Heading tags are one of the most important on page SEO factors. They help determine how a page should be related to a search query at Google or any of the other search engines. This relevance is how a search engine decides where to show a Website in the returned search results.

Unfortunately, many designers completely ignore this and it leads to bad performance in search results. As of this date, you can search for “we are hear to help you prosper madison wi”. You will see a certain lawyer’s Website sitting at #1 in Google. That’s great right? WRONG!

Tell me, what person in their right mind would type “we are here to help you prosper” into search when they are looking for a lawyer? Now try a more reasonable phrase, “lawyer madison wi”. That should return our lawyers Website right? Wrong! They are nowhere to be found; I personally stopped looking at page 5 Google.

ALL of this because their Web designer put “We are here to help you prosper” in an H1 tag, the big bold print on the their home page (like a newspaper heading, the big bold print summaries what the page is about).

The H1 in the source code looks like this (for you technically inclined viewers others, ignore this image).

And below is that same H1 tag being displayed on the Web page…

The problem with this is that search engines use the heading tags to help determine what the page and the Website are about and especially the home page when there is no other good indicator such as the name in the URL. The H1 should contain something like “Madison Wisconsin Lawyers”, if it did , they would most likely be on the first page of Google, nothing else to change..

This new heading would closely match up to a reasonable user search such as “lawyer madison wi” and Google would see a close match and happily return their Website somewhere near the top of the page because now it is relevant to what users are searching for. Lets not forget there should be content in the following paragraph that heading that uses the same or similar words also.

Now let me show you what happens when you put the right words in the heading..

The source code for the geeks.

And finally the actually page displaying the H1 heading…

This is not magic, its not some great thing that will get you found in the top spot on Google. What this is, is something that is fundamental to good search results and good Web design.

Understand that ignoring what this page is telling you comes at a large price; the difference of being found for your products or services, found for the right searches or even found at all. Or worse, paying someone  to do it all over AGAIN the right way.

Title tags on web pages are the second most important on page SEO performance factor. There is nothing more important than having outstanding unique content on the page, but the title of the page is what tells the search engines and the users what this content is about. One well written without the other is also a losing proposition.

 Anatomy of Title Tags

Title tags are only really visible in three place pertaining to the Web.

They are visible in the Web page markup…

At the very top of the Web Browser…

Most importantly, in the search results…

By now, you should be thinking that “Bad Website” is the title!  The title doesn’t stick out at all in the HTML markup of the webpage, it only sticks out a little in the top of the browser window, but look at the search results page; its the top most, biggest, baddest, boldest, most contrasted print in the entire impression. This is what users see first when scanning the results page. It may as well have a big orange border around it!

For those of you who are HTML, commercial or custom content management systems creators, make absolutely sure that tag is getting filled out. If you are someone who blogs with WordPress or other existing CMS, you should also be making sure that tag is saying what you want it to.

Important Keywords First

When writing a title tag, you should try to put the main keyword(s) as close to the beginning of the title as practically possible. Remember, it’s not all about optimizing for search engines. You need to also consider the emotional impact the search results page is displaying for the user to get them to click the link in and go to your Website the first place.

No More Than 60 Characters

Keep the length of a title tag to 60 or less characters as this is all that is going to show in the search results anyway. There are rumors out there in the SEO world that say titles of even 100 characters or longer are still used by the search engines for determining relevancy even though you will never see more than 60 of them display in results. There might be a reason to do this but it is also effectively thinning out the meaning of that tag and we want to be on a narrow of subject as possible for SEO purposes.

Title Tags Must Match Content

Search engines use the title to help determine what the page is about. It is more complicated however, and goes a little like, “If the title tag says dogs, the URL is “http://www.dogs.com/dogs.htm”, and headings say dogs and there are words about dogs scattered all over the page, it has to be about dogs!” The title tag is very important for determining relevancy of the page to queries the users type into search, but it is still only a link in a chain of things that all have to work together for great on page SEO.

There are many factors to consider even before you build your new Website. Most of these are related to getting found in search results.

Getting Found

Most businesses put up a Website so that they can sell their ideas, services, or products. If your site is only going to be used as an expensive business card, then don’t bother reading more of this page.

