What do I need to do to optimize my website to improve its position on Google's Search Engine Result Page (SERP)?

You should optimize your website in order to improve your search result ranking on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.. This is important because more and more of your potential customers are using the Internet to research and look for your products and/or services. By optimizing your website it increases the likelihood that your company’s website will appear at the top or close to the top of the search result pages, which increases the chances of your website being seen.Your competitors are optimizing their websites in order to improve their page rank in the search engines your customers are using. If you don’t keep up you risk falling behind, which ultimately leads to lost revenue.

There are several main areas of optimization of your website that I will go over today:

• the title tag of each page


• the URL of your website


• the meta tags for keywords and website description


• the HTML 'heading' tags (H1, H2 etc)


• the 'alt' tags on images displayed on your site


• lastly, the text on each of your pages

Let's look at the basics first. The title (the HTML title tag) of your webpages should have your website name and the name of the page that shows. So you should have a 'abc.com - Home' page title on your home page, and 'abc.com - About Us' page title on your about page. And so on.

You should have a set of html 'meta' tags (information tags used by search engine 'indexers' or 'spiders') that let these search engines categorize your website in their indexes. There is a keyword meta tag that lists all the keywords that are related to your business , and there is a description meta tag that is a paragraph or two about your business, which should include some of the keywords as well. Give an example maybe? Eg. If you’re a fitness company, some meta tags might include your location, and words like ‘fitness’, ‘training’, ‘exercise’, ‘nutrition’, ‘working out’, ‘health’, ‘equipment’, etc.

The next area to look at are the HTML heading tags or H1 H2 etc. These are considered important by the search engines so the use of them for chapter or page headings is indicated.

Every image on your website has a property called the 'alt' tag, or alternative text tag. You should put your website name and important keywords in every alt tag, because Google indexes these as well.

Your home page contents play an important part too in search rankings. Most of the search engines look for content changes, as it helps in the ranking formula. You should also have some text that contains your keywords on your home page too to maximize the chances of placing higher in search engine rankings.

By taking these steps, you improve the odds of placing well in search engine rankings and ensuring your company is “on the radar” of your potential customers.
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Marshall H. Goodman, Consultant
Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing
Phone: (905) 764-3731
Email: goodmama@mhg.on.ca
Website: www.mhg.on.ca