For Webmasters And Those Who Maintain Websites

For Webmasters And Those Who Maintain Websites

As many of you already realize, competition for website designers and those who maintain business websites is quite stiff. Just perform any search for terms related to web design or development and you may be overwhelmed with the results. Of course, there is a wide range of experience levels and expertise by those performing these services.

Our focus in this article centers on what a website designer can do to help the business website attract more prequalified leads and rise higher in the major search engines like Google and Yahoo!. If you are a person who develops and/or maintains business websites, I suggest reading further.

First, we have published earlier articles detailing the need for the right keyword phrases and terms on the pages of your website. This is a critical factor in obtaining higher search engine rankings. Having the right phrase(s) properly stated in the title tag of each page, which is specific to just that page, is probably the most important element of on page search engine optimization (SEO) there is!

Second, having the proper phrase(s) in the Header tags (e.g. h1, h2, h3, etc.) is the next most important element of on page SEO. Please understand this does not mean to make every word or even every other word a header tag. As with most anything in this world, it takes a bit of common sense. Realize that people will be reading the content of your site and it must make sense to them and be appealing or they will click away in record time!

Third, an often overlooked element of a business website is one that can be the easiest to correct. This involves the navigation. Yes, people prefer the drop down menus, button highlights, and other "high quality" looks good web designers use these days. The search engines couldn't care less!

For improvement of your search engine rankings, I would strongly suggest adding plain text links somewhere on each page with the targeted keywords and keyword phrases as the links. The primary search engines pick up on these and potentially can elevate your rankings, especially for lesser contested phrases.

Doing these things can help you rise in the search engines. Of course, working with a professional SEO can do wonders for your online presence and bring a better Return On Investment (ROI) than most any other form of marketing.