Recently I wrote a blog about the difference between search engine optimization and a website that is search engine friendly. It is so often that people don’t understand what search engine optimization is or they feel that their website is already optimized for search engines when in fact their website is search engine friendly meaning ready for you, the website owner, to update your website and do the SEO work. Reminder, search engine optimization is optimizing your website FOR the search engines and the consumer by creating a value-packed and user-friendly website. The consumer should be your first goal with the search engines next. That may sound easy enough and while it is, or may be, is still confusing to many and underutilized.
So I wanted to write this post to help explain what search engine optimization is and what you, the business owner can do to optimize your website to give you better chances for your website to be seen by the search engines. Because remember, the more search engine friendly your website is the better chances of having more pages cached by the search engine spiders. The more pages that are cached, the better chances your site is available to consumers when they do a search for keywords (that you use on your site) in the search engine results page. Keep in mind that when you optimized for the search engines, you are optimizing for them all, Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask.com and etc.
Here are some things YOU can do to with respect to SEO
Search engine optimization is basically having keyword rich content and meta tags so that the search engines can find out what your website is about.
- Keyword rich content is not meant to be spammy content that is stuffed with only keywords but having valuable content that is user-friendly as well as keyword rich. The more content you have, the better due to keyword density, because you want to have a variety of keywords but not only keywords on your page
- Meta tags such as title tags and the meta description are what show up in the search engine snippet. You want to make sure that you put the most important keywords first and make sure that it is natural.
- Natural content and meta tags are more important than having keywords that may not be natural
because remember, it is meant for the consumer. So if you have a sentence like – Contact a business coach Florida for help, consider how that reads. I get you want to put in your location for local help but it just sounds like crap, find another way. Ie – Contact a business coach for help with your Florida business. Remember, the consumer is the ultimate point of direction.
- Natural content and meta tags are more important than having keywords that may not be natural
- Header tags or h1, h2, h3, are tags that make the website prettier and easier for the consumer to follow or skim. They just aren’t going to read the whole blog or page. Make it easier for them to skim because they help point to what the next paragraph is about. Header tags give some spacing and different style or formatting to the text. If they have keywords in them it is easier for the search engines to determine what is most important about that paragraph or section and depending where it is on the page, top middle or bottom, it shares the importance even more.
- Links are beneficial if they are internal or external because you are providing additional information to the consumer. Usually you are pointing them to a product that they can buy based on the content or more information about pieces in your blog. I have several internal links within each of my blogs sharing other blogs on certain topics as well as sharing my services, which is the ultimate goal.
- Alt tags – hopefully you are using images on your blogs and on your website. Be sure when you save an image to your website media library, you are naming the image appropriately – explaining what the image specifically is. Then, add the alt text, otherwise known as alternative text, which tells text readers (for those that are visually impaired) what that image is. This is also for the search engines to determine what that picture is about since they don’t read images or pdfs. This gives a great opportunity for you to optimize your images as far as keywords are concerned.
- You will also want to be sure that your images are optimized as far as size is concerned and I’m not meaning the number pixels say 400×400 but the ultimate size that the image is after you’re done. Overly large images will cause the site to slow down which is a negative impact on your website, load speed.
Hopefully this has been beneficial as the things that you can do to optimize your website and why it is highly 
necessary for
you to do so. If you create your website and set it and forget it, the chances of you being found in search are highly unlikely.
Small business owners have it hard enough with all the extra work we have to do to compete with the big box companies so why not make it easier on yourself to compete with all other businesses as well as big box companies by optimizing your website and making sure it runs smoothly for your consumer and search engines.
Should you have any questions about search engine optimization, blogs for your website, image optimization, or any other online marketing needs please contact me and I will be happy to help.
~Kristen
What a great explanation, Kristen! I have to confess–all this stuff is kinda by me. Lol. Thankfully I have a great seo person, and she does all this. But it’s helpful for me to understand why! Thank you!
I would agree 100% Susan… regardless of whether you do it or have someone do it… you need to know it. 🙂
Yes. yes. This is exactly what bloggers need to know today. Also, I love that you put in the part about resizing the images. I know that this is a pain the butt and takes time but it is so worth it.
YES Renee… SUCH A PIA… but so very necessary! And thank you!
Kristen,
Great article and exactly what I needed about Meta tags and Seo. I appreciate the good tips and I am sure this is valuable to many others that blog and are in buissness.
Lori English
Why thank you Lori! Glad you are seeing the value.
I found that when I started making good use of the h2 and h3 tags that my numbers went up quite a bit. It really does make a difference, and it’s soooo much easier to read.
Consumers first… search engine next… but you have found that out as well… So glad that you found a way to kick up your blogs. YAY, you rock Jennifer.
Great explaination! Is there a way to see find large image files on the websites easily?
Check out my blog on optimizing images, Sabrina… I have suggested a plugin to help. I’m sure you also have them on your computer, that might be faster than looking at the dimensions on WP
Your explanations are always so easy to understand Kristen. I’m getting much better about SEO these days but think I still have a lot to learn. I’m thankful for your posts and the tips you give.
Why thank you Tami… so glad that you are finding them useful! YAY!
Terrific post, Kristen! I especially appreciated your explanation of making content keyword-rich without sounding awkward or sales-y.
Thank you Reba… nothing like stuffing the heck out of your posts and not making it valuable for the consumer!
So many of us want to be found, but no one want to do the work to make that happen. Oh wait, we have you.
PREACH IT Rachel.. and so true.. and while you have me, not as many are taking advantage of the tips and doing the work or outsourcing, sadly it isn’t a priority!
You have made this very easy to understand. Great post. Will share with my community.
I appreciate that Fiona.. and thank you, hope you found the value.
