optimizing a website for web search engines

optimizing a website for web search engines

SEO, an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of optimizing a website for web search engines. With a comprehensive optimization technique implemented on a website, the search engines will be able to index and crawl it in an effective way. Website optimization is basically getting a website displayed in the first few search result for a particular keyword.

There are principally two finest ways of optimizing a website for search engines viz. On-Page Optimization and Off-Page Optimization.

On-Page Optimization

On-Page optimization method deals with fine tuning your webpage structure and content. This method can easily be performed since the webmaster can easily modify the web pages on the server. On-Page optimization can be achieved through following processes:

Code Optimization

It is very essential to keep the web page code simple and clean. A clean code can easily be read and understood by the web crawlers whereas it would take much time to crawl through a shabby code. As most of the pages will be written in HTML markup, make sure to cluster the styles into a CSS file and not into the various tags. The actual web page should consist of clean tags without the styles coming in the way.

Title Tag Optimization

The Title tag is a very crucial component of a webpage. When search engines crawls the website, the Title tag is the first element to be crawled making it highly important. The Title tag should be short but descriptive and expressive in content. Include the website/company’s name in the Title tag for the homepage (usually index.html). In other pages, include the keyword for which the page has been optimized. The targeted keyword should be placed first in the Title tag.

Suppose, there’s a page targeting a keyword “Pink Dresses”, then include “Pink Dresses - ” in the Title tag but not “ - Pink Dresses”.

Meta Tags Optimization

Meta tags are generally used to describe the page content and services provided in brief. There is a better chance for a website to show up in searches if good Meta tags are formulated. A Meta Description tag explains about the page in short and Meta Keyword tag lists all the targeted keywords for which a user may search.