SEF sites or Search Engine Friendly sites are ones that the Internet Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, Altavista and others of the sort can easily search through. The term “search engine friendly” is used to describe the web site designs that are easy to be located by the search engines. This in turn means that your content becomes much easier to be located by anyone searching the Internet!
How Search Works?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of making your website easy to locate for search engines, with its set of targeted and relevant keywords. The search engines calculate the ranking based on a wide range of criteria. These are again periodically assessed to ensure that only the most suitable sites appear in the search results.
Have you ever thought about how Google search works like a human being? What should be remembered is that it is still only a computer or a search “Machine”. So all that is required is a complex algorithm to make the search a success.
The algorithm should be looking for over hundreds of different factors on each page and then it scores each, in order to be able to rank each site. This article is all about how to make your site search engine friendly using normal HTML titles and meta tags.
Optimizing Website/Page Title
<Title>Seo Specialized Website title<Title>
The title at the head of your code is the most important element of your web site. This tag has to be modified and customized for every page of your web site. The most common problem noticed with websites is that they use duplicate titles and this negatively affects their ranking in search engines.
Look at how your title tag should be like:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Example Title | Appropriate title extracted from the site contents goes here</title><meta name="description" content="keywords here again" /><meta name="keywords" content="keywords here again" /><!-- Other meta tags --></head><body><!-- Real site contents that reflects the title and description --></body></html>
How the Title tag works ?
- This is the place where you should put your keywords or search terms.
- You should enter the keywords that users commonly use while searching the Web.
- The title is displayed on the top left bar of the browser window and is visible to your visitors. So make sure that it is simple and easily readable.
- IMPORTANT: Use the right terms to give your web site a boost in ranking with all major Search Engines.
Here are some tips to generate good titles or keywords:
- The title you choose should describe your profile and what your website is all about.
- Make sure you use relevant keywords: The keywords you are targeting needs to be included in your title.
- If possible, use your main keyword appear twice in the title.
- Use the pipe character (|) between your main keywords.
Here’s an example:
Targeted keyword : “VPS plan”. Let’s see how the keyword can be used twice:
“VPS Plan | Are you ready to start a new vps plan with Bobcares ?”
- IMPORTANT: Make it a point that you express your profile and site title in 65 characters or lesser.
 |
The Search-based Keyword Tool generates keyword and landing page ideas highly relevant and specific to your website. |
Meta Description and Keywords
Descriptions
<meta name="description" content="SEF Description goes here." />
Use the description tag to describe what your page is all about. This tag belongs to the category of meta name tags and is located at the head of the HTML, ASP or PHP code, right below the title tag. This tag has quite some effect on the ranking of your site in Search Engine results. Let me now describe its working.
- Suppose you use “Example Title” inside your title as the keyword. Then you should insert “Example Title” inside your description tag too, in combination with the other keywords.
- The Search Engine reads the description tag of the website to check if the keywords or search terms matches your title tag and the content of the site.
- This tag is only important for your homepage, as many search engines ignore this tag and it will not influence your ranking in the search to a really large extend.
Make sure that the keywords or the search terms that you use in the description tag, appear in the content of the web page. Otherwise it’s not going to help you achieve a good ranking with the Search Engines.
Keywords
<meta name="keywords" content="Example Title, Other Keywords" />
Keywords help search engines to categorize sites, and to allow people find the pages they require much easier. However, most search engines have limits on how many meta keywords can be used. So, it is a good idea to review your keywords and make sure that they are as perfect and specific as possible.
The keyword tag belongs to the category of the meta name tags. It is located at the head of your HTML, ASP or PHP code and below the description tag.
- Normally Keywords have less priority compared to the other tags. But if we are not using it in the right way, it can work negatively in our SEO.
- Give it a shot and add them to your HTML code in the hope that you will reach number #1 in the ranking of the search engines.
- Remember that the phrases you use have to be present in your content on the web page.
- Take care not to repeat the same words over and over again. There are chances that some search engines could identify this as Spam.
All About Meta Tags
Don’t think meta tags are “magic bullets” that can take your site to the top of all the search page listings. It is only one factor in the SEO methods. Another thing to be remembered is that most search engines look at the head text on your pages along with the page contents. They often take this information in higher relevance than any meta tag. So, always make it a point to have relevant meta tags on your pages, and also relevant content in the body of the page.
Let me now list the important tags that tell the search engine on how to handle your web site. Apply these tags to your web site, if possible, to help it communicate better with search engines.
<head><title>SEO - Search Engine Optimization</title><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="description" content="SEO Site Desctiption"/><meta name="keywords" content="meta name tag, search term"><meta name="distribution" content="global"><meta name="rating" content="general"><meta name="copyright" content="copyright © 2009 Site Owner"><meta name="resource-type" content="document"><meta name="author" content="SEO"><meta name="language" content="en-us"><meta name="revisit-after" content="20 Days"><meta name="robots" content="all"><meta name="rating" content="general">
|
Search engine optimization or SEO is the process of making your website easy to locate for search engines, with its set of targeted and relevant keywords. |
Some Tools for Title and Description Optimization
There are a lot of online tools available to create and use top rated keywords. Here are some of the popular tools:
- Google Trends: This is a keyword analyzer. You can explore the various keyword trends in various countries and regions using this.
Relevant Links:
https://trends.google.com/trends/
Use Google trends for individual websites, that is if you need to track the trends of a specific website.
- Google’s Keyword Generator: One of the most popular and useful tool for keyword optimization. Use the Keyword Tool to get new keyword ideas.
- Google’s Search based Keyword: The Search-based Keyword Tool generates keyword and landing page ideas highly relevant and specific to your website. Based on your URL’s, the Search-based Keyword Tool displays a list of relevant user queries that should have occurred on Google.com
Today people use search engines on a daily basis – to find information, products or services. For the Web site owners who offer these things, it is their wish to be found on the number 1 spot or at least on the first page of results.
Having a search engine friendly site means having a site that they can find, they can understand and provides information that is the best in its field.
About the Author :
Vipindas, works as a Senior Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in September 2006, and is an expert in developing web based Java and PHP applications. He is highly passionate about software architectures and design patterns. On the cultural front, Vipin is a great singer and loves to tap his feet to any music on stage.
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