With the goal of using your Website to gain new business through search in mind, you must understand a little of how search engines work. They, very basically, scan all the pages of your Website and millions of other Websites also, and then when the best matching query arrives via the search field on the search engine’s home page, it compares that search with all of the pages it has saved and tries to make the best, most relative match possible and the lesser matches fall farther down in the search results.

Better Website

You must use text on your pages, Flash, jQuery, JavaScript, photos and videos can really help to entertain and inform your guests but they cannot be indexed by search engines.. This means that if you are going to use any of the above, make sure you have readable text on those pages also. Examples: transcripts of video, alternate text tags on images filled out, alternate messages using <noscript> tags where you can tell the user your site may not work correctly without Javascript enabled.

Website Purpose

Lets say you are selling Websites for a living. I would guess that you would want a Website that promotes the sales of your custom made Websites. This sounds very silly to say but you will see what I mean in a moment. Now are you going to put “Websites For Sale”  in bold print all over your home page? I would guess not.  So how then do you get your Website to match up with what users are searching for in Google?

Websites Reflect Business Function

In any business plan (and you should have one by the way), there will be a place where you describe the function of your business. This function extends itself in every direction; to your customers, your store front, and of coarse, into the Web. You need to do a market study, making sure that people will buy into what you have to offer and only then proceed with start up if it is all making sense.

You do the same with Websites; research the products and or services that you will sell. You research the keywords related to this industry, to find out what is going to work best or even work at all, when placed on your new website. Remember that the users are searching for answers to their questions like “How much for a 4 page Website?” This query will better match an article / paragraph that starts with those exacting words, NOT “4 pages =  $800.00” in a list of prices somewhere.  Instead, you can write the page like this:

Keywords

Keyword Research

The first place that the average Joe can look for help with finding out what users are searching for is Google Adwords. You might have to create a Gmail account if you do not already have one, and then setup AdWords as if you are going to buy some air time on Google , but you do not have to actually buy anything. If you go through all the motions to research keywords you will end up at the search volume screen where you can see what words and phrases are searched for and what the competition on those words and phrases are.

Try to choose keywords that are higher in volume but lower in competition and eventually you should end up knowing which words will have a shot at working best for your Website. There are always other words that mean the same or similar thing. Having a blog on your Website does wonders for these secondary keywords (known as long tail keywords). Natural speech with related, but not exact match words, opens the field for catching more searches using these long tail keywords. “Website” is the keyword but a long tail keyword could be “personal Website”. Search engines can now return a more specific result set based on that more specific description. You have also eliminated that general term and all the competition that comes with it and gained a more detailed result set that will better match what users are searching for which in turn means they will be arriving with a higher interest level in what you have to offer.

Overall, you should be choosing keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business function but also being searched for at the search engines. You can use Google Trends to see how popular keywords were,  are , and maybe even predict how well they will be doing in a few months because many keywords are seasonal.. “Camping”, “beaches”, and “deck stain” are keywords that will probably only be popular during the spring and summer whereas “skiing”, “snow plow” and “ice fishing” will probably be more popular in the colder moths.

Not dogs seem to be holding steady or increasing in popularity a bit, but “radio” is getting searched for less and less. Who buys a radio now when they can get their music and their news on their phone or MP3 player?

Keywords Used Once Per Website

Don’t reuse the same keyword (and its surrounding content) on more than one page as the search engines will get confused as to which page to return in the search results. Often that means BOTH pages will be found much lower in the search results. Plan out all of your keywords and their pages so they are unique. Only one page on your website should be dedicated to that one keyword.. You can use a keyword on another page to refer to the original keyword page and in normal speech if it happens to come up, just not many times or with relative content.

Everybody wants to have an awesome Website, but what most people don’t realize is that it’s just a pile of HTML and programming code sitting on a server somewhere. You can gain access to this Website by entering the exact URL into the browser, however this does not mean it will actually be found in search results. As a matter of fact, making a Website worthy of displaying on the first page of Google its an uphill battle from day one. I have seen many businesses spend thousands and thousands on a Website only to find out later on that it cannot be found in search (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc).

