We’ve shared many times on the importance of a well-optimized web presence. Building a great website or social marketing campaign with no SEO strategy or plan is a waste of precious marketing dollars and time. The following tips, courtesy of Hubspot.com, outline some simple strategies any small business can follow to make sure their site is seen – and ranked – by the search engines.
1) Find keywords – Pick a list of words relevant to your business. Think about which words are most likely to get people to do what you want them to do (convert into leads) and focus on those words. Then pick one word (or phrase) to use on one page of your site.
2) Put keywords in Page Title – The Page Title is one of the most important things that Google and other search engines evaluate to determine what is on a web page. Put your keyword or phrase in the title, keep it short. For more detailed info, read: Why a Web Page By Any Other Title Would Not Rank As Well .
3) Put keywords in Page URL – Google and other search engines also use the text of the URL of the page to determine the content of the web page. You should use your keyword or phrase in the URL of the web page – either the folder/directory structure or the/HTML file/ page name itself.
4) Put keywords in Meta Data – While the page metadata (Page Description and Keywords) are not nearly as important as they used to be, they still count. Take advantage of them by putting your keyword or phrase there. The description should be readable by a person and make sense and the keyword metadata should focus on your keyword or phrase – do not make it long, less is more.
5) Put keywords in your H1 text – The H1 text is usually the title of an article or some larger bold text at the top of your page. Google and the smaller search engines can see this and they put extra importance on the words in the H1 text. Make sure your keyword or phrase is there.
6) Use keywords in the page content – Putting the keyword in your page content also signals to search engines that the page is actually about the keyword and should show up in search results. We have heard from “experts” that you should use your keyword anywhere from 4-6 times to 10-12 times. Our advice is to just write naturally.
7) Monitor your rank – Give the search engines some time to do their thing (couple days) and then keep checking your rank to see what happened and track your progress.