SEO Material - Using your HTML Title effectively

What is an HTML Title and why should I use it?

An HTML Title describes the contents of your web page in one sentence. It's likely to appear in search engines' results and in bookmarks. It's also the first thing a search engine's spider sees on your page. Since both readers and search engines will see your title, it's particularly important.

Your title is the most important part of your page as far as search engines are concerned. Note that every search engine supports the title tag to some extent.

Important: Your title should appear right after the tag. If you're using a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) tool, such as FrontPage, you may want to make sure your title is placed correctly. Having your title placed below its usual place may decrease its power and cost you rankings.

Avoid Spam

Don't repeat the same keyword in your title more than twice; it's considered Spam. Also, some engines penalize for using all CAPS.

An Overview

The HTML Title:

• Is the most important part of your page
• Should appeal to search engines and people
• Needs to interest the reader

How should the body of your site look? Find out what search engines want

Using keywords in the text of your pages

There are many issues to consider when placing keywords in the text of your pages. Most search engines index the full text of each page, so it's vital to place keywords throughout your text. However, each search engine uses different ranking algorithms. Difficult though it may be, you need to keep all of them in mind.

General rules

Make sure your main page is full of keywords. It has a higher chance of being indexed than your other pages, and it will be the only page indexed by some engines.

Some engines rank a page high if it has at least 100 words, so make that your minimum. Directories include pages based on the quality of their content, so make sure your pages aren't simply lists of keywords.

Key concepts

When creating your pages' content, keep the following four concepts in mind: Keyword prominence, proximity, density and frequency.

Keyword Prominence

The best place-to-place keywords in the text are at the top of each page, preferably the main page. The closer your keywords are to the start of the page or the start of a sentence, the better. This concept is known as "keyword prominence." You'll frequently see it used to describe search engines' algorithms.

Some engines also say the bottom of the page should contain keywords as well.

Beware! Search engines view pages differently than people do. Here's an example:

Home

About Us

Products

At spear software solutions our business is giving software solutions.

You may think you did pretty well by placing the keyword "widgets" at the top of your page. A search engine, however, sees your page this way:

Home About Us Products At spear software solutions our business is giving software solution.

Now your keyword placement doesn't look as good as it did before. Try to place keyword-rich text at the very top of your page. If you are using images at the top of your page, make sure to include ALT tags.

Keyword Proximity

Some engines, such as Google, use the concept of "keyword proximity" as part of their ranking formulas. As suggested by the name, "keyword proximity" means the how close keywords are to each other. Put your keywords as close together as possible and make sure your sentences are clear.

Here's an example:

Smith Brothers Inc has been selling CASH BACK for over 50 years.

Smith Brothers Inc has been selling food for your puppies for over 50 years.

The two keywords used are "puppy" and "food." If a user searches for "CASH BACK," the first sentence will rank higher because its keywords are closer to each other.

Keyword Density

This concept, also known as keyword weight, measures the relationship of keywords to other text. The higher the percentage of keywords in relationship to other text, the better.

Here's an example of how it's measured. Let's assume the keyword phrase is "CASH BACK."

CASH BACK is our primary business.

Since "is", "our," and other stop words are usually not counted, there are three "words" in the sentence: "CASH BACK," "primary," and "business." "CASH BACK" makes 1/3 of the sentence, or 33%.

Keyword density is almost never this high. The recommended density is 3-7%. This means that your keyword should repeat 3-7 times for every 100 words.

Sound easy? Imagine having 10 keywords and trying to repeat each one 3-7 times per 100 words of text -- it's practically impossible. Instead, pick two or three of your most important keywords and try to use them 3-7 times for every 100 words.

Keyword Frequency

Keyword frequency is a measure of the number of times keywords occur within a page's text. It's tied to the concept of keyword density. Search engines want to see more than one repetition of a keyword in your text to make sure it's not an isolated case. The recommended repetition is 3-7 times.

Avoid Spam

Don't be tempted to use tiny or invisible text to put keywords at the beginning of your pages. Search engines define this behavior as Spam and can reject your site for it.

An overview

Keywords in page text

• Include at least 100 words in page text
• Use keywords at the beginning of the page
• Place keywords close to each other
• Repeat keywords 3-7 times for every 100 words

Using the Meta Description tag

What is the Meta description tag and why should I use it?

The Meta description tag describes your site's content, giving search engines' spiders an accurate summary filled with multiple keywords.