Wrong Content

Many factors apply at this point. The Website must have content on the pages that represent your goals. Many will immediately put up a site full of products and services and never once think about what the users they desire are typing into search or if the competition is high for these keywords. This is one way to kill a Website.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content, especially content from another Website,  better said as stolen content, is one of the fastest ways to make a bad Website. I have seen designers just copy product information from another site to put on the site they are currently building. Not only is this copyright infringement and can get the owner of the Website sued along with a take down order of course, it also makes your Website look like a “scraper” to the search engines. A scraper is a program that copies content to its own Website in hopes of getting the content credit from Google. Google and the other search engines, permanently ban sites that look like a scraper site. Think about that for a moment, permanently banned; your site will never be found in the search results, all effort for this Website will have been in vain and you had to pay for someone to do this to you.

The solution is to carefully monitor your Website’s progress. If you are concerned about duplicate or stolen content, make it clear to the designer that it will not be tolerated or make sure it is in the contract somewhere. You can also check yourself. One way to do this is to take some of the text, like say maybe 20 words, and paste those words into Google Search. Let me say that it is normal for some of those words to come back in the search result in bold print but if Google returns those entire sentences in bold print, its a match to someone else’s Website! Another even better way to check is to use Copyscape, a Website that can check for copies of stolen text and your copy as well, against duplicated content already on the Web. There is one more nasty thing that can happen with duplicate content. Sometimes a designer will put the site live on their domain to work on it, but then forget to take it down after they install it on your domain. This means their domain gets credit for the content and yours looks like that scraper we talked about earlier!

Buying Links

While we are on the subject of killing Websites.. Google has a strict point of view when it comes to buying links. Its actually part of a larger concept which is that ANY behavior aimed to manipulate the natural positioning of your Website pages is in direct violation of Google’s Guidelines and will get your site removed from search results forever. You may want to think, “They cannot tell I bought links”. When Google busts a link farm and some of those links are pointed at your Website they wont hesitate to take you out with them. This is possibly the fastest way to make a bad Website. If you somehow made the choice to buy some links and you dont want your Website to disappear from the search results, hire someone NOW to send out removal requests and disavow(via Google disavow tool) the links you have no control over.

Bad Menus

There are many out there that still use bad menus. By this I mean they will use something made out of JavaScript to make a pretty wowing design for the menu system but forget that search engines cannot read JavaScript very well if at all. So if your menu links are using JavaScript there is a good chance that the search engines will not be able to find all of your pages which means neither will your users.

Using Flash and Photos In the Wrong Place

If you decide to use Adobe Flash, make certain it is not taking the place of the content that needs to be there and especially not on the home page, also make sure it is not making your page take more than 2 seconds to load.. The home page needs to be full of relative text about your Website and it should load quickly. Flash cannot be read by search engines so its look like nothing to them other than the page that it is on is taking longer to load (also a bad thing). The same goes for images. Images add a lot to a Website , but never use them for anything you can say with text. Also remember to use the image alt tags, these help people with visual impairments and also the search engine as they can better understand what the image is about. Depending on how a bad design goes, it can either damage your sites performance or get pretty much eliminate it from search results.

WordPress Issues

Internal duplicate content can be an issue if  the category and tag pages are allowed to be indexed. The fix is a little too technical to describe here. Along with this is heading placement and size, often neglected but designers. There are cases where you may want to change the original installation of WordPress also because it comes with its own flaws. WordPress is already a slow loading system because it has to load a pile of files and access the database many times every time someone requests a page. Designers like to make sites pretty and often this takes a lot of images adding to that load time along with plugins that also take time to load. WordPress can be slow enough that user will back up and use the competitors site instead! Anything over 2 seconds in this day and age is unacceptable for a page load and Google will tell you this also. You may be able to solve a long load time by using a caching plugin like WP Fastest Cache . These plugins make solid html pages that can be accesses without the having to wait for WordPress and its database to load. When hiring a designer, look at some of their work that is live on the internet and then go try to find the site by searching for its function. Example: If the site is about dogs, then search for dogs..  If you don’t see their site in the first page or two, its likely having some issues and you may want to consider another design company. One of my old sites can be found anytime, anywhere with the search phrase, “family restaurant madison wi”, go ahead, try it.. This is it’s function; a potential customer doesn’t know the Parkway Family Restaurant exists yet, they only know that they are hungry and are looking for a family style restaurant to eat at. Being cautious now can save a lot of headaches in the future.. Most of the time, if a Website is not built right the first time , it has to be rebuilt costing twice as much as it should have and making you wait even longer for a functional Website.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a Website so that it can be better found in search results. There are a variety of factors that the search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo, use to determine whether a Website is worthy of being on that first page or in the top position.

