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Five Steps to Ranking Higher on Search Engines


Having your website appear on the first page of organic search results from Google or Bing can make or break your business. After all, most internet users don’t look past the first page of results when searching for something online. So how can you improve your search engine ranking? Since search engines look at over 600 factors to determine the ordering of their results, the process of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is incredibly complex. But, there are five key things you can do on your website to help pull ahead of your competition.

1. Set Custom Title Tags – The title tag of your website, which is the text that appears at the top of your browser bar, is one of the first places that search engines look to determine type of website it is indexing. Your websites content management system should let you create a custom, SEO-friendly title tag for every page. When deciding the title of a page, choose one to three target keywords and limit the length, since long titles dilute the density of your keywords. Since the title tag also serves as the clickable link on search result pages, try to include a brief call-to-action to compel people to click on your site.

2. Set Custom Meta Descriptions and Meta Keywords – The meta description is the blurb of copy that appears below your clickable title on search result pages. Not only do some search engines use the description as a ranking factor, but users will read the description to decide if they want to click though to your website. The description should be short (no more than 25 words), and should work in the keywords you targeted for your title tag. Try to make your description interesting and compelling if you want people to click on your site. Meta keywords are a type of meta tag that are used to indicate what your website is about. To optimize your meta keywords, simply enter in the keywords that you are targeting on the page, separated by commas.

3. Use SEO Friendly URLs – Getting the keywords that you are targeting on each page into the URL is critical. With PointShop Enterprise E-Commerce platforms and AgileSite websites, you have control over the URL of each page on your site. Open source platforms and older technologies will sometimes generate URL’s that contain dynamic parameters that can act as a road block to web spiders. Thankfully, all of WTE Solutions’ technologies let you easily create SEO friendly URLs that are static in nature. For each page, you should use a static URL containing the primary keyword phrase you are targeting, separated by hyphens (i.e. ‘your-keyword-here). This will ‘clue’ the search engines into what each page is about, which will help your rankings.

4. Write Keyword-Rich Copy – Search engines live for words which means that content is king. Your website should give you a great deal of flexibility to add content to your product, category, and static pages. For each page on your website, try to target at least 200 words of content while working in your keyword phrases. The keywords should be based on common sense usage, distributed evenly throughout the page and in headings to break up the text. It’s also a good idea to include hyperlinks to other product and category pages in the long description section. When linking, use the keywords that you are focusing on for the page that you are linking to as the anchor text (i.e. the clickable portion of the link). Remember not to stuff keywords in the copy. Rather, focus first on writing engaging, compelling copy and then try to work in your keywords. When read aloud, the text you have written should sound conversational.

5. Name Your Images Properly – Search engines love words but images aren’t yet readable to them (though Google and Facebook are working to change that). Nonetheless, there are some things you can do to clue search engines in on the story your images are telling. WTE Solutions’ AgileSite and PointShop Enterprise platforms have site administration areas that allow you to create custom ALT text for images.. Be sure to use your keywords here, but keep the text brief, a maximum of five or six words. Additionally, name your images using your targeted keywords. For example, consider naming an image of a “nike-golf-bag.jpg” as opposed to ‘p458588585.jpg’. These techniques can help improve your ranking in Google Image search, a great source of free, qualified traffic.

As mentioned, SEO is a complex process that deals with many variables and technicalities. If you follow the guidelines listed above, you will be well on your way towards getting your website closer to page one of the search results.