10 Great SEO Tips To Rank Higher with Google

We all want to get more organic traffic from google. Organic traffic is usually very targeted allowing you the best opportunity to promote your product or service. Organic is a web term which means unpaid traffic from search engines and directories. A lot of my clients ask me about getting more traffic from search engines. I explain to them these top 10 SEO tips which time and time again have proven to be effective.

Use h1 h2 tags for your page headings. Page headings are fundamentally designed to make your title stand out the most on a page, which helps search engines determine what your page is about. I recommend only using a h1 tag once on a page. When you choose your titles ensure they have a descriptive keyword phrase. Use Google's Keyword Tool to find great keyword phrases for your content. Your pages title tag should match the h1 tag or at least have your keyword phrase in it.

Be creative with your anchor text keywords and incorporate variety. Using the same keywords in every link will have the appearance of being automated and can have a negative effect by Google. Use variety, use different keywords, mix them up, and add a little spice to the anchor text.

Obtain links using ethical practices. If it's unethical, I assure you, Google knows about those practices and will penalize you for it. Surely you remember some of those ethics classes from school or college. Google's main objective is to provide accurate websites on any given topic. One of the major factors to determine what is legitimately about a topic is to give credit to sites with more links pointing to them. Let's say you have 15 other sites linking to your article titled "10 Great SEO Tips To Rank Higher with Google." Since those links are added by an actual person, then you bet that's a great method to determine that page is actually about that particular topic. Ethical practices of getting links can include, establishing relationships with website owners then asking them for a link to your article. I have great webmaster friends and any time I ask for a link, they oblige. Establish your networks and be sure to give "link love" back! I personally would rather link to someone I know as opposed to someone I do not know. Which brings up another topic of establishing a social network in your industry.

While links are important for your home page, they are even more important for your content. If you only have links to your home page, your website must be shallow and lacking content. Plus you can't possibly cram every keyword into one page's title and meta tags. It just isn't practical. Establish links to your content and you will begin to grow your traffic from all directions instead of just one home page.

Add a title tag to your links. Links can also have title tags. Search engines factor these in for relevancy for pages. Title tags are not necessary for every link. For example a link to an article may already be very descriptive title, but a category, or link inside the article may be lacking in keywords, then use a title tag. Using these tags are part of html so use them to make the most effective usability on your website.

Exchange article's with other webmasters. Similar to a link exchange, article exchanges are even more effective. Both of you offer a different perspective to viewers through your article sharing and both of you get a quality link back to your site through relative content.

Create a site map. If your site is large, publish a site map. A site map should link to every page within your site allowing search engines to crawl your content effectively. A small site may not need a site map as a navigation bar will suffice. As your site grows, your content becomes harder to locate. Incorporating a site map ensures your content can be found by search engine robots.

Publish articles and content regularly. Google's crawler learns your publishing frequency and visits your site accordingly. Setup Google's Webmaster Tools to learn more about when Google-Bot is visiting your site, what pages they know about, what errors they have encountered along the way, etc... Some of my websites I have been publishing content on every single day since the year 2000. While I didn't physically post the content every single day, I did write a program to release the content on a consistent schedule. Google-Bot visits these sites every single day to find the new content and index's the pages accordingly. While daily isn't practical for many sites, maybe set a goal for weekly or once every two weeks. Over time you will have created a significant amount of content to bring in traffic from multiple areas of your website.

Create high quality, fresh, innovative content with length and depth. In the finer aspects of establishing higher page rank, Google factors in time a reader stays on your page. If a reader searches for a topic, clicks on your link, then backs up right away within seconds, your page must not be about that keyword phrase. In the eyes of Google, how valid is your content for that keyword phrase if users consistently leave your page instantly? Give your pages personality, include pictures, make it interesting to read to keep those viewers on your page for longer periods of time.

My final SEO tip is to make sure you are using valid HTML and CSS while creating fast loading pages using clean code. This may not be an easy task for some, as learning CSS, HTML, and stream-lining websites does have a learning curve. I have been designing since 1997 which guides my programing by mere experience. Pages with errors are going to negatively effect your readers and Google will factor this in when ranking your website pages. As far as being fast loading; This may seem non-important to some since so many or just about everyone is using broadband internet connections however, I still come across slow loading sites from time to time due to gigantic graphics and clutter all over the place. Keep your blogs and websites simple and to the point! Please what ever you do, don't dilute your content by adding too many features on one page. Organize your content well and allow your readers to effectively find the best content you have to offer without re-directing them to other unnecessary places. After all, the internet is about access to relevant information, not cluttering that information. Some of the best websites out there have clean designs and are straight to the point.

If you need consultation on design aspects, SEO improving, or anything else related to web design, feel free to contact me.

10 Great SEO Tips To Rank Higher with Google written by Brandon Tran