Monday, December 19, 2011

SEO Pillars - 5 Steps To Rank Higher

The main purpose of Search Engines (google,yahoo,bing,etc) is to provide the accurate information against the user queries. Search Engines list websites against the user query according to some predefined algorithms. The Search Engine Algorithms are based on guidelines that websites should follow in order to rank higher in search engine results for the relevant search criteria.
 Search Engines provide Organic Search and Paid Search. Organic search is based on natural rankings based on the search engine algorithms, and can be optimized with various SEO practices. On the other hand, paid search allows you to pay to rank higher on the search engine results page against the user search criteria.


Organic results are clicked on a lot more than paid results, especially for well educated users. More than 85 percent users click on organic search results. If you quickly want to rank higher then you must go far paid listing or PPC(Pay Per Click) but should also optimize your website for organic listing. In this post, my focus will be on organic search basics. The most important task in SEO is to research the right keywords for your web pages. Please check this post Steps to Keyword Research for finding the correct keywords for you web pages.

1. Domain Name & URL's
Domain name should be short, unique and should contain top 3-5 keywords. If your website targets specific area then try to get local domain name instead of .com, .net etc. Its better to have yourdomain.ca rather than yourdomain.com, If your website targets only canada users. Domain name should be easy to type and remember. URL's should be short and descriptive. From a URL user should be able to know the contents of the page.

2. Page Title
Page Title is very important search engine look for matching page title against user search query. Page Title is shown as a search heading in search results by search engine. Page Title must contain your keywords.Your Page title should be 20-60 characters long.


3. Meta Description of Page
Meta Description is what is shown in search results below the URL in search engine results as shown below. Meta description tags are not only important to search engine rankings but are also extremely important in gaining user click from search engine result pages. It must contain the keywords. The length of description should be around 200-250 characters.


4. Page Headings & Contents
Heading tags help user in navigating through a page contents. That's why, heading tags (h1-h6) are given very much value in page ranking by all major search engines. The sizes of the headings shows semantic hierarchy of a web page. The h1 heading marks the highest level in the semantic hierarchy. The h2 heading marks the second highest level in the semantic hierarchy. The h3 heading marks the third highest level in the semantic hierarchy, and so forth.Your webpage must contain keywords in your heading tags to get higher ranking by search engines.
Search engines like unique contents. All content must contain your keywords and phrases which appear throughout. These repeating words and phrases draw the attention of search engines. Ideally, for every 500 words, you should include keywords and keyword phrases at least 2-3 times. Its good idea to use bold and strong tags to emphasize keywords in your contents.


5. Back Links
Google relies heavily on quantity and quality of the back links to determine what web sites rise to the top of the listings. Google relies on the voting public to determine what sites are most popular and rewards them by pushing their site to the top of the search results. In order to place well, your web site needs to be validated by other website (back links).


Hope you will find it very useful.

 Good luck!

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