When Search Engine Optimization, SEO, is done properly, your website can pay you very rich dividends. When it is not done correctly, that same website is like a palm tree in the desert. It looks wonderful, but no one knows it’s there. More pointedly, potential customers can’t find you and will be forced to spend their money elsewhere.

Here are 5 quick tips to help get your website headed in the right direction so you can reap the rewards and increase your company’s bottom line.

1.   Keyword Research – Think of keywords in terms of what you or your customers type into a search engine to find your product or services. Your website’s content should be keyword rich for both search engines and web visitors. Google provides a free keyword research tool. It will show you the most popular keywords for your industry.

2.   Site Platform – Even if you have a beautiful website, if Google can’t decipher its content, they can’t add your site content to their database. Flash design in particular is difficult for Google to index. It’s best to keep your design text-based.

3.   Content – It is hard to overstate the importance of quality content on your website. The more content that you have, the more you are giving the search engines to add to their database. Make sure that all content on your website is original and not taken from other websites.

4.  Title Tag – This is the most important ranking factor on a web page. Your “Title Tag” should be keyword focused and should be no longer than 60 characters. The title tag should read well for both search engines and site visitors.

5.   Images – Images should be optimized for the quickest browser load time while maintaining good visual quality. If images are large and take too long to load, the searcher is likely to lose patience and go to another site. Within the last year, Google has re-emphasized the importance of how quickly a website loads into a web browser like Internet Explorer.

Search engine optimization should be part of your continued online marketing efforts. When done correctly and consistently, you will reach more potential customers.

Publisher: Orlando Business Journal
Column Name: Savvy Online Strategies
Article Title: 5 Quick SEO Tips to Boost Your Bottom Line