Hey, Internet Marketer! Do You Know Your SEO?
Developing a great website that looks slick and professional is very important. You want visitors to really be “wowed” when they get to your site. But, and here’s the key, you have to get them to your site. This is where your search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. SEO plays a huge role in the success of any website, and you have to be able to really get it down pat so that you can drive the traffic to your site and make a good profit. Sure, you can do it yourself, but many internet marketing specialists will choose to work with a professional SEO company so that they know that the bases are all covered. Great SEO will get you great exposure, which will get you more traffic, more customers, and so forth, leading to more profits!
If you do choose to do it yourself, make a sincere effort to learn some of the basics. Here are a few tips that you should be considering, ones that will not only help with your SEO but also improve the overall appearance and function of your site.
Fonts and Headings are More Than Just Pretty Effects
Using the right fonts and headings, and being consistent, will help your site look polished and professional. But, did you realize that there are benefits to using certain fonts and headings/subheading types? There are some fonts and headings that are not detected properly by the search engines, meaning that your site may not be indexed properly because the entire site cannot be crawled by the search engine spiders because of incompatible graphics codes. Stick to the major players, like <h1>, <h2> and the most common fonts, for best results. Choosing something that is unique might cause you trouble, even if you think it looks nice. Also, include keywords in your titles and headings when you can, as the highlighted font or heading style will get more attention from the search engines.
Getting Around is Critical
It is difficult to get anywhere without directions, and a website is no different, for the most part. You need to make sure that your site is easy to navigate—not only for the users, but the search engines. Links must all be working, and having a site map is an added bonus in the eyes of the search engines. Certain blogging platforms, particularly WordPress, make it super simple to navigate and this is a platform that seems to be preferred by the major search engines, especially Google. And, many of the themes for WordPress are free—definitely an added bonus, as internet marketing startup can be a drain on the wallet.
Stick to Quality HTML
Many of the search engines will have difficulty properly crawling and indexing fancy programming. Avoid problems by keeping the Flash programming to a minimum, and use the basic HTML coding practices to help the search engines crawl the most important content on your site. Yes, Flash can provide some great visual effects, but there will often be a cost when it comes to your search engine ranking.
Making sure that your site looks great is a priority, but making sure that everything is going to go smoothly in terms of your search engine optimization is just as important. Internet marketing is a competitive business, and you need to stay on top of the game to really make it work!