Top 20 SEO Tactics

The search engines are the ultimate target of website owners and web marketers. Higher search engine ranking is almost synonymous to online success. When a website appears on the top of the search results, the largest percentage of online users will be able to find it and most likely visit it. This is how important search engine ranking is.

Getting top search engine ranking takes time to be achieved. But if you start trying to get to the top now, sooner or later your website will be there. Here are 20 effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategies to get you started:

1. Keywords. This is the most popular factor to consider in search engine optimisation. Website content must be optimised for the most relevant keywords.
2. Keep the number of keywords in an acceptable number. Don’t use excessive keywords in one page; otherwise, it will be considered spamming.
3. Links are vital. You need to build internal links and incoming links. The first refers to links within the website, while the latter refers to links from other websites pointing to your website.
4. Websites should be submitted to web directories and open directory project. Should there be a need to submit it to other search engines, do so.
5. Title tags and Meta tags contribute to the ranking of a website on the search engines.
6. The choice of font size and colour must be taken into consideration. The size must be average and the colour must be in contrast with the background.
7. When creating the title tag, use keywords and avoid irrelevant common words that the search engines will eventually just ignore.
8. There must be relevant keywords in the Meta title.
9. Domain name must be the most relevant keyword of the website.
10. There must be not more than 50 outgoing links on any web page.
11. Maintain an acceptable rate of keyword density.
12. The web pages must not be loaded with too many words. Long content in one page will just bore the visitor. Maintain an average word count – just enough to let you say what you want to say without boring the readers.
13. Incoming links pointing to your website must use keyword rich anchor texts.
14. When naming the web pages, use keywords. Separate two or more words using a hyphen or underscore.
15. Create alt text for images and graphics.
16. Build quality incoming links by engaging in article marketing. Write relevant and up to date articles and submit them to high ranking article directories.
17. Website design must be optimised. It should promote better navigability.
18. Make sure the website fully accessible by search engine spiders.
19. There must be a sitemap. A sitemap helps the search engine spiders index all the pages of a website.
20. Research about your target market and the search engines. This will help you devise more strategies that will help your website crawl its way to the top of the search engines.

Search engine optimisation must be a continuous process. It should not stop just because the website is already appearing on top of the search results. If you stop, those who are also optimizing their website may grab your ranking in no time.