Keywords

Lack of well-chosen keywords and phrases on your Web site is a truly terrible mistake to make, as search engine spiders depend on these to find your site; as well as search engine users. If you have not targeted specific and precise keywords for your website, then you will not be easily found. Period.

Lack of Targeted Keywords Equals Lack of Traffic

For example, if you sell used art textbooks and just insert the non-specific word “book” into your Meta tags and site content, guess what?

Not only will you probably not show up in at least the first fifteen pages of search results, but users that actually find your site by some quirk of fate will most likely turn around and leave as soon as they get there (unless, again, by some quirk of fate, they are looking for used art textbooks.

Not gonna happen.).

Keyword Tools

So how do you figure out these keywords and phrases? Here are a couple of great keyword tools that can help you do this:

• Digital Tracker Keyword Suggestion: Digital Tracker is absolutely invaluable. I use this every day.
• Free Keyword Suggestion Tool:Displays how many times a certain keyword was searched for in a given month. Shows all related searches for the entered keyword.
• Google Keyword Tool: "The Keyword Tool generates potential keywords for your ad campaigns and reports their Google statistics, including search performance and seasonal trends."

All of these keyword tools can help you get a clear idea of what people are actually searching for, and then you can use those words within your site copy and structure to attract more people to your site.

It's all about providing the better user experience - if people can't find your site, no matter how great your service or site is, you're not providing that good user experience.

Where To Put Keywords

Now that you've got your basic keyword research started, you need to know where to put these keywords on your Web site.

• Title Tag: The title tag is a great place to use your keyword phrases. The title tag consists of those words you see at the top of your browser window in the blue space, and it is what search engines grab for the title display in their search results; so obviously, it's an important part of your search engine optimization strategy. Here's an example: [Keyword Phrase] - How To [Keyword Phrase 2].
• Headline: Most people who read on the Web scan Web pages quickly. This is why headlines are so important - they give your reader a chance to get what they need fast with a minimum of fuss (again, back to that great user experience). Use your keyword phrase again in the headline: How To [Keyword Phrase].
• Content: Now you need to write your keyword phrases into your site content. This is where it can get tricky, because it's easy to just write that keyword phrase where ever that keyword phrase might fit into where the keyword phrase could go (see what I mean? sounds terrible!). Be natural about it - easier than it sounds, but with practice you'll get it.

Keywords Increase Web Site Traffic

No doubt about it - if you're able to place well-researched keyword phrases into your site content and structure, you will attract more searchers to your site, and provide a better user experience because they will be able to find what they are looking for. More than anything else - high rankings, increased traffic, etc. - the top goal should be to provide the best user experience for every single person that comes to your site, and making sure your keyword phrases serve their needs is a big part of that.

Keywords in HTML

What are HTML Keywords

Keywords in HTML are words that you are targeting on a web page. They are typically short phrases that represent what the page is about. They are also, hopefully, the words that someone might type into a search engine and find your page.
In general, HTML keywords are found whether you intend them to be there or not. Keywords are just text like any other text, and when a search engine views your page, they look at the text and attempt to make a decision regarding what the page is about based on the text it sees.

Meta Data in HTML

But the most common use of the term “keywords” in HTML is as meta data. This is typically thought of as the meta keywords tag, and is written in HTML like this:

<meta name="keywords" content="keywords,html keywords,meta keywords,keyword data" />

This meta tag is not very important. Most search engines don't use the keywords meta tag because it can be manipulated so easily by the web page writer.

In other words, many page writers used to put random keywords into the keywords tag, in the hopes that the page would be optimized for those (probably more popular) phrases.

A More Important HTML Meta Tag Than Keywords: Description

If you are going to include meta data on your web pages, you should ignore the keywords tag, and instead use the meta description tag. This is meta data that nearly every search engine uses to describe your web page in their index. And that extra information could mean the difference from a customer clicking on your site for information or someone else's.

HTML Keywords and Search Engines

Instead of using the keywords meta tag, you should think about keywords in the actual content of your web page.

These are the terms that the search engines will use to evaluate what the page is about, and thus where it should appear in their search results. This allows you to first write content that is useful, and then focus on search engine optimization to optimize that content for the keywords you are focusing on for that page.

