Website Optimization Tips
Read these 11 Website Optimization Tips tips to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. Each tip is approved by our Editors and created by expert writers so great we call them Gurus. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about SEO tips and hundreds of other topics.
Market Your Website
One way to optimize your website for search engines is through marketing. Marketing can be an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy for both new websites preparing to launch and for existing websites that are looking to increase their search engine rankings. This may seem like an unusual strategy for SEO but marketing creates an interest in your website which could bolster your rankings especially if you are able to generate inbound links from reliable websites such as .org and .gov websites. Also, if your website receives publicity from reputable news source, you will benefit from increased traffic to your website. Be sure that once your business has gained some traction that you continue to market it and your website in various ways, such as making sure you create content for your website and market it, sending out e-mails, social media, etc.
Limit Images for Search Engine Optimization
The file size of your website can effect the search engine optimization (SEO) of your website. One way to keep the file size relatively small is through minimal use of images. Images have an aesthetical appeal and therefore should not be eliminated all together but using them sparingly can give your website a great look without compromising load time. When it takes a long time for a website to load, users often grow impatient and do not wait for the website to load completely. Some retail websites may have difficulty following this advice because they need many pictures to display their products. If you require many images, use thumbnails or other techniques to minimize file size.
How ALT Tags Can Improve Search Engine Placements
The use of ALT tags is one search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that is often overlooked. Images on your website can create an excellent look that is aesthetically pleasing to visitors but unless you are utilizing your ALT tags, these images do not help you to increase your search engine rankings. Search engines do not view images as they crawl your website. However, if you apply ALT tags to your images, the search engines will see the text that is placed in these tags. This gives the website owner the opportunity to include a description of the image that incorporates relative keywords.
Use Flash Sparingly in Optimizing Your Website
Flash can be attention grabbing but too much Flash can be difficult to navigate and a little overwhelming to visitors. Also, not all website visitors can view Flash websites. Search engines may still be able to crawl the Flash portions of your website but you risk loosing valuable traffic by incorporating too much flash into your website design.
Effective Use of Your Website Title
The title of your website can help you to optimize your website so that it ranks well in search engines. In this case the title of your website does not refer to the text at the top of your website that is visible to viewers. The term title refers to the HTML code that is used to title your website and appears between the title tags in your website. This text is placed at the top of the Internet browser and it is also the automatic name that is given to your website when visitors add it to their favorites list. Although this text does not appear directly on your website, it is viewable by search engines when they crawl your website. The title tags are placed early in your HTML code giving prominence to the text placed in your title. You can take advantage of this fact by placing relevant keywords into your title.
Do Hire a Qualified SEO Firm
If you are really serious about search engine optimization (SEO), you should consider hiring an experienced SEO firm to assist you in optimizing your rankings. This is important because SEO is a serious and ever evolving business. Your quest to rise to the top of the search engine rankings is a full time job and those who try to handle SEO on their own are often outdone by websites who enlist the help of professionals in the industry.
Hire a Professional to Optimize Your Website
A professional website designer with experience in search engine optimization (SEO) can help you to design your website to optimize your search engine rankings. SEO firms as well as individual website designers may be able to assist you in this task. A SEO firm has the advantage of being able to assist you in other areas of your optimization effort such as content, keywords and strategies but both a web design and a SEO firm can help you to create a well designed website. This is important because poorly designed websites are not usually very popular.
Hiring an SEO Firm to Increase Search Engine Rankings
Hiring a search engine optimization (SEO) firm to assist you in optimizing your website can help you to achieve solid search engine placements. In many cases SEO becomes a full time job and website owners with limited time to spend on optimizing their website or those who lack knowledge of the current SEO trends will have a difficult time competing with websites that employ a SEO firm. There are, however, a number of factors to consider in choosing a firm to handle your website optimization. You should consider the company's reputation, experience, references and even their own search engine placements. Considering all of these factors can help you to choose a firm that is well qualified to assist you.
Do Provide Descriptive Tags for Your Website
Descriptive tags that are accurate are imperative to search engine optimization (SEO). Title tags, ALT tags and META tags should all be utilized by incorporating moderate use of relative keywords into these tags. Some search engines disregard META tags in their search engine algorithm but they may not penalize for using these tags. For these reason, it may be worthwhile to include these tags for the benefit of search engines that use them in their algorithm.
Why META Tags are a Waste of Time
META tags are pieces of HTML code that are used for a variety of reasons. The uses may include providing information on refresh rates as well as the technical specifications used in creating the HTML code. The uses that are of most interest to those wishing to optimize their website are the keyword and description META tags. These tags are placed towards the beginning of your code and they are visible to search engines. For these reason many people assume that filling these tags with keywords will ensure them top rankings. However, due to the fact that unscrupulous website owners can take advantage of these tags by filling them with irrelevant or overuse of keywords many search engines ignore these tags completely in their ranking algorithms. It is important to put relevant keywords into your META tags for the benefit of those search engines that factor these tags into their algorithms.
Use Prominence for Search Engine Optimization
Prominence of your keywords can have an impact on your search engine optimization (SEO). Prominence refers to how relative a keyword is to the beginning of the website. Including your keywords in the title tags that are visible to search engines and in the website title that is visible to visitors are two ways to increase your prominence for a particular keyword. Also, putting header tags around the visible title can make the keywords contained in this title appear more prominent.
