Search Engine Strategy for SEO

This is the million-dollar question or questions for having your website rank high on organic searches.

This strategy is not just one thing that you do, but a number of good practices that you need to be consistent on a web page or blog page.

The search engines like Google, Bing and yahoo use Search Engine Optimization or SEO as a way of helping people find what they are looking for.

Search Engines need as much help as they can get so we need to help the as much as we can.

Learning This Structure Is a BIG Deal!

You can have the most beautiful website but unless people can find it in the world wide web, what is the point?

Now remember we are talking about organic search and not paid search that is found on these search engines.  

I will go through each thing you need to do to help speak this search engine language. Its not hard and you will soon just do it naturally when posting up a new page or blog. 

This Strategy Will Consist Of:

  • Url’s
  • H1 Header
  • Subheaders (H2, H3, H4)
  • Keywords and Phrases
  • Content Text
  • Images
  • Meta Titles
  • Meta Descriptions
  • Internal Links
  • External Links
  • ***Bonus*** Rich Snippets or Schema

Here Is Each One and What to Do and Look For

 

URLs

  • This should include your main keyword phrase
  • Should be as short as possible
  • Use words and not characters
  • Use dashes to separate words
  • Do not worry about stop words and old school tactics
  • Do not repeat words in your URL

H1 Header

  • One of the most important elements of SEO
  • Make sure your website uses H1 tags
  • Make sure you use only one H1 header per URL
  • Include your keyword phrase in your H1 tag
  • Position the H1 tag before other tags (H2, H3, H4, etc.)

Sub-headers (H2, H3, H4) 

 

  • Use sub-headers to break up content
  • Use your outline to dictate what sub-headers to use
  • Keep HTML5 structure correct
  • Include focused keyword phrases or variations
  • Avoid long sentences as headers
  • Avoid duplicating your H1 header

Keywords and Phrases

  • Include your keyword phrase(s) a number of times within the content
  • Don’t keyword stuff-keyword density is not a ranking factor
  • Use keyword in the first sentence of the page and if that is not possible, in the first paragraph
  • Use variations and synonyms
  • Don’t worry about keyword density
  • Focus on writing great content around a topic and use the focused keyword in a natural manner

Content Text

  • Write at the level of your target market
  • A science paper may be at a PHD level
  • A shoe product page at a grade school level
  • Use your target market language and skip industry jargon
  • Shorter paragraphs win readers-especially on mobile devices
  • Bulleted lists help humans and search engines
  • Tables make large amounts of content easy to digest and they give data structure for search engines

Images

  • Image file names should describe the image and use your keywords if possible
  • Image alt text should describe the image and use your keyword if possible
  • Use the right image size so performance and speed are protected
  • Three Sizes On a Page
  • 1.) Slider across the top 12×5 120 dpi
  • 2.) Featured image 9×5 at 96 dpi
  • 3.) In the content 7×5 or 5×7 at 72 dpi.
  • On a blog only two sizes
  • 1.) Featured image is 9×5 at 96 dpi
  • 2.) In the content 7×5 or 5×7 at 72 dpi.
  • Write and add good, keyword rich descriptions for any image you want to rank in the Google image search

Internal links

 

  • Googles verbiage within the help of Google Console:
  • The number of internal links pointing to a page is a signal to search engines about the relative importance of that page.

External Links

  • External links are a hyperlink that point at (target) any domain other than the domain the link exists on (source).
  • They have a greater impact on search engine rankings than internal links because they are valued by search engines as external votes of confidence/popularity in a web page.
  • External links pass link equity (ranking power) differently than internal links because the search engines consider them as third-party votes.

Meta Titles

  • A page’s meta title should be the title
  • Make sure it is unique and does not duplicate other meta titles
  • Make it informative, yet readable
  • Include the focus keyword phrase
  • If possible, keep the keyword phrase as far to the beginning as possible
  • This is your first opportunity to reach potential visitors, so make it enticing, but not cheesy

Meta Description

  • Google changes meta descriptions all the time in search
  • Actually, it’s about 60% of the time
  • That’s OK
  • Google does it to improve user experience

*** Bonus***

Rich Snippets or Schema

  • It is a few lines of extra text or graphics that will show up in search results called structured data.
  • Rich snippets provide star ratings, recipe markup, and much more.
  • Rich Snippets for Ranking Higher on Search Engines
  • For WordPress users, there are paid and free Rich Snippet schema plugins you can use by going here: WordPress Rich Snippets or Schema Plugins
  • I like the Free WordPress plugin called All-in-one schema
  • Google loves rich snippets – and so do users – especially on the search results for recipes, products, and services.
  • I wrote a blog about Rich Snippets so go here: Rich Snippets for Ranking Higher on Search Engines

In Conclusion

If you follow these steps your website pages and blog post will rank higher on organic search results.

Speaking the language of search engines is a must for SEO.

 

SEO Strategy Ranking Google and Bing

To read more of my articles about Website and Graphic Design go here John Tarr Portfolio Blogs

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Search Engine Strategy for SEO
Article Name
Search Engine Strategy for SEO
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This strategy is not just one thing that you do, but a number of good practices that you need to be consistent on a web page or blog page.
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John Tarr Portfolio
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