Simple SEO Check List

Thursday, October 1st, 2009 Article

Website owners are often still confused about what simple search engine submission and search engine ranking techniques can help to ensure that their websites are properly indexed by the top search engines online. This is a search engine optimization checklist that is designed to help you determine whether or not your web pages are friendly for search engine spiders. Google SEO and other techniques for search engine optimization are vital in making sure that your website gets the exposure you need in order to generate sales and grow your business.Title - You need to make sure that your website’s title element tag is describing each individual page correctly using relevant keywords. Google displays a title of 66 characters, and Yahoo can display 120. The text in your title element is used by these search engines in order to index your website and determine what it is about. Your title will also be used in the search engine results pages, meaning that people searching for you will use your title tags to determine if they are in the right place. Your title element should be clear, concise and worth clicking.

URLs - Your URLs, or web page addresses should be both search engine friendly or SEF and human readable as well. Making your website addresses and URLs search engine friendly and human readable means that they are describing what the page is and they are using your desired keywords. By placing relevant and worthwhile keywords and keyword phrases in your URLs, you can actually rank higher within your niche or industry.

Meta Tags – It is important that you make good use out of the Meta Description Element, a tag hidden in the HTML for your website. Google can display 160 characters of this Meta tag, so make sure to use it wisely. The text snippet that is displayed in the search engine results pages or SERPs underneath your title element will either be taken directly from the content on your web page, or from the Meta description tag if you have one. If you write solid Meta descriptions, then you can be in better control of what words appear for your website in the search engine results pages when your website comes up in the results listings. Google will also highlight keywords that are relevant to the search. This could actually mean the difference between generating a new visitor and being overlooked by potential customers all together.

Site Map – Make sure to create an XML compatible site map that can be easily reached and referenced by Google, Yahoo and MSN Live. This will make sure that the search engines that spider your website find all of the pages on your website, rather than just the ones that are the easiest for them to reach.

The more steps that you take to make your website search engine friendly, the better the results will be when people find it easier to locate your website when looking for similar websites and information.

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