How to Choose HTML Keywords

When you are choosing the keyword phrase for a web page, you should first focus on just one phrase per web page. It is not a good idea to try to optimize one web page for many different things, as this will confuse not only the search engines, but more importantly your readers.
One strategy that may seem counter-intuitive, but works well for many sites is to choose “long-tail” keywords. These are the keywords that don't get huge amounts of search traffic. Because they aren't as popular with searchers, they aren't as competitive and it's possible to rank higher in search for them. This gets your site noticed and gets you more credibility. And as your site gains credibility it will start ranking higher for more popular terms.

HTML Keywords Generators and Other Keywords Tools

Another way to determine the keywords in your HTML is to use a keyword generator. There are many online tools that will analyze your web page content and tell you how many times various phrases are used on your page. These are typically called keyword density analyzers. That previous link shows you some free ones that I have found, or you can check out keyword density tools recommended by other About.com readers.

How Meta Tags Really Affect Your Website

Meta Tags are an important, but often misunderstood, aspect of web design. Meta Tags contain information or “metadata” about your website. This information, which is in the <head> of an HTML document, is not meant to be read by the people that visit that site, but is intended for browsers, web servers, and search engines.
Now, you may have noticed that “search engines” were included in the aforementioned list.

Yes, search engines do read a site’s metadata, but they do not use that information in their search ranking algorithms any longer. Years ago, search engines did use Meta Tags as one of the signals that influenced rankings, but rampant abuse of these tags destroyed their use as a rankings signal in all major search engines today.

This causes confusion for many people who may have once been told that they had to “change their Meta Tags” in order to improve search engine rankings, but who have not kept up with changes in SEO practices and do not realize that, while still valuable in many ways, Meta Tags no longer have impact on search engine rankings.

So what do Meta Tags do in 2015 and how do they, if at all, help a site be optimized for people? Here’s a rundown of the most common Meta Tags used on websites and exactly what their purpose is.

Description

The Meta Description tag is one of the ones that used to be used by search engines for ranking purposes. Because of this, many people still mistakenly believe that they can seed this tag with SEO-centric keywords and impact their search engine placement.

That is no longer the case, but that does not mean this tag is not still important. Many search engines will use the content of this tag, which should contain a short description of the content on that page, as the description used in the search engine results page (SERP) when that page is returned with a search query.

There is no guarantee that the search engine will use the text from your Meta Description tag, but they do take it as a suggestion, so it is a good idea to write a clear, concise description of your page using this tag.

Keywords                      

Keywords was another tag that search engines used to use in their rankings calculations. This is the one that was prone to abuse and it is no longer a factor in rankings. Some SEO specialists use this tag simply to list out the keywords that a given page is optimized for. While the tag will not impact SEO rankings, it does give anyone working on the code of the site a clear list of which keywords are relevant to that page.

Author

The Meta Author tag is often used to list the person or company who created that page or website, almost like a signature in the code. Some web designers prefer this method over adding a “Website design by…” link in the footer of the site.

Robots

The Meta Robots tag lets the search engine’s crawlers know whether or not a page should be indexed and included in their database. If you have a page on your site that is not intended for the general public, like a page for employees only, using the Robots tags is one way you can block that page from search engines.

Language

Websites that contains pages with different languages can use the Meta Language tag to let the browser know which language a given page is written in. This is not for computer coding languages, but for human languages like English, Spanish, French, etc.

Revised

The Meta Revised tag lists when the page was last changed. This can be helpful since it will let a search engine know if recent changes have been made to the content of that page and if, therefore, that page should be crawled again and reindexed.

Title Tag

One final HTML element that is worth mentioning is the <title> tag that is found near the start of all webpages. Like Meta Tags, the title tag is not really meant for people, but rather for machines. Unlike Meta Tags, however, the title tag does show up in the web browser in a few places:

• The top of the browser window, in the toolbar
• When a page is added as a bookmark or favorite, this is the title that will be used
• In the SERP page, this is the title that will be used for the page, displaying the first 50 to 60 characters

Each HTML document must only contain 1 title tag and this tag is actually used by search engines in their ranking algorithms. The content of the title tag should be a short, clear description of the content found on that page.

