You want to improve your site’s SEO, right?

When designing a website, you should take a lot of things into consideration. Ways on how to improve your SEO (search engine optimization) have probably crossed your mind. You hear a lot of talk about SEO, and web designers are building websites with SEO in mind, but what exactly is it?

SEO is all about improving your website’s ranking in organic SERPs (search engine results pages). This is done by fine-tuning words and terms your target market will type into a search bar. SEO has several key concepts which can be easily understood: relevance, discoverability, and crawlability.

Relevance is about being consistent with a subject, helping search engines zero in on your website.

Discoverability is about announcing your website to the world. Cyberspace may be a different environment, but the rules of marketing still apply here. Get the word out, and tell Internet users what your site is all about.

Crawlability is a word derived from programs called web crawlers, automated programs sent by search engines to check out your site. You want these web crawlers to cover every pixel in your site, and understand what they see.

Now that we have a better understanding of what SEO and its concepts are, let’s tackle Ten Ways to Improve Your SEO:

1. Study your target keywords.

Potential customers will type certain words that they think are related to your products and services. Once you figure out what those words are, use them on your website. Ideally, you want these keywords to be among the first few words of your page, as this will be the first place that search engines will look at.

2. Seek reliable online SEO advice.

Not all SEO tips you can find online are created equal. A typical SEO forum is a virtual minefield of bad advice. However, there are still some credible sources out there, such as SEOmoz, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, and of course the SEO experts at Webene.

3. Take care of your code.

Make it easy for search engines to understand the website you’re designing. Your website stands to gain from utilizing current resources like Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which can help keep formatting in HTML page code to a bare minimum.

4. Keep things simple.

Flash animation and image links are not on most search engines’ radars, or on anyone’s for that matter. Make navigation an easy affair by building links composed of plain, simple text.

5. Link up with credible, appropriate sources.

Your website should fare poorly if it’s not linked anywhere. However, indiscriminately linking anywhere and buying links will not help your site’s cause. This is where quality trumps quantity. Links should be appropriate to your content, and they have to be from credible sites.

6. Have sitemap pages in place.

Search engines will have an easier time seeing all your website has to offer if you have a sitemap in it. Sitemaps work best when they have all pages listed, with short keyword descriptions for every page. If you have a very large website you might need multiple sitemaps. Just make sure you link those sitemaps together.

7. Be on top of the technical situation.

A lot of technical stuff can come out of the woodwork, causing search engines to have trouble seeing your site. Perform due diligence on the web hosting company you plan to use. For all you know, it might put you in a server that also hosts adult sites, something Google dislikes. If you suspect your site is using techniques search engines dislike, talk to your web design company.

8. Use web analytics programs.

Analytics programs will give you a better understanding of how much traffic you’re getting from search engines, and how visitors move within your website. One good web analytics program you can use is Google Analytics.

9. Let search engines know where your site is.

Google, Yahoo, and Bing constantly crawl the web to find and index new websites. Submitting your site details isn’t a surefire way to boost your position in the results, but it can get you closer to where you want to be.

10. Maintain excellent content.

You pretty much have all relevant keywords covered, and you’re seeing an uptick in visitor traffic. Still, your products aren’t moving. This could be a case of having poor website content. Keep it refreshed AND engaging. Your SEO game may be good, but at the end of the day, it’s your content that truly matters.

There are many other ways to improve your SEO, but going about it this way is proven. Stay true to what has been discussed here, and soon enough, your company website will be right where you want it to be.