Quick and Clean SEO - Part 2

September 10, 2007

In Part I of this article series, we discussed the SEO advantages of using keywords in your headlines. It’s one of the easiest and quickest methods to land a few extra points with the search engines. In Part II, we’ll reveal a couple more quick and easy methods of getting friendly with the search engines.

Bold or Italicize Keywords Throughout a Page

Bolding or italicizing keywords throughout a webpage will increase the relevance a search engine gives those specific keywords. The preferred method of bolding keywords is with STRONG tags, while italicizing should be done with EM (which is short for “emphasis”) tags:

< strong > … < /strong>

< em > … < /em>

Optimize for Less Popular Keywords and Phrases

Getting top ranking for the key phrase “hiking boots” can be tough because it’s a very popular term with a lot of competition. It can be done, but would require a lot of time and effort. And since this article is about speed and simplicity, we won’t discuss what would go into a campaign to get ranked for such a popular term.

For quicker and easier ranking, go after more specific, less competitive key phrases. For example, instead of “hiking boots” try combining the term with brand names, designs, material used, manufacturing process, and so forth:

Brand name: Joe’s Super Sweet hiking boots

Design: elegant elf-toe hiking boots

Material used: NASA approved space-leather hiking boots

Manufacturing process: hiking boots manufactured through the new “circular frog stamp” technique

You get the idea. While you won’t get as much traffic as a similar rank for a more popular phrase, you will get ranked much easier and faster. The traffic you get will also be more highly targeted and more likely to convert into a sale.

Keep the Code Clean

Search engines are interested in useful content on your webpages, not your sweet JavaScript or CSS skills. You can clean things up a bit by linking to script and CSS files from a separate location rather than including it in the same file as the rest of the webpage.

Clean code also makes it much easier for the search engines to scan your page and figure out what it’s all about.

The tactics that we’ve discussed in these articles can be very easily and quickly implemented into just about any website. Keep in mind, however, that you don’t want to get carried away by cramming a page full of keyword-stuffed headlines, bolding and italicizing half your page, or overusing a particular key phrase so much that nothing on your webpage makes sense.

Search engines are savvy enough to spot such meager attempts to get ranked, and most will penalize you for doing so. Also, don’t forget who you’re target market is… people. Stuffing a webpage full of keywords might help you get ranked higher (at least temporarily), but if a visitor can’t make sense of it, they’ll just leave your website anyway and your efforts will have been wasted.

So remember to keep it clean, keep it simple, and you’ll be happy with the results.