Updating Content for Search Visibility

Lately, everyone that Marketpath has developed a website for has requested some sort of search engine optimization.  Some of these cutsomers know quite a bit about SEO, while others are simply requesting the service because someone told them they needed it.  Since there is such a discrepancy in SEO knowledge for our end users, I decided I would list out some of the terminology that is used and describe each part in simple terms.

Title Tag - The most important area on a page that keywords can be placed.  Each page has its own title and it should be unique to each page.  The title tag can be seen at the top of the browser window and is also the physical link that is displayed by search engines.

Meta Description Tag - This is a great place to describe (with keywords, of course) exactly what each page is about in more of a conversational manner (what services do you provide? What makes you unique?, etc).  This text is displayed by search engines underneath the blue link.  That is the only time this text can be seen by your website visitors. 

Meta Keyword Tag -  The importance of this tag has diminished drastically over the past few years.  It is a common agreement within the industry that the Meta Keyword Tag is completley ignorned by search engines and therefore a waste of time to create. 

Alt Image Tag - These tags can be used to describe what a picture is about, since search engines can't gather information visually.  A simple 2 to 3 word phrase that describes the image can go a long way.

H1 Tag - The H1 tag stands for "Heading 1".  Each page should have an H1 tag that best describes the overall topic of that page.  Each page should only have one H1 tag. 

There are other factors that go into ranking highly on search engines of course, but the foundational elements listed above can go a long way.

For more information about keyword placement and to see a great example of an optimized page, check out this article. 

I just read a blog post on CMSwire that outlined a few of the trends that are going to really drive content management in 2009.  Two of these three trends were about Web 2.0 integration and e-commerce integration and how each piece will become an extremely important part of each and every website over the next year.  Almost every content management system out there today can help someone effectively manage landing pages, text, pictures, and menu structure (to name a few things), but not every one can help with the two things mentioned above. 

Having your website, blog, and shopping cart all managed by the same system helps keep things organized and streamlined.  Managing products, content, blog posts and comments all from the same interface can help you and your staff save time and money.  It is all possible with the right, easy CMS.  Be ahead of the curve in 2009, be a trend setter.  Make your website work for you.