As an owner of a web hosting and web design company, I’m always asked by clients to help improve their website ranking by doing some simple tweaking. If you’re new to the field of search engine optimisation, here are 6 simple steps you can start with to help make your client’s site to be more visible to search engines:

1. Title Tag

Title tag is visible to your site visitors. It appears right on top of the browser. It’s almost the first thing search engines will look for. Most of the time, many a website simply has a, “Welcome to My Company” title. It doesn’t mean a thing to search engines. Unless your company’s name is a household name, no one will key in that name in Google.

Here’s the smart way to put your title tag: <title>Keywords of services provided by your company</title>. And the recommended syntax is: <title>Keyword | Category | Company’s Name</title>. Using my web hosting website for example, it will be:

Did you notice almost all the keywords are in my title tag? Try to keep below 80 words.

2. Meta Description Tag

This is something only visible when viewed through the eyes of search engine pages. Here’s how it looks:

Therefore, your meta description tag not only must contain your keywords, it must also be readable by humans! Do not stuff all your keywords here. Most likely people will not click on it if it doesn’t really describe what your company does. Remember, it’s not called a meta description tag for no reason! Here’s how a meta description tag look like:

Try to stick to 150 characters or less. Otherwise, it may be truncated just like some examples above.

3. Header Tags

Use your header tags wisely. Put in your keywords while maintaing readability. Here’s the importance level of each tag:

4. Bold and Italicized Tags

Again, use them wisely and put your keywords there. But use it sparingly. If not, your site will look spammy. Here’s how the tags look:

5. Image Tag

Image tag is where you placed your image, like the one above. If possible, use your keyword for both your image file name and the “alt” tag. And try to use image that it also descriptive of your keywords. For example, do not put a picture of flower and name it, singapore-web-hosting.jpg! Here’s how an image tag looks:

6. Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks are used when you want to link to a certain page in your website or out to another website. Again, as much as possible, use your keyword(s) to the max while maintaining readability for your site visitors:

Here you are. 6 simple steps to take to help make your site more visible to search engines and thereby increasing your page ranking!

But please always remember this. As much as you’d like to stuff your keywords in a page, make sure it’s readable to humans too.