Note: Meta tags are hidden in a document's source, invisible to the reader. Some search engines, however, are able to incorporate the content of Meta tags into their algorithms. No engines penalize sites that use Meta tags properly, so it's recommended that you always include them.

The Meta description tag is especially important because it's the only tag supported by some engines.

Here's an example of a Meta description tag:

<Meta name="description" content="Your site's summary here">

The Meta description tag and search engines

A Meta description tag can boost your rankings on some engines.

Another reason the Meta description tag is important is that some engines use it as a site's summary on their results pages. If they do, the reader may actually see this hidden tag. Make sure its contents are enticing to the reader.

Keywords in the Meta description tag

The Meta description tag should contain multiple keywords organized in a logical sentence. Place the keywords at the beginning of your description and close to each other to achieve the best possible rankings.

The length of the Meta description tag

Search engines vary in their preferred size for Meta tags. Try to use the smaller number, 150 characters, for your site. Never make your Meta tag more than 250 characters long because some results pages will cut it off.

Avoid Spam

Avoid repeating keywords more than 3-7 times in your Meta description. Some search engines consider it to be Spam.

An overview

The Meta description tag

• Use the meta description tag on all pages
• Limit it to 150 characters
• Include keywords
• Don't repeat keywords more than 7 times

Want to get the full benefit of Meta tags?

Using the Meta Keyword tag

What is a Meta keyword tag and why should I use it?

A Meta keyword tag lists all the keywords for which you would like search engines to rank your site. Although not all search engines support this tag, you should use it for the ones that do.

Note: Meta tags are hidden in a document's source, invisible to the reader. Some search engines, however, are able to incorporate the content of Meta tags into their algorithms. No engines penalize sites that use Meta tags properly, so it's recommended that you always include them.

Here's an example of a Meta keyword tag:

<Meta name="keywords" content="Your site's keywords here">

Keywords in the Meta keyword tag

This is what the tag is all about! You don't have to come up with any sentences; just list your keywords in order of importance. Include all your most important keywords. It's recommended that you repeat the same keyword 3-7 times, but not in a row.

The length of the Meta keyword tag

Search engines vary in their size preferences for Meta keyword tags. MSN, for example, will accept a Meta keyword tag up to 1024 characters long, while HotBot specifies 75 characters as its guideline.

Hotbot's guideline is unusual, however. Typically the Meta keyword tag is pretty large. We checked out some of Hotbot's top-ranking pages in various categories and found that many of them used Meta keyword tags much larger than 75 characters. Therefore, use 1024 characters as your guideline.

Avoid Spam

Avoid repeating keywords more than 3-7 times; you can get penalized for that. Up to 3 repetitions are recommended -- just don't place them one after the other.

An Overview

The Meta Keyword tag

• Use it to list keywords
• Limit it to 1024 characters
• List keywords in order of importance
• Don't repeat the same keyword more than 7 times

Using ALT tags

What is ALT tags and why should I use them?

You have a web site. Your designer did an excellent job and it looks great. You have plenty of images, including one containing your business name, logo and slogan.

Though your site may look fine, it's not optimized to score high with search engines. Since search engines don't index images, they won't index any text your web site presents in image format -- in this case the above-mentioned business name and slogan. To fix this problem, there are ALT tags, which are basically images' descriptions.

Always add ALT tags to your images to make sure search engines recognize all the content on your site. ALT tags filled with keywords can also be used to boost your keyword frequency and help you achieve better rankings.

Avoiding Spam

Search engines don't penalize for using ALT tags or even for packing them with keywords. Still, to be safe you should adhere to the generally accepted rule of not repeating keywords more than 3-7 times.

An Overview

ALT tags:

• Describe images
• Add keywords to site text
• Should be used for each image
• Make sites accessible to the visually impaired

Using Comment Tags

What are comment tags and why should I use them?

Comment tags provide a way for webmasters to make notes right on their pages. They're hidden in the HTML code and so are not visible to the site's ordinary users, but some search engines, such as Inktomi, can index them.

That means comment tags are another great way to add keywords to your site, thus increasing keyword frequency, an important factor in many ranking algorithms.

Avoid Spam

Search engines don't penalize sites using comment tags to boost keyword frequency. However, the general rule is not to repeat the same keyword more than 3-7 times in a tag. So, to be on the safe side, follow that rule in comment tags.

An Overview

Comment tags:

• Should be placed on every single page
• Can be used to boost keyword counts
• Shouldn't include more than seven repetitions of a keyword