Increasing your website's visibility to search engines will not only drive more traffic to your site, but it will also increase your overall Internet exposure and search engine "quality score".  There are more than 200 factors that Google takes into account when computing your website's rank for specific search terms. This blog post will focus on the top four most easiest and valuable modifications you can make that search engines value.

Making your website rank on the first page of Google can be a very labor intensive process, however there are a few simple things that you can do to help your website be more search engine friendly.

These tips are for clients using the standard application suite from Alternate Image, which allows you to update your own meta-tags, name your landing pages, and add alt-tags to images (in the new and admin area content management systems).


1. Content is king. Yes, you've heard before that content is what search engines like. Well it's true. Google looks for content (more than 800 words on a page to make it relevant) while Bing and Yahoo seem to be okay with shorter website page articles (they look at the first 400 words on the page).  Either way, make sure that your website pages have good, clear, keyword rich content.  Bold your keywords and be sure to include them at the beginning and end of your page.

Don't want to clutter up your home page with too may words? Add landing pages and link form your home page to these pages with more content. Write content that is interesting and important for your website visitors.

What can you write about? Hoteliers should write about the area's attractions, Realtors should write about local living info and real estate buying guides, businesses should write about frequently asked questions pertaining to their industry, and non-profits should write about their cause.

2. Add Alt-tags to your images. Search engines do not know what your images are, which is why you have to tell them in the alt-tag. When using the new content management system in the admin area for blog posts, mailers, calendar or news stories, if you insert an image there is a field for "Alt-Tag". This is where you would include your short keyword rich sentence to describe your image. Take it a step further and name the actual image file a keyword. Ex: If you are inserting an image of your hotel, save the file as "Daytona-beach-oceanfront-hotels" and upload it using the alt-tag "Daytona Beach Oceanfront Hotels". This will let the search engines know what your image is. It also helps the picture show up in Google Image searches.

3. Name your landing pages using keywords.  Search engines pay attention more to websites with the keywords in their url. Say  your website name is "Tomsbicycles.com" and you are trying to rank for search keywords like "Daytona Beach bicycle stores".  Add a page to your website called "daytona-beach-bicycle-stores" and add related content using your keywords and image with the alt-tags. . You can create this on the fly in the admin area by going to Content>Landing Pages>Add Landing Page. The name field is where you would add your page title.  Once submitted, your website page url will be www.tombicycles.com/daytona-beach-bicycle-stores.  (Be sure to add a dash between words so that the search engines will treat them as separate words).

4. Add meta-tags. In your admin area, go to Content>Meta-tags to edit your meta-tags. This is how you tell the search engines what each website page is about.  Not sure what meta-tags are? The following information is taken from our Wiki article on Meta-Tags, found under SEO tips in the Alternate Image Wiki. This is also found under the instructions tab in the Meta-tags part of your admin area. You can also edit meta-tags for calendar items, news items, blog posts, and Realtor listings by going to the details of these items.


Meta Tags are used to help tell search engines what your website page is all about. There are 3 different types of meta-tags, which are used to display your website listing on the search engine results page as seen below:



Meta Title
This also appears on the title bar of your website window. This is the title of the web page and should contain your search engine keywords. (5-10 words, less then 65 characters)

Meta Description
A short description of the web page content. The first 155 characters will appear on the search engine results page as your webpage description. This is a short (less than 155 characters) description of your web page and should include your keywords at least twice.

Meta Keywords
Keywords are not visible in search engine results, however these tell the search engines which keywords apply to your website page. Separate keyword phrases by commas and avoid stop words like "to, from, what, in, " etc. Add 5-8 solid keyword phrases per page, with no more than 255 characters.

These are simple but powerful tips for ranking on the search engines. It does take time but going forward if you make it a habit to take the extra minute to fill in the meta-tags and image alt-tags you will see that your website will be better liked by the search engines. Adding content can be a labor intensive task, if you need help then ask Alternate Image about our search engine optimization services. Email mic@alternateimage.com for a keyword report to see where you are currently ranking and what we can do for your website.

Categories: Search Engine Optimization