5 Easy Steps to Make Your Website Your #1 Employee

Free 5 Easy Steps to Make Your Website Your #1 Employee by Steve Johnsen

Book: 5 Easy Steps to Make Your Website Your #1 Employee by Steve Johnsen Read Free Book Online
Authors: Steve Johnsen
Tags: Business, marketing, Web design
performance. When meeting with her, I learned that she had been paying a major national company—the same company that built her website—to do “search engine optimization” for the past 9 months—with no results.
    In fact, when I dove a little deeper, I discovered that her web pages had not even been indexed by Google; i.e., it was impossible for her to show up in search results, because her pages didn’t even exist in Google’s database ! This was particularly frustrating because she was targeting a small niche in the travel industry, and after 9 months of real SEO work, should have dominated the search results.
    We proposed a simple solution—without changing her web design, we rewrote the underlying HTML code, and moved her site to another web host (more on web hosting later in this chapter).
    Within a week of the changes, she was showing up on page 2 of Google search results for her targeted terms, and by the second week, she was showing up on page 1.

Titles and meta tags
    If you’ve ever had a website built, created one yourself, or discussed having one built, you have probably heard the term “meta tags.” And, if you’re like most people, these are two words that make your eyes glaze over. I’m asking you now to open your eyes back up, and hear me out, because once meta tags are understood, you’ll find them neither boring nor expendable.
    Essentially, meta tags are descriptions which are embedded in the headers of web pages. Website visitors do not see meta tags, but they are used to provide key information to the search engines. Even more simply explained, meta tags tell search engines what the web page is all about; so you can see why meta tags are critically important to your success in effective SEO.
    Closely related to the meta tags is the page title. This too does not show up "on screen," but it is one of the most important elements for your Google ranking.
    So, what is a good title or meta tag? Well, titles and meta tags should align with terms your users are searching for. As an example, I recently worked with a client who used the following as a page title and meta tag for a Denver - based charity’s website: “About us.” Now, I ask you: how many people are using the term “About us” to search for a Denver - based charity? I think you know the answer.
    Instead of using generic search terms, you want your titles and keyword meta tags to include words which are actually used on the page—they should reflect the content on the page. In fact, if they don’t, the search engines may not include your website in their search results, even when it would make sense to find you otherwise.
    This does not mean you should stuff a bunch of keywords into the meta tags. If the keywords list ed in your meta tag are not words you are actually using in your page content, it can result in a penalty with some of the search engines, causing them to stop including your pages in search results.
    In the past few years, because so many people have abused meta tags in an attempt to manipulate the search engines, Google has stopped factoring the most common meta tags into their search results. However, the page’s title tag continues to be one of the most important ranking factors on the page.
    Make them unique
    An important principle in using title tags effectively is to ensure that each web page has a different title . The same is true if you are editing the meta tags —especially the meta description . This is a mistake that is very commonly made when website are built: using the same titles, descriptions and tags on all the pages of the site.
    If I had to summarize, I would say that in order to ensure you’re using page titles and meta tags to your advantage, you need to:
S elect appropriate keywords for each page to target
W rite a unique , descriptive page title for each page
I nclude targeted keywords in page titles
If you use the meta description tag, w rite a useful and unique page description for the

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