I’ve been learning as I go, Kristen and I am on top of most of the things you have ‘taught’ all of us who read your blogs. Thank you. I could do more to optimize my photos…I think, so that is something I will focus on as my next blog adventure. I’m still not sure if I need a program to optimize photos, (which I read on someone else’s blog this week), or if I can do it within my blog. Thanks for always sharing wonderful info that we all can understand and do ourselves, if we choose too.
Actually Beverley, I shared how to optimize your photos OFF and On your site (if you have WP for the latter) in a blog 2 weeks ago and it was referenced in my blog this week. That is something you can do going forward and the WP plugin can help some with the past.
there is so much here to absorb. I will need to read this post again I think. In particular I did not know how important ALT text was! I have just been avoiding that step when posting or adding product. Thanks so much for these tips!
I have a post on alt tags (likely several) and how you can update them all a little faster than going into each blog. Do a search on my website for alt tags Alene.
Thank you Kristen for giving such valuable information and I am saving this to my pocket list onlne! I know all you say is important and learning so much. Thank you for all your expertise.
Thanks so much Teresa… glad to provide this info to all!
It’s a good job we have you to tell us the difference! It’s all a bit baffling to most.
Why thank you Sonya! I appreciate it!
Even thou I have others who do this for me, I love reading your explanations.
Why thank you Roz… at least you can keep up by understanding what they are doing.
You do such a good job explaining things. What I have learned is I need to know enough to be able to “check” any help I might be using. Doing it myself is the best way, and someday I will be able to effectively outsource.
Why thank you Robin… I really appreciate that and thank you!
Great post, Kristen. I think I am getting close to being ready to outsource SEO. I’ve done some of it on my site, but can you send me a PM with a cost estimate for working on my coaching website?
Hey there Brenda, I would love to quote you. I’ll actually send you a proposal with some suggestions and talking points… that will give you an idea for the future.
Hi Kristen 🙂
This post has been so beneficial to me because I have always known how important SEO is to being found on the search engines 🙂 These are excellent tips to ensure we are doing it right!
Thank you for sharing your value!
Thank you Joan.. they are so important. I hope you will be able to incorporate these tips and your followers too.
Great article with simple steps that people can take. I use Yaost SEO and it’s brilliant (although not as indepth as having a dedicated SEO Manager)
It is in depth, Suzii, but only as good as the material that is put in… so be sure you check out my blog on Yoast too!
Aw geez…you reminded me that I didn’t have any H tags in my copy this week. Dang. On well. BTW, I spoke to a woman today who had an “aha” moment regarding keywords. Being a Realtor, she’s all about descriptive adjectives. At a conference last week, she (and other attendees) were told “forget about the colorful language — go with descriptions that PEOPLE ARE SEARCHING FOR.” (Emphasis added) Happy to say, she got it.
That is great news Jackie… glad some folks are starting to “get it”
Only recently have I figured out header tags. Now I am working on my meta tags. That seems to be the most difficult for me. It is always a work in progress. Thanks for the reminder on SEO.
Keep it simple and natural Karen and you will get it!
I know as bloggers we want to get all our good information out there. I’m sure many of us didn;t anticipate having to deal with search engine optimization. But, you give excellent reasons why it’s needed and clearly explain all the different parts. The point is what good is our information if we don’t put it in a form that the readers are going to want to read it? Thanks for everything that you put out.
This is absolutely great. Thanks for this good info and advice now It’s all cleared to mI will recommend this article if someone ask me about SEO optimization.
Please do Garreth and thank you!
Before, I only use the bold formatting if I want to highlight subheadings. But soon learned to use the h2 and h3 tags because of its SEO value.
YESSSSS Sammy, the h tags have double value, not only does it look nice, but it gives you Google juice! lol
So much good info and advice. I’m still a bit lost with all the logistics of it all but any advice is helpful.
Follow me Jenna and you will start to understand it… trust me!
I really needed to read this as I struggle with understanding what so many of the terminologies mean. Thank-you so much for breaking it down for me!
This is what I do Chloe, so stick with me kid and it will begin to make more sense.
Ive completely ignored this with my blog so far but now I’ve migrated to self-hosting and downloaded yoast I’m determined to learn – thanks for all the great tips. Ill bookmark this for reference!
Awesome Emma, I even wrote one about Yoast too.
Great info! Thank you! I did not know about alt tags.
Awesome, now you do Marissa!
Thank you for this post, It took months for me to wrap my head around some of the optimization techniques. The header tags was my biggest mistakes and have improved a lot. Now I have been working on getting my rich keywords to work for me. Great post and very helpful!
So glad to hear that you are finally getting the tags understanding Jimmy & Tina!
I think it is a bit of talent there getting it right.
Thanks for explaining both versions. I am so confused often that I end up writing what ver comes to heart,
Writing from the heart isn’t bad… it’s just ensuring you are adding the SEO components Indrani.
You explain this so well that it’s a lot easier to follow, really interesting ☺️ Thank you for sharing!
You are quite welcome Leticia and thank you!
People spend so much time with design and often forget SEO. Then they wonder why their blog does not get visits. SEO is easy if you take the time to learn it.
Yes Pamela, it is very time consuming but well worth it.
I have been wanting this type of info for quite a while but was too embarrassed to ask. Thx.
Girl.. I’ve got you Lashawn, I have tons of this stuff!
You always make the complex subject of SEO so much easier to understand! I love your point about thinking about your customer first and SEO second. Often I find that optimizing my blog for search engines makes it less appealing. So, I try to find middle ground.
Excellent point and thanks Meghan, glad to help.
I am still trying to figure out to work the Seo
You got the tips right here for ya Natasha!
Very useful post as always!! Nice job 🙂
Very insightful response Hra, thank you.