Four Onsite Optimization Strategies to Improve Page Rank in Search Results
Implementing an SEO strategy in this digital, computer age is crucial for your business to grow. Everyone is now online and it is important to not only have a website, but an optimized one. An optimized website is easy to find online and benefits fro more web traffic which can translate into more business for your organization.
Optimized websites are indexed by search engines and show up higher in search results for certain search queries. The first step in optimizing your website is to do some keyword research using tools such as Google’s Keyword Tool. Focus on keywords that have low competition, yet have high search volume. After you identify your keywords, strategically place them in different sections of your website. These sections include the title tag, meta description, headers, within the content itself, and within alt tags.
Title Tags
Title tags indicate the name or title of your page that search engines look at when displaying search results for a search query. Let’s say your company does water damage restoration and your keywords include, “home water restoration” and “San Diego water damage”, then the title tags should include your company’s name and some, if not all of those keywords. The title tag appears either on the top bar of a window that appears in a web browser or on the tab at the top of the browser window. Include your keywords here as you want to make sure your page appears in the search results for your keywords.
Meta Description
The meta description is the brief couple sentences that appear under your page’s title that describe what your page is all about. When your page appears in a search result, a brief paragraph, usually consisting of a couple sentences, will show up under your page’s title. The meta description helps the person conducting the search to get an idea of what your site is about so he or she can see if they want to proceed onto your site. Again, make sure your select keywords are included, that your description is clear, concise and accurately portrays your company. Again, your home water damage restoration company’s description should include, “home water restoration” and “San Diego water damage”.
Headings and Link-Rich Content
Once visitors click through to your site, make sure your page headings are rich with your selected keywords. Make sure to also have your keywords sprinkled around in the content of each page of your site. The content of your pages also offer great opportunities to create both internal and external links that search engines will take into account in ranking your website in search results. Don’t go overboard with putting in too many links or keywords in your pages’ content. With too many links and keywords, your site will look bad and can incur penalties by Google. Have each page header and title tag different for each page of your site as each page will inevitably be on a slightly different topic. 
Alt Tags
Many professional websites have images and/or videos to accompany the text. You should not have a website that is all text unless it is a blog. Text only websites are boring for a site visitor and therefore scare many viewers away. It also isn’t good for SEO as you lose another opportunity for search engines, and, therefore people to find your site. Search engines and consumers also attribute all text sites to advertisements and spam.
All your images and videos should have a title and an alt tag-even the ones that aren’t on your website. Alt tags briefly, but clearly tell the viewer what the image or video is about if their computer for some reason can display the image or video. The viewer will still be able to get an idea of what the picture or video is showing though they cannot see it. Search engines also crawl, search and rank images and videos as well as text, so that is why it is important to label and tag even your videos and images. Your alt tags need to be clear, concise and as descriptive of the image/video as possible. For your water damage restoration site, you may have pictures of your work vehicles or employees working in a home. Be concise, yet descriptive and include your keywords: home water restoration and San Diego water damage.
By utilizing all these techniques, one can diversify and therefore increase their website’s chances of being found on search engines and in search results. Being ranked high in search results lead to more visitors to your site and therefore more profit for your business.
About The Author: Sarah Snider is an intern here at Dinomite SEO and a student at UCSD. She has a minor in public relations and great experience with press release composition and SEO copywriting.