SEO or search engine optimization: what is it?

Many ask the question today, what is SEO? Many may know what “search engine optimization” means, but what is that? To make it very simple it is nothing more than how we organize our web pages. The idea is to organize the pages so that they rank higher when someone types a keyword into the Google search bar.

Your goal should always be to build your web pages in such a way that they are as search engine friendly as possible. Search engine friendly means higher rankings and more traffic to our web pages. The general idea is for your information to be higher up in the results listed in the search. It is also found in the results that are relevant to our copy.

Here are some of the top things that will make your listings more SEO friendly!

Headlines:

Why is the headline important? The title is used to determine what your information is about. If your headline describes in as few words as possible what’s in your content accurately, you’re more likely to appear higher in search results.

The easy-to-search title sample that’s awesome: “B Vitamin Postpones Alzheimer’s Disease.” Keep it short and to the point, assuming the article is about B vitamins. It will work for both search results and people looking for information on Alzheimer’s disease.

Here’s an unfriendly headline that won’t work for search engines and won’t work for people looking for your article or information: “Vitamins Come in the Mail.” Vitamins may show up in a search but too far down the list so that no one can find your item. Mail was not showing up at all in an Alzheimer’s search. Search engines or people would never find this title in your Alzheimer’s article.

The content description:

The purpose of the description is to tell search engines and people what your content includes. The description should include words that people search to find your content, but it should sound normal.

The description must be carefully constructed without including too many search words. Often, search engine algorithms will see your description with too many keywords. They call this “padding” and this can have an impact on where your content appears in search engine results.

This description was very helpful:

“Watch the car GPS demo. See how easy and fun it can be to find your way to your destination with a navigator.”

Now this description is simple and to the point. Provide information about the content of the article so that both search engines and people can find it.

This sample description was not helpful:

“People in the United States navigate with GPS while on vacation.”

This description would not be useful because the context of the description is about vacations and not how to use a GPS. People looking for vacation information would see this article and be unhappy because it’s not about vacations.

Video and images and their file names:

The algorithms used by search engines do not have the ability to look at videos or images and know what they are about. They do this by reading the name of the file. A file name like “img648.gif” means nothing; a file name like “auto-GPS.gif” will give the search engine something to work with.

Keep this in mind when adding content to the Internet. These tips work well, but you don’t want to fool search engines or people into thinking your content is about something else.