Search Engine Optimization Features, Part III

To date, we have written about aspects of code that help affect your search engine ranking. This week we’re going to talk about what’s actually ON your web page that can help.

As we spoke about last week, search engine bots do not recognize images, so you’ll want to incorporate alt tags to compensate. What folks don’t oftentimes recognize is that an image does not necessarily just equal a picture. Some web pages are designed wholly of images, from headlines and navigational links, to paragraphs of copy and the photos associated with them. .

Unfortunately, though they usually look terrific, this kind of web page construction can undermine your search engine optimization efforts. Search engines look for text - text in the headline, text in the navigational links, text in the body of your page. And if you plan on using your home page url as the one you submit to search engines, there better be a decent amount of text on that page. .

Since search engines are looking for this text, you’ll want the text you do have to accurately reflect the core keywords of your business. Make sure at least your top keyword is in the headline of your page, and that the others are well-represented (repeated two or three times) throughout the rest of your page, though particularly in the first 200 words of text (some search engines do not index beyond 200). .

In addition, take those critical keywords (about five) and make them hyperlinks to other parts of your site. Search engine bots recognize the HTML code for hyperlinks above other text. An example of this would be if you’re trying to sell picture frames on your site, you could have a sentence of text saying, .

“Our selection of picture frames is unparalleled online,” where the words “picture frames” are hyperlinked to that main section on your site. .

If you’ve taken the time to incorporate the suggestions from Parts I, II, and III of our marketing tips, then stay tuned for next week’s tip when we’ll tell you how to get your sites properly indexed by search engines.

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