"Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or web-page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users." Courtesy of Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization. The idea behind this blog, is to help in any way, people who are looking to enhance their websites search engine ranking. It is aimed at anybody who has a website,because SEO can be applied to any website to try increase the volume of site traffic.
Throughout these future blog posts I felt an example would help my explanations, so I have created a fake website which I can refer back to, to make some of my points more clear.
The website details are below:
Website/business name: "Alan's Used Autos"
Domain name: alansusedautos.com
Focus: Website for a business selling used automobiles, spare parts and performing auto servicing at great prices.
Size: Small, ~175 pages
Also, one more point before I get started. Search engine optimization affects only organic search results, not paid or "sponsored" results. With that sorted, lets begin.
Create unique page titles.
A title tag indicates the website page title
A title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a web page is. Within the HTML document, the <title> tag should be placed within the <head> tag like in my example below. You should create a unique title for every different page on your site so user's and search engines know which page is which.
Referring back to my example, the optimum solution would look like this in the HTML document:
N.B.[single line indicates beginning of an example, double line indicates the end of an example.]
N.B.[single line indicates beginning of an example, double line indicates the end of an example.]
<html>
<head>
<title>Alan's Used Autos - Buy Used Cars, Spare Parts and Auto Services At Great Prices</title>
<meta name="description=" content="Alan's Used Autos provides a great selection of used automobiles, spare parts and auto services to everyone from the beginner to the well rounded driver looking for a speedy and a great price.">
</head>
<body>
(Line in green represents the title of the homepage, which contains the business name and 3 main focuses.)
Page titles are displayed in search results.
If your website appears in a search result, the title tags contents will usually appear in the first line of the results. If a user's search query is similar to your page title, words within your title will be in bold. This can help users recognize if the page is likely to be relevant to their search. Using our example I can clarify this.
Alan's Used Autos - Buy Used Cars, Spare Parts and Auto Services At Great Prices
Alan's Used Autos provides a great selection of used automobiles, spare parts and auto services to everyone from the beginner to the well rounded driver looking for a speedy service and a great price.
www.alansusedautos.com/
(A user performs the search [used autos]. Our homepage shows up as a result, with the title listed on the first line (notice that the terms the user searched for appear in bold).)
The title for your homepage can contain the name of your website/business and you can also include other relevant information like the where your business is located or maybe some of the services you can offer to customers, like below.
Alan's Used Autos - Buy Used Cars, Spare Parts and Auto Services At Great Prices
www.alansusedautos.com/parts/honda/civic
(A user performs the search [cheap spare honda civic parts]. A relevant page (its
title is unique to the content of the page) on our site appears as a result.)
Additional tips to help improve your title page:
-Conor.
(A user performs the search [cheap spare honda civic parts]. A relevant page (its
title is unique to the content of the page) on our site appears as a result.)
Additional tips to help improve your title page:
- Try and best describe with accuracy the page's content and avoid choosing a title that has nothing to do with the content on the page.
- Create unique title tags for each page. Each of your pages should ideally have a unique title tag, which lets the search engine know the page is distinct from the others on your site. Also, avoid using a single title tag across all of your site's pages or a large group of pages.
- Use brief, but descriptive titles and avoid using extremely lengthy titles that are unhelpful to users.
-Conor.
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