SEO On-Site Tips: Keywords, Site Maps, and Alt Tags

This article discusses the placement of keywords correctly using the Alt tags on images, creating site maps, smart placement of keywords and other on-site campaign tips. Finding the right mix of these elements is important in solidifying your SEO campaign.

Placement of Keywords in Critical Areas

Once you find the right keywords or “money phrases” you should know where to place them for most the effective impact. Keywords should be placed in title tags, meta description, H1 tags and other heading tags, and in the first paragraph of the content or the first 200 words of the article. Keywords should also appear in the filename with the correct file naming conventions (i.e. dash instead of underscores) and in anchor text that link to internal pages or relevant external sites. There is also a prevailing importance in placing keyword in domain form. MSN places the highest value on keyword domains while Google and Yahoo have varying treatments for them.

When you are composing keywords, learn the value of using plural vs. singular SEO difference. Plural keywords are more effective in SEO than singular keywords on all major search engines. Google, Yahoo, and MSN differentiate capital letters in keywords. Placing exact keywords is also important in MSN and Yahoo, while Google allows for more flexibility in the ordering of keywords.

Correct Usage of Alt tags on Images

The Alt tag is one attribute often overlooked by many SEO developers. An Alt attribute is used to show text when the primary element cannot be rendered. For example, if the called image is missing, the Alt tag appears in place of the image. Alt tags are also used by audio browsers to describe your website to disabled users particularly the blinds. For this reason, Google and all other major search engines place considerable importance to Alt tags. Alt text indexed by Google contributes greatly to the search engine availability of your website. An Alt tag that perfectly describes your image help search engines index your images, so that the content ranks well in image search engines. If you have a compelling image with a high ranking keyword in your Alt tag, you can lure a higher search listing. Alt tags are best used for their real purpose which is to help text-only and audio browsers render your page. Alt tags should not be used to stuff keywords. Use the Alt tag carefully.

Create a Site Map and Send it to Google

A site map is a page that presents a directory for all the content of your website. Each item on the site map should link to a page in your site. Site maps can help improve your page ranking by allowing the engine spider to easily crawl to your site and do so in an orderly manner. However, hard coded site maps are hard to compile especially if you expect numerous updates daily. There are XML site map generators that will organize your links for you. Once you have your XML file, submit it to Google so that the spider can crawl your website accordingly. Each item on the sitemap is placed relative to other URL’s on your site, allowing the engine spider to crawl your website in a more systematic way.