The 3 Easiest Ways to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings
The 3 Easiest Ways to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings
1. Improve Your Page Title Tags
One of the easiest and most effective ways to improve your search engine rankings is to create unique, keyword rich title tags for each of your pages. Be sure your keyword is as close to the beginning of the tag as possible. Here's a little trick that I like to use:
Let's say your keyword is "dog grooming" and your web page article is "7 Tips for Grooming Your Dog on a Rainy Day". Rather than using "7 Tips For Grooming..." as your page title, move your keyword to the front. So your new page title would be "Dog Grooming: 7 Tips For Rainy Day Grooming" or something similar.
Now please note that when I'm referring to your page Title tag, I'm not talking about your page headline (we'll discuss that next). Your title tag is what appears in your web page header. You'll find it in the (title)BLAH BLAH BLAH(/title) section at the top of your HTML code.
This text is not actually visible anywhere on the actual web page, so it's easy to miss this step. Whatever you place in this tag is what will appear in the title bar of your web browser.
If you're creating your page with a WYSIWYG editor, like Dreamweaver, FrontPage or Expression Web, your title tag is often created automatically, which means every page could end up with the same tag. Fortunately, it's an easy fix.
If you're using Dreamweaver, look for a field with the title toward the top of your page. Then simply enter a unique title in that field. If you're using a straight HTML editor, just replace the text that appears between the (title) and the (/title) tags. Remember, put your keywords as close to the beginning as possible.
If you're using Wordpress as your content management system, chances are your title tags will be created automatically based on the headline of the article. Many wordpress templates come pre-configured to add the website name at the beginning of the title tag. That's very much a waste of space and it's doing nothing for your search engine rankings (except maybe hurting them!)
Unfortunately, unless you're familiar with php coding, you probably don't want to tackle the job of fixing this. Simply ask your webmaster to adjust your template so your article title appears first in your title tag.
2. Optimize Your Headline Tags
The next (and probably the easiest) step you can take to improve your search engine rankings is to optimize your Headline Tags.
First thing you want to do is make sure each page has only one (h1) tag! Many new webmasters don't understand that the headline tag actually serves a purpose other than simple formatting. So they use lots and lots of (h1) tags throughout their web pages because they like the big, bold text.
Unfortunately, this technique is a killer on search engine rankings. Google looks for the (h1) tag to decide the main topic of the page. Unfortunately, when it sees multiple (h1) tags, chances are, it will discount them all.
If you're using Wordpress as your content management system, make sure your template is configured so that the article title will be placed inside (h1) tags. (Again, you'll probably want to check with your webmaster on this.) Then, do not use the (h1) tag as you're creating posts and pages since your (h1) tag will be created automatically.
The next thing you want to keep in mind with your (h1) tag is to place your keyword as close to the beginning as possible, just like you did for your title tag. As the search engine spiders crawl your page, words that appear close to the beginning of the tags receive higher precedence.
Now that you have only one, keyword rich (h1) tag, you want to do the same with your (h2) and (h3) tags. Make sure you have only one of each and that your keywords appear close to the beginning.
As of now, it doesn't appear that Google is placing much relevance on (h4) or (h5) tags, but you never know when or if that might change. Also, if you've been using your (h) tags for text formatting, try using (p) tags with CSS styling instead.
3. Take Advantage of Latent Semantic Indexing
According to search engine expert Mike Grehan:
"Using statistical analysis, LSI can discover that documents have words which are often used in the same context. For example, "apple" and "computer" will also have "Mac OS" and are therefore also relevant. The same thing applies with "windows" as an operating system as opposed to an invention for looking through walls. It's all about trying to understand more about the nature and intent of the user query and returning information in context with the user's search, even when they give little clue as to the actual nature of the search. Incidentally, LSI is used by other search engines besides Google."
In other words, the search engines are smart enough to analyze your web copy to determine if your page really is about what your keywords claim it's about. So, if your title tag, meta keywords, h1 and h2 tags all refer to "dog grooming" but the rest of your web page is actually a pornography page, the search engines will know this and will not rank your page for dog grooming.
The way to take advantage of latent semantic indexing is to include other related keywords in your text as naturally as possible. You don't want to force the insertion of these complementary keywords; it's important that your text flows easily and naturally and sounds like it's written for humans, not search engines.
