Top 3 Search Engine Optimization Tips for Beginners

If you’re a newborn webmaster/blogger or you don’t have much clue about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) yet, this is for you. However, if you’re already experienced in that field, this article will not learn you anything new. But since so many new website owners enters the Internet each day, it’s important to continue to educate them and publish articles teaching them about the most important things when trying to reach higher rankings in Google and other search engines.

Tip #1: Title tag

The title is often one of the most-mentioned tips in terms of search engine optimization. The title tag is the title of your page and it’s what search engines will display to search engine users in the results. Make sure your titles are accurate and well-defined. Also be sure to consider what keywords to use in the title tag as they are an important aspect of SEO. Don’t put too many keywords too or it might be flagged as “keyword stuffing” and that’s no good.

Tip #2: Meta tags (keywords & description)

Back in the days, the “keywords” meta tag was rather important. Then people started abusing it by stuffing tons of keywords in there, even some not related to the content. Today, most search engines ignores this and you can too if you don’t want to spend too much time on your SEO. But it’s not going to hurt you either, if you put just a few well-considered keywords. There might be other search engines, or bots, out there that still use them.

The more important meta tag is the “description” meta tag. This is usually what search engines will display under your title tag on the search results page. Make sure you write a good and short text that will convince readers to enter your site but also make sure to keep a few relevant keywords in the meta description as well. Sometimes the search engines will select a different snippet of text from your page rather than your meta description, but in general they’ll display the meta description.

Tip #3: Header tags (H1, H2, H3)

Header tags are used for titles on your page. Use H1 for the biggest title, the overall title. Use H2 for breaking down your text in to smaller pieces and the same with H3. H1 is usually most important but if you have a use for H2, use H2 instead of just making a title bold. Just style your H2 tag to make it look bold.

Bonus tip: If you have money…

If you don’t want to do SEO by yourself or you want to go a step further by also including search engine marketing in your optimization, it’s entirely possible to hire a consultant to do it for you. It’s not cheap but it will save you some time that you might be better off spending on writing content or doing whatever it is that you do with your site.