The first step in search engine optimization begins with optimizing your home page.
If you want to be ranked well for a search term or phrase, you need to have these elements in place.
1) The phrase you want to be listed under must be in the text on your homepage. It needs to be repeated a few times, and also expanded on by speaking about the terms. Google’s search engine now has the intelligence to determine whether your content is relevant. It analyzes the full content of a page and uses factors to score it including in fonts, subdivisions and the precise location of each word. They also analyze the content of neighboring web pages to ensure the results returned are the most relevant to a user’s query. What this means is that you need to have a story about the keyphrase on your page.
2) Your heading – headings tell the truth and in search engine optimization your main heading, called the <h1> heading in the coding, tells the search spiders what the page is about. This heading is critical on a home page to target your primary search term.
As an example, if I wanted to be clear to the search engines on what this article is about, I would have this heading:
Search Engine Optimization Starts On Your Home Page
if you look at the top of your browser, you’ll see this title is also the title on the page.
3) Your page title – this is set in the <title> code, and it needs to align with the heading. If you want to be ranked well under the term Tires in Tucson Arizona, your page title needs to include this. You company name is secondary… unless you want only you customers to fin your website. JohnsTucsonTires.com is not your company name.. use Johns Tucson Tires.
4) Your meta description – This should also include the keywords you are targeting and should be in a sentence form. Think of it as an advertisement inviting users to click. In a search result, it’s the text that shows below the title of the result. Search engines use your page title and meta description for the search result listing.
This overlooked concept is why you end up seeing results like this:
Lexani Performance Tires
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. SITE BY EKKO MEDIA GROUP. Today is Sunday, Jul 25, 2010.
You are here – Home » Company » About Lexani Tires …
www.lexanitires.com
Instead of a search engine optimized result – that will get searchers to click – like this one:
Discount Tires, Custom Wheels, Rims, Goodyear, Michelin, Cooper Tires
Offers discount car tires and wheels. The easiest way to buy Goodyear, Michelin, BF Goodrich,
Nitto, Falken, Yokohama, Cooper Tires Online.
www.onlinetires.com
If your serious about getting the benefits of search engine optimization, it takes more than telling your webmaster to add keywords in your code… try the above approach on your home page with one search phrase, and watch the results.
And remember that getting on the first page of a search phrase isn’t useful without having a homepage that speaks to the search. The more you answer the search, the better you’ll find the results from search engines.
If you have questions, or would like to have your website reviewed to see how your search engine optimization stands today, just fill out the free report to at the top of this page. We’ll get a search engine optimization report to you within 24 hours.