Basics of Search

Search engines are just robotic like programs that are constantly visiting Websites on the World Wide Web (called crawling). They gather data about the Website, its content and what each site it about. Then this data is used to come up with an “index”, a huge directory of the entire internet, (consisting of over 60,000,000,000,000 pages and over 1 billion searches about those pages per day).

Algorithms

Search engines use mathematical algorithms to determine what page belongs where and how it is related to other pages on the Web. Many factors are considered in determining a page’s relevance to the search term.

Keywords On Website

On the Website side, the search engine finds these keywords along with many other factors like were on the page they are found, if they where in a heading, the size of the heading, if there are any links pointing to this page with that keyword in it as anchor text, the relevance of the site that has pointed a link at the page, if the page title and or URL have the keyword in them, and many more factors.

Keyword Search

When a user enters a keyword or key-phrase into a search field, those keywords are compared to the index to find the most relevant match, then the second, third and so on. The best match doesn’t always win however. There are many other factors to consider. In the end, the magic usually happens and the search term is united with the best fitting Web page and a users get what they are looking for.

On Site Optimization

On site optimization consist of things like making the titles, headings, subheadings relevant to what the text on that page is about. Making sure the links on the page actually go to somewhere and that the structure of text and links all work together in a useful manor.  In other words, making sure that the page is a good user experience. It is all about the user, not search engines, rank, positions etc. If you have great content, chances are you will get good positions and have a ton of traffic to your Website also. People will link to that content giving you basically a “Google vote” saying that your site is a good place to visit.

Off Site Optimization

Websites, by their nature, do get found by some users. But to improve the chances of success, there are many things that can be done off site to help the website do better in search results pages and also get additional traffic.

Links

Links are effectively a way for  Google to tell that your content is worth something. When you have extraordinary content, people will want to share it with others and this usually happens by mentioning your web page with a link that points to it for user convenience. These inbound links to your Website are the way that you will be better positioned in the search results pages. Quality is better that quantity; do not ever buy links, you run the risk of being caught and losing ALL of your positions on the Web. Google has no mercy for paid links.

Social Networks and Blogs

These sites help increase your exposure and interactivity with users. You can also learn a great deal with the feedback you receive from users of the social networks and blogs.

SEO Covers Many Aspects

Search engine optimization consists of a vast field of practices, but it comes down to presenting a user with the best experience possible (user searches for “dogs” and gets a page about dogs, not about horses!). You must think like your searchers, not like yourself. You must ask those questions that they would, not just through your products and services at them, because that will not be searched for..

Ways Of Getting Your  Website Found

There are basically three ways to get your Website found: Hire an SEO company and pay dearly long term, learn it all yourself and then spend thousands of hours implementing it hopefully without any costly mistakes, and somewhere in between the above two ways.

Hire An SEO Firm If You Can Afford It

If you got lots of money, and I mean thousands and thousands, to invest in SEO, then go for the first option.  Hiring an SEO company is the easiest way to get that Website found in the SERP’s (search engine results page). There are a variety of companies, tactics, prices, etc., but the thing to remember is to find what works for you. If you are a small business with just one location, then be sure to think about hiring a small business expert versus a giant SEO company that will get you found in China for some ridiculously long, long tail key words. When all you needed was to be found for “Restaurant”… On the other end of the spectrum, if you have a large e-commerce Website, you might be better off going straight to the top of the SEO food chain and hiring the best you can find. I say this because these guys are better equipped to handle the large amount of content creation needed for eCommerce Websites and with eCommerce, their is a tremendous amount of room for growth financially where as a fixed location business is limited in the sense of expansion.