The 3 Easiest Ways to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings - To learn more about this author, visit Karen Scharf's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
I get tons of questions on how to improve Google and other search engine rankings. Here are the three easiest things you can do today:
1. Improve Your Page Title Tags
One of the easiest and most effective ways to improve your search engine rankings is to create unique, keyword rich title tags for each of your pages. Be sure your keyword is as close to the beginning of the tag as possible. Here's a little trick that I like to use:
Let's say your keyword is "dog grooming" and your web page article is "7 Tips for Grooming Your Dog on a Rainy Day". Rather than using "7 Tips For Grooming..." as your page title, move your keyword to the front. So your new page title would be "Dog Grooming: 7 Tips For Rainy Day Grooming" or something similar.
Now please note that when I'm referring to your page Title tag, I'm not talking about your page headline (we'll discuss that next). Your title tag is what appears in your web page header. You'll find it in the (title)BLAH BLAH BLAH(/title) section at the top of your HTML code.
This text is not actually visible anywhere on the actual web page, so it's easy to miss this step. Whatever you place in this tag is what will appear in the title bar of your web browser.
If you're creating your page with a WYSIWYG editor, like Dreamweaver, FrontPage or Expression Web, your title tag is often created automatically, which means every page could end up with the same tag. Fortunately, it's an easy fix.
If you're using Dreamweaver, look for a field with the title toward the top of your page. Then simply enter a unique title in that field. If you're using a straight HTML editor, just replace the text that appears between the (title) and the (/title) tags. Remember, put your keywords as close to the beginning as possible.
If you're using Wordpress as your content management system, chances are your title tags will be created automatically based on the headline of the article. Many wordpress templates come pre-configured to add the website name at the beginning of the title tag. That's very much a waste of space and it's doing nothing for your search engine rankings (except maybe hurting them!)
Unfortunately, unless you're familiar with php coding, you probably don't want to tackle the job of fixing this. Simply ask your webmaster to adjust your template so your article title appears first in your title tag.
2. Optimize Your Headline Tags
The next (and probably the easiest) step you can take to improve your search engine rankings is to optimize your Headline Tags.
First thing you want to do is make sure each page has only one (h1) tag! Many new webmasters don't understand that the headline tag actually serves a purpose other than simple formatting. So they use lots and lots of (h1) tags throughout their web pages because they like the big, bold text.
Unfortunately, this technique is a killer on search engine rankings. Google looks for the (h1) tag to decide the main topic of the page. Unfortunately, when it sees multiple (h1) tags, chances are, it will discount them all.
If you're using Wordpress as your content management system, make sure your template is configured so that the article title will be placed inside (h1) tags. (Again, you'll probably want to check with your webmaster on this.) Then, do not use the (h1) tag as you're creating posts and pages since your (h1) tag will be created automatically.
The next thing you want to keep in mind with your (h1) tag is to place your keyword as close to the beginning as possible, just like you did for your title tag. As the search engine spiders crawl your page, words that appear close to the beginning of the tags receive higher precedence.
Now that you have only one, keyword rich (h1) tag, you want to do the same with your (h2) and (h3) tags. Make sure you have only one of each and that your keywords appear close to the beginning.
As of now, it doesn't appear that Google is placing much relevance on (h4) or (h5) tags, but you never know when or if that might change. Also, if you've been using your (h) tags for text formatting, try using (p) tags with CSS styling instead.
3. Take Advantage of Latent Semantic Indexing
According to search engine expert Mike Grehan:
"Using statistical analysis, LSI can discover that documents have words which are often used in the same context. For example, "apple" and "computer" will also have "Mac OS" and are therefore also relevant. The same thing applies with "windows" as an operating system as opposed to an invention for looking through walls. It's all about trying to understand more about the nature and intent of the user query and returning information in context with the user's search, even when they give little clue as to the actual nature of the search. Incidentally, LSI is used by other search engines besides Google."
In other words, the search engines are smart enough to analyze your web copy to determine if your page really is about what your keywords claim it's about. So, if your title tag, meta keywords, h1 and h2 tags all refer to "dog grooming" but the rest of your web page is actually a pornography page, the search engines will know this and will not rank your page for dog grooming.
The way to take advantage of latent semantic indexing is to include other related keywords in your text as naturally as possible. You don't want to force the insertion of these complementary keywords; it's important that your text flows easily and naturally and sounds like it's written for humans, not search engines.
The 3 Easiest Ways to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings - To learn more about this author, visit Karen Scharf's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
|||
Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
|||
Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
 | |
|  |
Subscribe to Karen's articles
 | |
|
|  |
 | |
|
| |
 | ||
|
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
| ||
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
 |
 Program Health Check Disciplines of Success Recession Proof Managing Growth What’s Wrong With Your Site? |
|
 | ||
 |
Fortune Hunters
CBC Entrepreneur TV | |
 |
Top 50 Political Blogs
Top Political Blogs of 2009 | |
| ||
 | ||||
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
|
|
|
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||