08 Dec 08 Basics of search engine optimization

Before you begin serious SEO you must ensure that your website is “search engine friendly”. This means making sure that each individual page is compliant with search engine standards and is ready to be indexed correctly. Follow each of the steps below for each page on your site. Basics of SEO will include the steps you need to take while optimizing a website.
Page Title
The title of the HTML page should be relatively short and describe the page content accurately. Wherever possible, try to include keywords (without distorting the true purpose of the title). For example:
<title>Stuarts Office Stationery Store</title>

Metatags
Use the description and keywords metatags in the head of each web page. Make these tags different on each web page.
<meta name=”description” content=”Suppliers of quality office stationeries and accessories at discount prices.”>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”stationery, office, store, shop, retail, discount”>

Heading Tags
Use heading tags. Many search engines place more emphasis on text within heading tags, so make sure they use keywords. Use one <h1> tag per page with the most important keywords. Use other head tags (<h2>, <h3>, etc) to provide variations and support the main heading.
<h1>Pens</h1>
<h2>Ball pens</h2>
<p>… information about Ball pens…</p>
<h2>Ink pens</h2>
<p>… information about Ink pens, etc etc…</p>

Page Text
Make sure the text of your web pages contain keywords and common phrases which people might search for. Be careful with the frequency of your keywords - you want to have them occur at least a few times if possible, but don’t repeat yourself so much that the copy becomes unnatural. The idea is to discretely spread keywords around without making it obvious.

Tags: Basics SEO, SEO