Most Affordable Search Engine Optimization

If you have some time and want to learn, you have in front of you, the most affordable search engine optimization plan (remember to stop by my Website for tips). But if you are like most people, you are already occupied with your own business functions and really do not have the time. This is without considering the time it will take you to learn how to do all these things. It can be done; I have came across hundreds of very successful Websites created with just a good old WordPress installation and brilliant content. You must also be technically inclined in order to mange a Website, keep it updated, make backups, and other details, if you can do all of these things then go for it.

Next Best Affordable Search Engine Optimization

I am a strong believer of number three. Not only do you have the most experienced individuals for the niche, but you also have guidance from someone who knows how to make a Website work. Along with this option, you are getting an affordable SEO price but with some help from you.

Leave the technical details up to the SEO firm but work closely with them and the designers if there are any, to integrate your niche’s professional knowledge. The small business owner is the one with the most knowledge of the niche, Web designers/ SEOs and developers have to research everything and even when they are done with this step, they still don’t have 10% of the knowledge that the small business owner has. This is why it is important for business owners / managers to get involved in the design and SEO process.with any of the above mentioned methods, the small business owner is the professional, we can only assist you with your Web marketing goals.

Get Involved With A Blog

A blog on the site is a great way for small business owners to get involved.  Unique and useful content is what the search engines love. By typing out your experiences, helping users with their questions, you are well on your way to creating a successful Website. If this extra content is helpful to your users, they will link to it giving you some free, high quality, links. business owners should participate in the design stage as well as the SEO. Yes, SEOs should be involved in the design stage to make sure the Website is put together right the first time! I have seen far too many sites that cant be found anywhere, or found for something really off subject. Then someone like me, has to give them the bad news, that the designer had no experience with search engine optimization.

Start With The Website, Hopefully Before It’s Built

Whatever method you choose, start with on-site optimization (preferably before the site is built!). Make sure that you or your designer, is putting up content that users will be searching for, questions they may ask the search engines, etc. You can check for what keywords are best for your niche by creating Google AdWords Account and using the keyword planner to see what keywords are more popular and the competition of those keywords. Make sure the site you choose will load quickly (2 seconds or less for page to load completely, I have some content management systems that will load in four tenths of a second) and that it has proper page titles (relative terms used in the URL and title, NOT p=123!) and heading tags in use (they help the users and search engine find what they are looking for more rapidly and bbreak the page into simple sections for easier reading). These few things alone can solve many existing issues and might get you found without the help of  external SEO, especially if your your niche is a popular one. That is an even more affordable search engine optimization solution.

Is there such thing as a free Website? Sure there is. There are also free meals, free gifts, free advice,  you name it, but you usually get what you pay for. A Free Website Builder is a good way for someone without any technical skills, to make a Webpage; that is about as far as it goes. Any of the free Website builders that I have come across, have a list of issues worth considering.

Outbound Links to their Website

One of the things that an SEO would notice right away is the  “Proudly built by XYZ.COM” in a link at the bottom of every page. Let me briefly explain why this is not an ideal situation. One of the biggest positioning (ranking) factors is inbound links to your Website. Google and the other search engines, use these links to help determine how authoritative your Website / Web page  is on a particular subject. The more links and the better quality of those links, the higher you will rank for the subject. When somebody puts a link from your page to theirs, you are effectively dividing the value of that link with any other links, including those on your own Website and especially your home page. Your home page can typically do good in search result as it has all those natural links pointing back to it from the sub pages. Now imagine all the pages sharing 50 percent of their positioning power with other Websites.. So if your free Website has outbound links to the builder site or any other clickable ads, you are handing over your positioning potential to them from the first day you build your Website.

Amateurish Appearance

Most of the free Websites have flashing ads attached to every page making them look amateurish and very unprofessional. This can often be fixed by paying monthly fees, but we are talking about the free versions here. Along with a limited choice of templates and control of those templates, you also have to host on a sub-domain of their company making it look even less professional and you cannot use your own costume domain name either.

Free Websites Become Paid Websites

Free Website companies make their money by offering you upgrades. The free version will only allow you to create a few pages and you are often given a small amount of hosting space which limits photo and video uploads. You also may find that you only get a certain number of  contacts per month through your contact form.

