Popular Tags
Association Website Design Mistakes: Search Engine Optimization
Association Marketing
Building a website that is informative, interesting, and easy to navigate is hard enough on its own, which is why search engine optimization is often an afterthought. While properly constructed web pages that encourage indexing by search engines should be the responsibility of your web firm, there are a number of best practices that an association can do to produce better search results.
Get Your Advice From The Source
For the best advice on how to rank better in a search engine, who’s better to trust than the search engine itself? I suggest reading the search engine optimization article in the Google help system, and download their Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.
Frequently Update Content
Updating and adding new content is a great way to show search engines that your website is current and evolving. Search engines often try to show the most current information on a subject to ensure that it is still relevant. Adding a blog to your website is often a great way to achieve this, and encourage incoming links at the same time.
Write For People First
No matter what anyone tells you Google and other search engines are very smart and trying to trick them never works out in the long run. In fact, doing so can have your website banned from search engines all together. Instead think about the things your target audience might be searching for and create content that answers what they are searching for.
Quality Over Quantity
Content should never just be thrown up in an attempt to gain visitors. Instead focus on content that is well written and full of value. Content that is interesting and well received stands a larger chance of being linked to, which tells search engines that your content is popular and deserving of being ranked higher.
Use Headings
Headings not only help your readers scan through the copy and determine if it is the information they were searching for, it also informs search engines about the focus of the page. Write short headings that clearly explain the content that follows them.
Link to High Quality Sources
Linking to other relevant high-quality sources help inform search engines about the content of your page. The webmaster of the other site may also see your link in their web stats and repay the favor in the future.
Use Google Webmaster Tools
Google webmaster tools is a free tool provided by Google that allow you to see how your website is performing in its index. These tools will help you submit your content to it, see what other sites are linking to you, and inform you of any broken incoming links. Yahoo and MSN also have similar tools that can be leveraged to obtain better results in their search engines as well.
Each of these tips can help you improve your search engine ranking, however your main goal should always be to create value for your intended audience. No matter what anyone may tell you, there are no real shortcuts in search engine optimization and trying to trick the system is never a good idea. The most effective and highest ranked websites are so because they have taken the time and put forth the work to create a resource for their visitors.