The Top 5 Search Engine Optimization Techniques

In this article we are going to look at the top 5 search engine optimization techniques that will help you when you’re designing your WebPages. Keep in mind that this is a brief overview of some of the most effective things you can do to insure you make the most out of each and every page on your site through the proper application of SEO.

1. Title Tags

If you have been designing WebPages for any length of time then you know what I mean when I refer to title tags. I’m sure you’ve seen this one coming as one of my top 5 SEO techniques. The fact is, and it has been proven over and over again, that what you put in your title tags is the most important variable in determining how your pages show up in the search engines.

The best way to go about this is to make changes to a title and test it. With Google you can often make a change to a title tag and within 24-36 hours you can see the results. This is of course already assuming your site is ranked with Google.

So what I usually do is fire up my keyword research tool, and if you know how to do this using the free tools available go right ahead. If you don’t, then either take a look at my article on this site or if you prefer check out my reviews of the various keyword research tools to find one that’s right for you. Ok that was my shameless plug for my site to encourage you to take a look around and explore everything that seo-elite.net can do you for you.

The idea with keyword research is to look for variations of keywords that all have something to do with your current webpage title. Now write out a few different titles, and simply test them. You’re not going to break your website, Your visitors computer won't explode when they visit your page but you may discover that subtle changes to your title can make the difference in gaining a few ranks on the search engine. I'm stressing here the idea of not being to attached to your webpage after you make it. I know you spent alot of time designing it and sometimes we get to opposed to changing a few things once we spent the effort to create something. This is what seperates the top ranking pages from the others. A simple willingness to test, test and test.

2. Keyword Density

Keyword density is the second most important factor in search engine optimization techniques. Keyword density is simply the percentage number of times your keywords appear on a given page. There is no strict rule or percentage to shoot for but keep in mind that you also don’t want to over do it. Repeating excessively a keyword within a page can be seen as keyword stuffing, which will harm you more then do any good. So the best thing to do is simply take a look at your competitors see what their keyword density is and use that as a guide with your niche keywords. You’ll soon find that it’s personal preference really but I would watch keeping any particular keywords density on a given page below 8%.

Again (test, test, test) is the name of the game.

3. Site Structure

Site structure covers the way your site is organized together. Now this is a huge area to learn about and I’ll say first hand I’m no expert on site structure. However I think the one very important thing to learn about web design is “what is your number 1 thing”. Now I could write a whole article on this and I think I’ll try and get around it but for now understand when I say “what’s your number 1 thing” I’m referring to what is the purpose of your particular webpage. Treat each webpage on your site with a purpose and decide exactly what that purpose is. If you can keep it focused on “1 thing” that is what is going to help you with your structure but you will land up creating more content rich pages. This then is the key behing creating a better looking - sitemap -. Search engines love sitemaps and they are a great way in showing the structured layout behind your website. Again if you’ve created a better focused page then your – sitemap - will reflect that. Now I'm not going go into the how-to of creating a sitemap. There's alot of free tools out there that can creat one for you as well as lots of great resources for that. The goal here is search engines like to see a sitemap. It's a simple small thing that you can do to make your website appear more then just a simple 1 page mini site. Search engines are changing and they like content and the more content you have the better and understanding site structure and implementing a sitemap will go along way to helping.

4. Internal Links

The first thing you need to remember is that Google treats each and every webpage on your site as a single page, not as a part of a website. So when it comes to linking from one page to another incorporate the idea of keywords into your links. The beauty of this technique is that you are in control for this. It’s a great way to create internal back links within your own pages.

The most important things to consider is how you anchor your links (what phrases do you use to link to) and that you take advantage of all these opportunities to link your pages together. Use a footer to link all of your most important pages using the appropriate keywords (especially on your sitemap) and make sure you’re your linking to your pages with keywords and not just blanket statements like “click here”. In other words what is the title of your webpage, try to use that title when your linking to that page from other pages within your site. The old click here is really old and cliche and search engines don't like your internal links created in that way.

5. Anchor Text

Number five in the top 5 search engine optimization techniques is anchor text. Anchor text is the text used to others to link to your site and just like your internal linking site structure, external links and their text is very important but a lot harder to control. You can’t force anyone in the way they will link to you, but there a few ways you can encourage it.

Again this is an issue about keywords. First, you have to know what keywords you want people to use to link to your pages and then you need to figure out ways to encourage people to use those keywords. Now in most of the link exchanges you can when you submit choose the keywords you want when you input your link. However most of links pointing to your site will come from someone deciding that they found your article or content on your page of value and they slap up a link on their site as they feel appropriate.

The idea is to understand human nature as well as proper keyword research. Most people if they like your article and want to link to it will be drawn to your title. So this is the perfect opportunity to make your titles not only stand out but contain keywords that people will use on their external links.

The more you try to get inside someone's head and use the kind of conversation he is used to and use this idea within your keyword research then you'll start creating better titles. These will often be the focus of how people link to you, so take advantage of it.

Conclusion

There you have it, the top 5 search engine optimization techniques with some extra tid bits thrown into the article along the way. A lot more can be said of other things in regards to search engine optimization, but I think if you practice and apply just these 5 simple things you’ll go along way in getting the kind of search engine traffic your looking for. Now for some people there isn’t anything much in the way of new material in this article but it does help to drive home the idea that you need a solid foundation to your SEO plan. For new people applying just these 5 simple things will help you to get on the right path and avoid a lot of mistakes other web designers make.