Search Engine Optimization Tips For 2005 - Part Two

Welcome to the second part of our series of articles on search engine optimization. In the previous article we discussed keywords, domain names, content and keyword density issues. This article moves past that to the nitty gritty of improving your web pages and website for better search engine rankings.

Page Title

It's truly amazing how many people don't realize how critical the TITLE tag can be to the success or failure of your website. Your TITLE tag needs to have your most important keyword for that page included in it. This is for the benefit of the search engines.

From a visitors point of view it also needs to entice them to click on your title tag when they see it in the search engine results. If your page is about PDA Accessories don't just use that phrase in the TITLE tag.

Dress it up a bit. For example "PDA Accessories For The Busy Geek" or "Need Accessories for Your PDA? Come right in!" Those examples took me 10 seconds to come up with. You can do far better with a little more time and effort.

META Keyword Tag

Anybody still using the Meta Keyword tag as their sole search engine optimization method please leave the room. Go on get out and don't come back.

The Meta Keyword tag is all but dead to the search engines. When building your pages it's still worth including but simply put in the top 3 or 4 keywords that are relevant to your business and leave it at that. Do not spend hours coming up with hundreds of keywords to stuff into the Meta Keyword tag. It's a total waste of time and anybody who tells you different has no idea what they're talking about.

META Description Tag

This still has some limited value for your SEO work. When Google or other search engines display search results they display the contents of the TITLE tag and your Meta Description tag (if present) or a random selection of text from the page. Your Meta Description tag will take priority if present.

The Meta Description tag is still worth using. Your most important keyword should be in there and again you need to work this keyword into an eye catching phrase or sentence. Don't just copy and paste the main keyword in there.

If the Meta Description tag is used well, in conjunction with the TITLE tag, then it can make your displayed search result more inviting to the potential visitor. Again don't spend more than a few minutes on your Meta Description tag but do make sure that you include it on each page. One final note - make the Meta Description for each page different; don't just recycle the same one over and over.

RSS

Stands for Really Simple Syndication and is probably something you've heard a lot about over the last few months. RSS allows you to display the news items and/or content from other sites on your website as part of a "news feed". This adds a huge amount of value to your site from a vistors point of view - they don't need to leave your site to get the latest news on a given topic. The other benefit is that search engines love seeing fresh content on websites.

At the moment there's a huge upsurge in the use of RSS for search engine optimization. The question is does it work? Yes it does. Using RSS can most definitely encourage the search engines to come back to visit your site more often. How does it work? Well again that goes beyond the scope of this article so please refer to our site for more information.

Blogs

Also called Web Logs are basically online diaries. For a long time these were used solely by... well.... geeks to record their thoughts and as a way of sharing information on Star Trek. Seriously though initially blogs were never seen as anything more than a curiousity.

Recently with the increased visibility of RSS blogs have also seen their profile rise. Why? Well because many RSS feeds feature blog content. Which means what exactly? It means your blog could be included on and linked to from thousands of websites all over the world. Are you seeing the possiblities? There are some other nuances to consider but to mention them here would give the game away completely and certain ebook authors would put a price on my head for giving away their secrets.

(c) Niall Roche - All Rights Reserved

- continued in Part 3

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