For most people, search engine optimization (SEO) seems complicated and confusing. But it turns out that all optimization can be reduced to several of the most effective tactics. Below you will find a list of the best SEO methods. Share them with your editors and developers so that they put them into practice and achieve a high ranking of your site in search engines.
Top 10 SEO Techniques
1. Define target keywords for each page
Each page should have only one primary keyword phrase. In addition, each keyword phrase should belong to only one page. Strict separation of pages and keywords will help you increase the ranking of these keywords. The key phrase should be relevant to the content, be supported by the text on the page and be relevant to your business.
2. Use target keywords in page names / URLs
URL or page name is one of the main indicators for search engines when evaluating content. The content of the targeted keywords in the URL is very good for page optimization.
For example, if your target keyword phrase is “android tricks” then a good URL would look like this: https://android-tricks.com or like this: https://thebroodle.com/android-tricks.
3. Use target keywords in the first four words of the title tag
The title tag is located at the top of the browser, and not on the main page of your site. This means that it is often not visible to site visitors. However, it is extremely important for search engines for two reasons:
- It is displayed as the page title (hence its name) and serves as an indicator for search engines of what keywords are on the page.
- The title tag is used as a title in search engine results when a page is displayed in search results, so it is doubly useful if it encourages the user to click on a link.
The first four words of the title tag are the most important. They should contain the target keyword, NOT the name of your company. By the name of the company, your site can still be found, regardless of its location in the title tag, so it’s better to use this valuable place for keywords. If you want the title tag to contain the name of your company, put it after the keyword, separating it with “|”.
An example title tag for the keyword “portable ultrasound”: “Portable Ultrasound | Acme Medical Devices »
4. The title tag must not exceed 65 characters and must be unique
Search engines display only the first 65 characters of the title tag in the results. If your title tag is longer, then its text will be truncated, and “extra” characters will be replaced by an ellipsis. Therefore, you should write briefly and succinctly to fit your message in 65 characters.
In addition, search engines really do not like duplicate content – text that is repeated in different places on the site – and above all, they value unique, original content, so you should do everything possible to make the title tag unique. This will help search engines understand that you have not just propagated the same content throughout the site.
5. Use one H1 tag for the page title
H1, H2, H3 are content to design tags that are used in HTML and are responsible for the appearance of text on a page in a browser. Search engines look at these tags in a hierarchical order, which helps them determine which content on the page is most important. The H1 tag has the highest priority, it should be used only once on each page – for the title. Tags H2 and H3 can be set several times – for subtitles, image captions, etc.
6. The H1 tag must contain the keyword
After you place one H1 tag on each page, make sure that this tag contains the target keyword for this page. H1 tag for search engines means the importance of content.
7. The main text should contain the target keyword
The body text on the page should match what is contained in the URL, title tag, and H1 headers. The content of the page should have at least 3-4 occurrences of the target keyword, and at least one occurrence should be in the first paragraph.
8. Write a unique and meaningful meta description by inserting keywords
A meta description is a content that users don’t see when they visit pages because it’s hidden inside the code. However, search engines often use the description meta tag in displaying search results. This means that the meta description serves more marketing purposes (user transition from search results to your site) than ranking goals (improving the site’s ranking for a particular keyword).
It’s better if the main keywords are at the beginning of the meta description, then they will be highlighted in bold when displayed in the search results, and this will help increase clickability.
9. Create a network of linked pages using targeted keywords
A very common mistake on sites is the use of the text “Read more” for links. Search engines consider link text (anchor text) as an indicator of the content of the page where the link leads. Therefore, it is better to come up with something more specific for the anchor text, for example, “more about portable ultrasound devices” with a link to a page with information about these devices.
The bottom line is that you have to use linking to help search engines figure out which pages matter to which keywords.
10. Use alt-description and thematic image names
Search bots cannot read the text embedded in the image, but they can read the alt-description of this image, as well as the name of its file. Both that and another will help you to add the target content to the page and will enable your site to appear when searching through pictures. Google Images is the fifth largest search engine, so it’s very important that the description of your images is informative enough.
As for image file names, stick to a system that matches your development platform and allows you to use good keywords. For example, “cute-kitten-small-x3245.jpg” is much better as the name of the image than “small-x3245.jpg”. It may take a little work, but in return, you will get a good rating in image search.