SEO Is Not a 4-Letter Word

Mention the term “search engine optimization” to a group of web designers and you are likely to get reactions ranging from general ambivalence to outright disgust. What you are unlikely to hear is much enthusiasm for the role that SEO should play in a website project. This is because search engine optimization too often conjures up notions of shady practices more focused on tricking search engines than actually helping people find the content that is important to them.

 Yes, SEO is an aspect of website design that is prone to abuse by dishonest shysters, but real SEO is not a bad thing. At its best, optimizing a website for search engines is really about optimizing for people.

Optimizing for People

Part of the problem with SEO is that the very name suggests that you are building a website for search engines, but Google is not buying the product or service that your company offers.

The search engines are not your customers, real people are your customers and they are who you should be optimizing for.

Thankfully, when you optimize your website for people, you will find that those are the same things that will actually make your site more appealing to search engines.

Start With Content

The goal of all search engines is to rank websites so that the most relevant and highest quality results are returned for any given search query. They want the best content to rise to the top, so the very first area of consideration when it comes to SEO needs to be your site’s content.

Follow Best Practices      

Many of the “SEO changes” that websites often require are really just best practices that should’ve been a part of the site from the get-go – which means that if you start with these best practices in place, you are already ahead of the curve!
Website best practices that are essential to SEO include cleanly coded pages that have a separation of structure (HTML) and style (CSS), the proper use of HTML elements like headings, and even a website that is responsive. Google now uses this “mobile-friendliness” as a factor in their ranking algorithms, which is a perfect example of how you can improve the visitor experience on your site (by ensuring it works well across different devices and screen sizes) and get SEO benefits in return!

If It Sounds Too Good To Be True…

As I mentioned early in this article, SEO is unfortunately prone to disingenuous “experts”, as well as outright scam artists, looking to capitalize on companies who do not fully understand SEO and are therefore willing to pay for a service to help them out.
There are many reputable SEO specialists out there who will provide a quality service, but you need to be careful. A good rule of thumb to follow is that if something sounds too good to be true, it very likely is. If a company tells you that they can get you to the top of Page 1 in Google in 2 weeks and for just $50, then they are doing something shady. This could be a big problem for you, because bad things can happen when you try to cheat the search engines.

Don’t Try To Trick Google

Websites are on Google (and other search engines) at their discretion and they can take you out of their database if they choose to do so. When you try to trick the search engines, you run the risk that you will break their rules and they will penalize you for it. Yes, the “Google blacklist” is a real thing and once you are on it, it is a serious challenge to get back in that search engine’s good graces.
Remember what I said at the start of this article – the goal of all search engines is to rank websites so the most relevant results are returned. If you try to trick that search engine into ranking your site higher than it should be, you will run into problems. Google has an entire team of people dedicated to making sure their algorithm is the best that it can be and that no tricks will work on it. While some of those tricks may work in the short term, rest assured that Google will catch on and there will be a price to pay.

Helping People Find What They Need

Ultimately, SEO is about helping people find the website content they need at a given time. It is not about tricking anyone, it is about being helpful and that should be something that all web designers can get behind.

SEO Basics That All Web Designers Should Understand (and Use)

The best designed, most useful website in the world is pointless if the people who need the information, products, or services that the website offers cannot find it online. While many website designers think that search engine optimization (SEO) is a shady practice that is not part of their job, this is simply not true. Done correctly, SEO is not about tricking search engines - it is about making sure that a website can be found by the people who are looking for it.
While there are many reputable specialists that could work on the more advanced, long term SEO strategies for a website, there are also some basics that should be a part of all websites from the very beginning. These basics and best practices are ones that all web designer should understand and be ready to put to use on the work that they do.

Content is King

The goal of all search engines is to ensure that the most relevant, highest quality content rises to the top for any search query on that site. While a number of factors are considered in the algorithms that the search engines use, an algorithm that changes frequently, one constant is that quality content is critically important to a site’s SEO success.
People do not come to websites to admire the visual design or scroll through the code of the page – they come for the content that the site contains. Great content that is useful, relevant, and timely encourages people to share that content with other via links on social media and other websites, through email, or even just by good old fashioned word of mouth.

These links act as a “vote of confidence” for the site’s content, letting search engines know that it is good quality. The more “votes” that content has from legitimate links, the more notice a search engine will place on that content and rank it accordingly.

