Search Engine Optimization Tips

We'll review a favorite site of ours as an example of where these suggested, easy-to-implement changes can shift search results in your favor.

And, for database-driven websites such as this one, making updates to just ONE page will quickly pay for itself.

sample website

Effective <TITLE> Tags

Instead of "Product Overview", the Product Title and Mfg # could be used:

<title>Apple Power Mac G5 Dual 2.3GHz, 
#M9748LL</title>

<H1> Tags

Often the <TITLE> tag should match what you have set as your <H1> on the page.

In our example, the following code snippet generates the product title (above the picture)

<td width='412' style='font-family:arial,verdana,
sans-serif;font-size:16px;font-weight:bold;
color:#333333;'>Apple Power Mac G5 Dual 2.3GHz
</td>

Instead, this could be used

<td><h1>Apple Power Mac G5 Dual 2.3GHZ</h1></td>

Meanwhile, the font information for the H1 tag could be stored in the stylesheet making for cleaner code, faster download, semantically better mark up and search engine optimized.

ALT Attributes

Also, effective use of ALT and TITLE attributes on IMAGES will help with search engine indexing. Try to use descriptive copy using good keywords.

alt tag usage

In the example above, the product name could have easily been inserted into the ALT attribute for the image. Being a data-driven site, the same variable output tag can be used for the <title>, <h1> and the <img alt> tags. The manufacturer's part number should be used, not the resellers' as you may at least get some search hits on the mfg part versus your own number.

search results

And yes, searching on M9748LL does return results for Apple Power Mac G5.

Check out the text used in the blue underlined links on the search results, those are the <title> tags for the indexed pages. See how it all comes together?

Effective, Relevant, Keyword Rich Content

As described above, commerce sites should have product pages with rich descriptions using keywords and attributes that would get used by searching prospects.

Service-based firms should have case studies, project profiles and service offering pages chock full of keyword-containing project materials and techniques used, names of locations and clients' and partner's firms.

An up-to-date site map will not only help your users but search engines as well. A well-managed site map will help keep any pages from being buried or becoming orphans.

Your Website Is Not An Island

Getting more sites to link to you will also help with your search engine index ratings. Even better if they use your keywords (product names, services offered, etc) as the link names, not just click here or www.yoursite.com

This strategy will take advantage of Google's PageRank^TM technology. The more, quality links you having coming in to your site, the better.

Interested In Learning More? To learn more about cre8's SEO services please contact us today.

CDW and CDW logo are registered trademarks of CDW Corporation. cre8 received no compensation for this review.