Upgrading

So the day finally comes when you decide to hire someone to build you a professional Website. Make sure someone puts 301 redirects on that freebie, and pray the site stays up for a while after you do this.  If you dont and you reuse any of that content on the new site, you will be shooting yourself in the foot from the “search engine & getting found” point of view. There is a list of lesser search problems also. At the least, see if you can get a domain name and have it pointed to the free hosting / site builder so when this day comes, you still have the domain; one of the highest ranking factors is domain age and by switching domains at the time of the redo, your are basically starting over from scratch.

Web Experience

One of the biggest issues with any Website, free or not, is getting it found in a world that has over 3 billion pages competing for positions. This is not an easy task even for the experienced; where does the person that is putting up content for you fit in? Now I happen to know quite a bit about Websites and how they are found, but I know absolutely nothing about what doctors are experts at. In the case I’m not feeling well, I pay the doctor to do his thing. Same should go for Websites. Naming the URLs, Titles, Headings, Sub Headings, image alternate text, keywords in text matching headings, using keys words that users actually type, are a few of the important factors that help the page position well. This is where Web experience comes in.

If you are just building a small personal Website, then go ahead, just don’t expect great results from something you got for free. If you are going to representing your business, I would recommend steering clear of those do it yourself sites and opt for a professional to handle the work.

Probably one of the easiest things you  can do to insure better search results for your Web pages is to make sure that heading tags have been used properly. If you look at the top of this page, you will see “Heading Tags” in large, bold print. This helps users and search engine figure out what this page is about; heading tags.

Heading Tags Explained

Heading tags are used to make the print larger and bolder in HTML web pages just as headings are used in newspapers and other forms of print. Headings help the reader scan the page quickly for the information they are looking for. Search engines are getting smarter every day but they still need guidance in finding what makes a page relevant.  Search engines use heading tags as a way to better understand what the page, section, or subsection is about.

The HTML code for a heading is fairly straightforward. Headings use an opening tag (no backslash) and a closing tag (with backslash). The text to be used as the heading goes between those two tags.

Headings Summarize

Think of a heading as a summary. It is declaring a few words that are basically more important than the text that follows. For example, if a page consists of only paragraphs, how is the search engine going to determine what is the most relevant subject on that page when classifying what page should be returned in a search?

Usually, we try to write so that the most important information is near the beginning of the page and near the beginning of a paragraph. This will help with determining relevancy but still leaves the subject wide open. How else will it be categorized? Repeated words; if you say “dogs” several times, the search engines will make the assumption that your page is about dogs.  At the same time, if you repeat your keywords too much, you will begin to look like “spam” to the search engines. Maybe we don’t need headings? We are overlooking one factor; user experience. Search engines want to return the best content possible, and the best content includes a way for users to rapidly and accurately find what they are looking for and that means sub dividing pages into sections that are easy to find, outlined by headings.

Heading Hierarchy

Web page heading tags come in 6 sizes; H1 to H6. Backwards of the way one would think, H1 is the most important and usually the largest (depending on styles and fonts). The importance and size drops off as the number is increased to 6.

One H1 Per Page

Typically, H1 should describe the entire page. If this cannot be accomplished in a few words then you are probably using too wide of a subject to start with. In this case divide your subjects into 2 or more pages to get them close on topic. If for some reason you have no other choice, then go ahead and subdivide your page with 2 or more headings however this process can confuse readers and search engines alike. Think about what ONE newspaper article would look like if there was three headings inside it. “Dog Bytes Man”, “Salon Closes No Clients”, “Growing Your Own Vegetables”, imagine the confusion.

Once you have a precise main heading, you can use H2 subheading tags to describe sections on the page. Sometimes you may find that you will need H3 heading tags for sub sections on the page.  An example of heading hierarchy is:

HTML Heading Hierarchy using H1, H2 and H3 tag

If for some reason you find yourself trying to use H4 through  h6 heading sizes, you probably have again started out with too wide of a subject and it’s probably a good time to reassess your content and maybe split it off into two or more pages.

Graphic Headers

Using images in your webpage is a great way to demonstrate your idea; however, using an image for your page header is not so great. Search engines cannot read images so any text that is in that image never gets indexed. Many use an alternate method involving CSS that moves the HTML H1 tag far off the page so that only the image will be seen. This is a little more work, but far better than having no H1 tag at all.