By Annelise Larson
All hail the power of search! If you have read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series I hope I have made you a true believer and helped you understand why it is critical to be search friendly. Now here are 10 search engine optimization tips to help you walk the SEO walk:
#1 – Get problematic technology out of the way.
Technologies like Flash, JavaScript, splash pages, redirects and even too many images instead of text can cause HUGE problems for search friendliness. They can get in the way of the search engines understanding what your site is about, which still lies predominantly in the visible text on the page. Find a balance between the wow and the words.
#2 – Leverage tags.
Here are some of the places you can include keywords from your research:
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HTML title tag (Appears in your page programming, the top of browsers and is the title seen in search results. Make it intriguing to human searchers but also include keywords reflective of the content on your page.)
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Meta description tag (Appears in search engine listings as the description for your page. Allows you to control your branding, but doesn’t help improve search performance.)
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Video & image titles (Visible titles for your video and image assets can include important keywords to help with findability in search, but they need to be relevant.)
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Hashtags (Check out my article on the power of the hashtag to learn more about how to leverage these important social media tags.)
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Other tags that are less important include: blog tags, alt tags, header tags, link text, URL strings, video transcriptions, and any text around video and images to provide context and descriptions.
#3 – Use Google and Bing Webmaster Tools.
You need to create and submit an XML sitemap for your site to Google and Bing. The dashboards of their respective “webmaster tools” show you what other sites are linking to yours, crawl and other technical errors as well as provide suggestions for optimization improvements.
#4 – Leverage advanced coding.
For those who are more tech savvy or SEO inspired, you can implement some advanced coding options such as the rich snippets suggested for movies or any creative work on Schema.org and, if you have blog content, Google authorship. These can help pages from your site get extra additions like links and pictures which can help them stand out in the search listings.
#5 – Manage your page load times.
Google and Bing want to return sites that offer the best user experience and slow loading sites just don’t do it. Human visitors will also likely bail on your site if it takes too long to load, so it just makes sense to ensure your site is nimble and easy to load.
#6 – Be mobile friendly.
Mobile devices are becoming so prevalent it is critical to have a mobile friendly site. However it is also important for performing well on the search engines. Google wants to be the mobile search engine of choice and recently announced that without a mobile friendly site you will not do well in its search results.
#7– Provide fresh, regular content.
Unique, interesting, relevant and regular text content additions are being rewarded like never before. Having a content strategy is now key to success with search. It will gives you plenty to share on a regular basis on social media which is also important.
#8 – Integrate social networks with each other and your website.
Social and search go hand in hand these days. It has never been more important to make sure you website includes full social media integration with links to all your profiles as well as the ability for visitors to share, like, tweet and +1 every bit of content you have.
#9 – Find a way to authentically use Google+.
Google is still the king of search and it wants you to play on Google+. Take some time getting to know this social network and try to come up with a creative, authentic way of leveraging it, such as Google+ Hangouts on Air.
#10 – Track and measure your website and social media metrics for search (and everything else).
This is so much useful data available now – from websites, social media, keyword research and other places and tools around the web. Take time to regularly track and analyze this data (at least every month) to see how your SEO and other strategies performed. How did people find you? And how did they not? There are often surprises that can help you get better and better results if you listen and respond.
Annelise Larson is a recognized leader in search and digital marketing for indie film and other media. She teaches and consults regularly throughout North America, and writes the blog From Search to Screen: A Filmmaker’s Guide to Digital Marketing.
