Yesterday I attended an SEO 101 class, Designing with Search Engines in Mind presented by the local Vermont chapter of AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Artists.)
The A-list panel doling out SEO tips and tricks included web teams from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Gardeners Supply, and Union Street Media, a local web design firm.
The content offered 101 level tips for using SEO to maximize search engine visibility – things even a non web designer can put into action. My takeaways and additions are below. I’ll refer to Google here, as I always do, but most of these these tips also affect other search engines like Bing, Yahoo, etc.
By far the niftiest SEO how-to I’ve seen lately is SearchEngineLand’s Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors. Much of the discussion revolved around this creative piece. Not surprising considering the audience was packed with graphic designers.
Get further details on how the Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors works. The clever team at at Searchengineland.com made it possible to download a variety of PDF versions of the chart.
SERP (search engine results page)
You want to rank high for local searches, so curate your Google Places page for your business.
Additionally: Google recently ditched the inclusion of pulling non- Google reviews like Yelp, TripAdvisor, CitySearch, et al. So if you’re lacking in reviews on your Google Places page, start asking for them.
Tag that content
Google ranks for text in content but also image alt tags, title tags, and descriptions. Every little piece of content on a site (except Flash for the most part) can have a little added oomph (ala Google juice) by simply adding keyword-tasty tags to links, images, videos, etc.
Page Titles are the first thing people see in a Google search. Its the blue linked title that begins all topics in a search page. Alt Tags are keywords that will present themselves on page should the image not be found on a server. Alt tags also aid in sight-impaired visitors who can’t see images, yet their computer can ‘speak’ what the alt tag reads. Content Titles are those little snippets of text that pop up when an image is hovered over with a mouse.
Additionally: You or your web guru can manually add these to every page on your site. Folks who use CMS platforms (Content Management Systems) like WordPress, Joomla, etc. will find ample opportunities to tag the heck out every piece of content added to the site, like pages, posts, images, whatever.
Link in, link out
Add outbound links to blog posts, resource pages, etc. Inbound linking means other sites to point to your site – writing good content that people like, share, comment on and refer to on their own sites. Finally, encourage more clicks on your site with internal links, for instance call-to-action buttons, to increase page views per visitor.
Additionally:
OUTBOUND linking to trusted websites tells Google you’re connected to greatness in some way, and perhaps an authority on what they already know is a reliable source. A restaurant might want to link some content from a blog post to Gordon Ramsay’s website, or Food Network, or anything that is super huge and recognizable, successful and interesting. Of course the story you’re linking from should be interesting and in context, too.
INBOUND linking is where another website is linking to yours. The reverse of outbound linking, when your website is linked to, it tells Google, hey these guys are serious over here, somebody likes them. The more somebodies that like you, the more Google takes notice, improving your page rank.
INTERNAL links are links to other pages within your website. Meaning a link on a page in your site contains links to other pages on your site. Far more than the navigation menu, you can introduce calls-to-action on a variety of pages to encourage visitors to dig deeper. Internal linking helps improve the Pages Viewed number in your Google Analytics. You do have Google Analytics installed, right?
Other simple SEO tips
- Check out the “periodic table of elements of seo ranking factors” on searchengineland.com
- Check out seomoz.com for page rank updates and the important things to keep in mind for SEO.
- Stop using Click Here. Yeah, I just used it, but you catch the drift.
- Install the Google toolbar
- Blogging is great for a business website because you’re talking about different ideas, constantly, and ideas and stories carry currency for Google. According to Hubspot, a business that blogs has 434% more indexed pages. By nature, a blog is usually quite sharable, and can cover any topic at any given moment. Its opportunity to capitalize on really relevant content, right when people are searching for it, and living history of sorts as the posts stack up. Work those posts into your pages (especially the landing/home page), keeping them fresh and index-worthy by Google. Takes less effort that constantly changing titles.
- Google trusts positive reviews and thereby increases your page rank because your site has proven to be a trusted source.
- Benefits to user generated content (like a blog with comments, tweets, etc.) include your users misspelling words and using popular phrases that you would never publish (junk like ‘worlds best _____’,) and other no-nos you would never intentionally put out there.
- Finally, using obscure key phrases (such as long tail keywords) like “Buy _____ online.” For instance, by using the phrase “Buy expensive flowers online”, your niche will be smaller but people looking for exactly that will be very motivated. Using the word “free” works, too.
So easy, even a designer can do it
And so can you. These tips aren’t just for designers, but basic things anyone can put into action right now to improve their search engine visibility.
Roll your sleeves up and dig in!
Ooh, I love the periodic table! It’s a little geeky, but that suits me just fine. :-)