All SEO strategies must include great content, so ensuring that a website’s content is up to snuff is Step 1 in any plan.

Structure Matters

The way that a site is constructed will have an impact on how effectively search engine robots can crawl the site’s pages and understand its content. Code that is well formatted with the proper separation of structure and style (HTML and CSS) helps a search engine quickly get through the pages. The use of proper HTML elements also ensures that search engines understand the content and can rank the site accordingly.

Mobile-Friendliness

Ensuring that websites work well on the wide range of devices and screen sizes being used to access web content today is important from a user experience standpoint, but “mobile-friendliness” will also have an impact on that site’s SEO rankings.

Performance

Websites need to load quickly in all browsers, both on desktop computers and on mobile devices. The way that a site is constructed and the resources it requires, including images, video, etc., will impact the overall performance of a website and can have a negative impact on that performance and on search engine rankings.

Regarding Meta Tags

An often misunderstood aspect of website design and SEO, HTML meta tags do play a role on your website, but that role is not about search engine optimization. Years ago, meta tags did affect overall rankings, but that day has passed.

Links

The best way to improve overall rankings is with inbound links to a website – but not all links are created equal. Links from scammy link farms will hurt, rather than help, a website’s rankings. The kind of links that are helpful are quality links from reputable websites. The best way to get these links is by adding quality content to the site that will encourage others to want to share it – which brings our SEO basics back to where we began, with content. All quality SEO initiative will, indeed, begin and end with a website’s content.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly About Parallax Websites

If you’ve surfed the Web in the past year or so, you’ve undoubtedly noticed a trend with websites eschewing a multi-page approach and, instead, putting all the site’s content on one page. Oftentimes these pages feature interesting animation and movement effects as you scroll down the page. This is known as a Parallax Website and, as popular as this trend may be, there are good, bad, and ugly aspects to using this approach.

The Good

It’s easy to see what the “good side” of using parallax scrolling on a site is – it looks cool! You can create some really interesting effects with parallax sites and add an element of “wow” to that will impress and excite many clients. Those effects can also create a unique and memorable experience for visitors, something that all websites strive for.
Besides the visually rich benefits that a parallax site can deliver, this approach can also allow for a smoother user experience, at least once the page has fully loaded (more on page load shortly). Because everything is on one page, once that page is loaded in the browser, there is no delay waiting for new pages. Visitors have access to all the content already, so links that go to content deeper on that page (anchor or internal links) load instantly, which visitors to the page will certainly appreciate.

The Bad

So how about the bad side of parallax? One of the challenges with this approach is with search engine optimization. Since all the content is on one page, you can only truly optimize that page for a handful of terms, unlike a multi-page site where each page can focus on the terms and content relevant to that specific page.

Set up a Blog. Simple as 1, 2, 3. Personal Domain and 100% Free.

This is one of the reasons why single page websites are often used for very specific pieces of content, like a particular service or product that is being promoted, rather than for as a company’s full website. In these instances, single page parallax sites can avoid this SEO dilemma because the page really only needs to be optimized for a small set of keywords or phrases.

The Ugly

Finally, the ugly side of this approach to building websites centers around the performance of most parallax sites. Since parallax sites place all their content, including what are usually very large images, on one page, that page can be a beast to load, especially for visitors using mobile devices. Mobile visitors may be dealing with unreliable connection speeds, which means a large page could take very long to load for them. They may also be concerned about their mobile plans data limits. Serving a webpage that eats up a sizable chunk of their monthly data allowance is unlikely to endear your company to that visitor!
With website download speed and performance becoming more and more important to a site’s success, having a page that requires visitors to download a sizable amount of data just to see any content at all can be a lot to ask for. This is why, if you are going to use a single page website approach, you need to be cognizant of download speed and performance and do your part to streamline that experience as much as possible.

Should You Use Parallax?

So the big question is whether or not you should us this approach on your website. This is a question you must answer for yourself. Parallax, like most website approaches, can be incredible powerful or extremely detrimental to your overall online goals - it depends on how you implement this solution. Done correctly and for the right project, parallax can create a powerfully rich user experience on your site. Done incorrectly, however, and you may be saddled with a slow-loading, ill-performing site that will not work well for your company or your visitors.