how to improve your website, and I’d love to hear your questions, feedback and success stories in the comments box below, or in the Buzz Network SEO forums.

No.1: Optimize Your Title Tags

Probably the most important SEO practice of all is to make sure that your title tag includes your target keyword in the title of the page that you are trying to rank for, preferably at the beginning of your page title.

For example, if the keyword you are trying to rank for is “Blue Widgets”, then you will want to try and craft your title tag to include “Blue Widgets” at the beginning of the page title. I.e. “Blue Widgets at Wholesale Prices”.

If you can craft your title to include a compelling call-to-action, this is even more ideal as this will attract a better click-through rate in Google search results pages – thus improving your overall ranking for that particular search term.

You will also want to make sure that your title tags are unique to each page on your site.

And avoid keyword stuffing at all costs. In other words, try to only include no more than 1-3 target keywords in your title phrase.

No 2: Optimize Your H1 Tag

Here you will want to include your keyword in the H1 tag of your page copy. Using your keyword in H1 or H2 can give some minor positive effects to SEO.

<h1> is typically the most important heading on your page – use it only once or twice per document and include your keyword there if it fits naturally. And try to avoid keyword stuffing in any of your heading tags because it will do more harm than good.

No 3: Optimize Your Body Tags

Here you will want to make sure that the keyword you are targeting for a particular page is present and fits in with your body text.

Again, avoid keyword stuffing by all means in the body text so be sure to targeted just 1-3 specific keywords only per page.

Ideally, you will want to put your main target keywords closer to the top of the document and be sure not to hide text through colour by blending with the background color.

Finally, be sure to avoid high keyword density in your page copy as it may lead to penalty. A good rule of thumb is, if it doesn’t sound natural (i.e. too many keywords repeated), the chances are you’ve got too many of your target keywords in your page copy.

No 4: Make “User Friendly” URLS

“User-friendly” URL’s are URL’s that describe the page that you are on accurately.

Try to put your keywords in your page URL and leave out stop words like “I”, “a”, “an” etc. as well as special characters like “&”, “?”, “=”, “$”, “%”, “^” in the URL.

An example would be this URL here from an article on my blog: http://jarrahrobertson.com/mobile-website-optimisation-is-your-site-up-to-scratch/

Notice the keyword “Mobile Website Optimisation” in the URL.

Once again, avoid keyword stuffing in your page URL and try to keep them within a reasonable length.

Google also suggests that you should use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your page URLs.

No 5: Install XML Sitemap

A sitemap is a file (or multiple files) that list all the URLs for a particular site.

It is important to submit your sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools and to include a link to your sitemap file in your robots.txt file. You can also submit your sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools.

If you want to put a sitemap on a different domain you must put a link to it in your robots.txt file to notify Google of the location to your sitemap.

You can read more about sitemaps here – http://www.sitemaps.org/ and if you don’t have a sitemap, you can try a sitemap generator – http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

No 6: Optimize Robots.txt File

Robots.txt is a file on your site that tells web spiders (like Googlebot) how to behave on your site.

Robots.txt should contain a link to your sitemap (for example: Sitemap: http://www.mediaquay.com/sitemap.xml)

All information about robots.txt can be found here – http://www.robotstxt.org/

No 7: Optimize Meta Robots Tag

The meta robots tag is a special HTML tag that tells robots how to behave on that page.

You can use a meta robots tag if you want to prevent search engines from indexing a particular page.

For more information about the meta robots tag and how to use one can be found here – http://www.robotstxt.org/meta.html

No 8: Optimize Meta Descriptions

Make sure that the keyword you are targeting is in your meta description, ideally at the beginning of your description, and keep it under 160 characters (15 – 20 words) to ensure that your message isn’t truncated in search results pages.

You will also want to create unique meta descriptions for every page that you want to optimize.

A compelling call-to-action in the meta description can also help attract a higher click-through-rate (CTR) in search results pages, so try working on persuasive descriptions that attract more clicks over your competitors.

Of course, avoid keyword stuffing in your meta description and be sure to make sure it’s different from your page title (<title>) tag.

No 9: Optimize Internal Linking

Here you will want to follow Google’s suggestions on URL structure, found here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=76329&hl=en

For internal linking – put a “nofollow” attribute on links to unimportant pages such as your “Privacy Policy”, “Contact us” and other pages.

You can also put keywords in anchor texts throughout your pages (1 – 2 links per keyword, per page).

Avoid keyword stuffing in anchor texts.

Avoid using un-related phrases like “click here” or “more…” in anchor texts.

Keep in mind that linking to similar external sites will also help search engines to determine your site’s theme and relevance to your target key phrase.

No 10: Optimize HTML Code and Page Load Time

Using less <table> tags may result in faster page load times.

Having smaller HTML will result in faster page load times.

Avoid broken images on your site as it slows down page load times.

You can also ask your web developer to put your CSS in an external file. Ideally, if you can combine all CSS information into one file it will make your page load faster.

Put JavaScript code in an external file. And again, if you can combine all JavaScript code information into one file it will make your page load faster.

If you are using common JS libraries (like jquery, prototype, moo tools and others) use Google Ajax Libraries API (more info here)

No 11: Optimize Image Files

Optimizing images is a great way to gain additional traffic to your site. Google images is widely used and when done correctly, image optimization can produce significant increases in traffic.

Use “alt” texts to describe the image for accessibility and SEO purposes. But be sure not to overuse them. For example, don’t add them to spacer images.

Aim to put your target keyword in “alt” texts if they make sense in the context of your page content.

You can also use keywords in filenames. For example, an image file for Blue Widgets might be: blue-widgets.jpg (instead of: 980198.jpg)

Avoid keyword stuffing in “alt” texts or filenames. Only include 1 or 2 keyword phrases per image file at most.

In summary,

Each of these on-site optimization practices still offer good weight in terms of ranking your website for specific target keywords (some more than others) and will continue to do so. But, it’s important to remember to make your website for people first, and search engines second.

If you can also aim to position your website and individual pages to convert to your end goal (not just rank for keywords), then your chances of success will increase – because at the end of the day, you’re looking for real tangible conversions.

Finally, if you can build a community around your brand, one that loves you and will fight for you because they love your products and services – then this will be the holy grail of your SEO efforts moving forward into the future, because Google and other search engines are getting smarter at noticing social activity in relation to your site, and your chances of outranking your competition will significantly improve as a result.

A topic for another day, but just keep this in mind as the industry evolves.

I hope this gives you a better understanding of how to optimise your site for the search engines, and I’d love to hear your questions, feedback and SEO stories in the comment box below.