SEO for Dummies (well, and Web Developers)
Sometime Search Engine Optimization (SEO) seems to have morphed into a mystical creature. Most people, even those who design and develop websites for a living, know they need it, but don’t know exactly what it is. They have been feed so much rheteric and sales speaches that they seem to have given up on SEO long ago.
Well, you shouldn’t. And if you have, I’m here to help you rekindle the love affair. While there are definitely concepts that can’t be covered in a short article and many that can really, truly only be done by professionals, there’s plenty you can do to give you a leg up and get more search engine traffic for your sites and your clients sites.
Here’s what EVERYONE should be doing. This might not even totally fall under SEO, but is one of the things that a “SEO” company will taught as a service, so I’ll include them here.
1. Titles are KEY! If you aren’t using titles that are relevant to your content (you know… the stuff between the <>) you are never going to get ranked high in the search engines. If you search for any keywords in Google nearly every time the keyword will be in the top 10 titles. Don’t lose this free traffic! Create title tags for every page.
2, Every page must have a unique title. If you spend some time running around the internet, you’ll find this simple and most important step is lost on many web developers. Titles are VITAL for search engine placement, as we discussed before. Having unique titles is SO important, Google Trends lists it as one of the things it checks! Many applications use a standard header that is displayed on every page. Be sure to create some dymanic title tags that display your article title, category, and any other relevant information. If you don’t have something that fits nicely as a title, be sure to add that to your CMS and create custom titles when you upload the content.
3. Don’t fall into “the trap”. If someone tells you about this “to good to be true method”, it probably is that! I believe very stongly that everything you do on your website should pass the “would Google do that”? If you aren’t treating your site like a corporate site, you could easily do things you don’t.
