Earlier this week Google released a free, helpful, one-page SEO guide for those of you new to SEO. It covers the basics and although some of the tips are quite simple and elemental, these tips can often go a long way.
Google won’t give an exact A to Z, step by step list of how to rank #1 on their search engine but from time to time they do provide us with some information to ensure that websites are being setup properly in regards to SEO.
In a nut shell the guide covers the following:
- Page Title: At or under 70 characters. I prefer using vertical slashes to separate sentences – for example: Web Services CT | Connecticut SEO Search Engine Optimization Service
- Domain name: Eliminate mysite.com/54321 URLs and use something like mysite.com/services
- Meta Descriptions: Describe your site, include terms that people would use to find a site like yours all under 160 characters.
- Image File Name: When uploading an image to your site use image-description.jpg rather than picture123.jpg
- Image Alt Tag: The Alt Tag plays a role in helping Google understand what the image is. Describe the image in this tag.
- Image Caption: Jot down a short caption below the image. Remember to put info outside of the image in text form rather than within the image.
- Fresh Content: Keep your site fresh, relevant and updated.
The guide can be downloaded at the following:
While we’re on the topic of helpful guides I thought I should include a few other links with some great SEO Tips and Tools:
- The Google SEO Guide – Full Edition
- The SEOmoz Beginners Guide to SEO
- Read about Google Friendly Sites
- Search Engine Optimization defined by Google
- Check out Google Webmaster Academy for some great tools!
- SEOmoz Cheat Sheet
- Search Engine Land’s Guide to SEO
- What the Heck is SEO & Why Should I Care?
- Search Engine Journal’s Local SEO Guide
The above links offer plenty of info to get your SEO campaign going – enjoy!
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Tim Dugan | WebServicesCT.com
