How to Optimize Your Website For Search Engines: 10 Steps

How to Optimize Your Website For Search Engines: 10 Steps

There are quite a few ways to promote your website. However, there's nothing like getting "natural hits" from search engines like Google and Yahoo Your website must be search engine friendly.

This article will discuss the vast topic of SEO- search engine optimization. When someone tells you to SEO your website they're telling you to make your website more search engine friendly.

Is your website search engine friendly? Make sure using the following steps!

Steps

1. Add good content to your website, and update regularly. Put the benefit of other people before your own benefit. Don't scam anyone. Make sure your content is fresh, lively, and up to date.

2. Make the title tag. This is probably the most important part of your website. It should be between 5-8 characters and so try avoiding words like "the", "is", and "are". The title tag should be descriptive and relate to the content of your website.

3. Use keywords you want to appear on search engines that should be contained in the meta tag (<meta name="description" content="..."> and <meta name="keywords" content="...">) of your website. Don't over-stuff the meta tag: it's maximum 255 characters. Don't include keywords that aren't in your website. The meta tag, like the title tag, should be on every page of your website.

4. Use keywords that you want to appear on search engines that should also be in the first paragraph of your index page. Don't overload the first paragraph. Keep it descriptive and write it as if search engines didn't exist. Trying to cheat the search engines will only result in your website being penalized.

5. Get your code validated by W3 validators. If you don't have much experience with making a website don't make a flash website or any other plug-in dependent website. Using CSS and HTML 4.01 to reduce all those unnecessary tags is an excellent idea.

6. Make the navigation on your website easy. Every page on your website should at least be linked from one other page on the website.

7. Get links to your website from related, relevant, and reputable websites. This is very important. Ask websites with relevant content to link to your website (of course they'll want something in return), submit your website to directories like DMOZ, paid inclusions etc.

8. Use a good hosting company and a good domain name. Always research these two. The domain name that you chose for your website might have been at some time someone else's domain name. They might have tried to cheat search engines and thus the domain name got penalized. That domain name is useless now. Don't waste your time and money on it. As for the hosting company, you don't want one with a bad reputation because google doesn't like them.

9. Have a site map on your website that gives a detailed description of every other page on your website.

10. Again, Have good content. Don't spam anyone.