Easy SEO Tips - Search Engine Optimization Tutorial

Search Engine Tips

The good news is you don’t have to be a SEO expert to get a good ranking.  As search engines get more sophisticated the one and only consistent way to get a good ranking is by providing your visitors with highly targeted informative content.

A word of caution, stay away from any “black hat tricks” with search engines.  Trying to trick search engines to get good rankings will only get your site blacklisted… not a good position to be in. 

Always aim to provide valuable content to your highly targeted visitors and you’ll be popular with the search engines as well as your visitors.

Remember search engines are in business just like you are.  They’re business is to provide the most accurate results for surfers.  Every time a surfer types in a keyword the search engines need to provide the most accurate search results.  Search engines are highly competitive and have a difficult job to do.  If you make their job easier, they’ll love you for it.

How do you do this?  Simple.  Provide highly targeted, valuable information.

Valuable Content

For example, if you have a MT site do not start introducing topics that aren’t related to MT such as baby toys or travel.  Provide information about MT and all things related to medical transcription.

Do your keyword research and find out what your targeted customers are looking for.  Here’s a free tool which will tell you what people are searching for, Keyword Selector Tool.

Once you have done your keyword research, choose the relevant keywords and provide information related to these keywords.

Lets say you keyword for a specific page is Medical Transcription Jobs.  Then you should write about medical transcription jobs and use this phrase scattered throughout your content to help the search engines find you. 

But always make sure the phrase fits into your writing.  The best way to get good quality traffic is to write for your visitors first while pleasing the search engines too.  Get the balance right and you can’t go wrong.

 Description Tags & Technical Stuff

Once you have written your page to compliment your keyword phrase, that keyword phrase should then also be used in your file name, title tags, meta tags, header tags, and alt tags to help the search engines find you.

* Side Note – These tags make up your website page and are what search engine robots look for.  It’s important each page be optimized this way to help the search engine robots find your site*

Using the example above, if your page is on Medical Transcription Jobs then your file extensions for this web page should look like this:

File Name – This is what shows up in your web browser and would look like this

www.yoursite.com/medical-transcription-jobs.html .  The file name is Medical Transcription Jobs.  Separate your file names with hyphens just as in this example.

Title Tags – Your title tag provides descriptive information about each page of your website.  So if this particular page is about medical transcription jobs, your title tag would look like this:

<title>Medical Transcription Jobs</title>

Your title tags go in the top of your HTML document.

Meta Tags – Your meta tags are the description of each specific page that will show up on the search engine results and will include your keyword.  So, again, if this particular page is about medical transcription jobs, your description (meta tag) should include medical transcription jobs and could look something like this: 

Note: I’ve highlighted medical transcription jobs for you to see where I’m using it.  This would normally not be highlighted.

<meta name="Description" content="Medical transcription jobs for MT professionals looking to work from home."><meta name="keywords" content="medical transcription jobs">

Or

<meta name="Description" content=" Part time medical transcription jobs for MTs who want to work from home."><meta name="keywords" content="medical transcription jobs">

Your meta tags go in the top of your HTML document beneath the title tag.

* Important - One thing to aim for when writing your meta tags (description tags) is to write them to get the click.  Your visitors will see your site description amongst others, so write the description to get them to click and visit your website.  Try to avoid hype or sales words and stick to an accurate description for each page.

Header Tags – The header tags are your headlines and go in the body of your HTML document (your website page) and make it easy for visitors and search engines to scan your page and find what they’re looking for.

Using our same example, if your keyword is medical transcription jobs, then your header tag would look like this.

<H2>Medical Transcription Jobs</H2>

The number corresponds to the size of font you’re using. 

Alt Tags – Alt tags are the tags placed on all your graphics to help the search engines read them.  If you have a graphic (picture) on your site without an alt tag the search engine robots will not be able to read what the picture is.  The alt tag makes it easy for robots to read your graphics.

It’s also the text that appears when you place your mouse over a graphic on a web page.  Using our same example your alt tag for this page would look like this.

Note: I’ve highlighted medical transcription jobs for you to see where I’m using it.  This would normally not be highlighted.