1. SEO Cheat Sheet: Basic Elements To Get You Started
Lori Cumberland Ulloa | Sr. Internet Marketing Strategist
Start with: » Key phrases, content or concept for each page of your website, keeping conversion
(action step) and other site goals in mind. Look at your sitemap and use it to create
your outline. Blog posts and articles should be optimized by title.
» A deep understanding of your audiences and what they would search to find your
product/service/organization. Think about your business function in relation to the
problems your audience needs to solve.
Once you have two to three, » Construct to-the-point page title with max of 65-67 characters (including spaces) that
no more than five, keywords focuses on your key phrases. Please make it descriptive of what is or will actually be
that will accurately describe on the page. A good page title is not only SEO friendly but usable as well.
the content on the page as » Write well organized and to-the-point meta description relating to content on page
well as be featured within to be written in the meta description tag in your html (or meta description field in
the content: your CMS). Description should be around 120-200 characters including spaces. The
character limit can be flexible as meta description often truncate.
» Create headers for the content on the page. Include keywords/phrases that match
your title, meta description and content. Begin this header with <h1> and end with
</h1> (This can be styles in CSS). A sub-title or additional important information
can be surrounded with <h2>-<h3> tags but <h1> carries the most weight.
Please use only one <h1> tag per page. There is no limit on the amount of <h2>-
<h3>. Note that <h4>-<h6> can be used as well.
» Include the same chosen key phrases you used in other elements in your meta
keywords. However, this tag does not carry a lot of weight. This is
also a good place for misspellings and slight variations that your users
may search.
» Include Anchor text associated with links within your content and within your
navigation (where possible) that includes relevant keywords.
» Include descriptive alt text for images. Use keyword rich text that places the image
in the context of the content and make it brief (Four words or less).
» Unless content is updated frequently (fresh content is best for search ability and is
highly recommended), try to avoid associating content with a date. This could make
some of your best content look outdated quickly.
» Re-write keyword rich URL’s (if the CMS allows) relating to the content on the page.
Please name them in a logical sense using keywords. Use hyphens instead of
underscores to separate words.
Avoid: » White text on white background to include keywords.
» Excessive use of images or flash without text.
» Images without alt tags.
» Keyword stuffing in meta tags.
» Pages with little or no content.
» Non-descriptive anchor text such as “click here”
» For the love of all that is holy, do not use a flash splash page!
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