Search engine optimization can be a foreign language to a new content writer. To simplify the concept, SEO is basically the use of specific wording to make your host site easier to find using any of the major search engines. Highly efficient search engine optimization can boost your website’s traffic by over fifty percent. It’s critical that you continue to learn and blossom in this arena. If you’re in search of a few helpful hints to build upon, then you’re in the right place. Here is a quick overview of a few handy tips and tricks for the SEO novice.
Make Sure You Have a Google+ Page
This isn’t really the hottest social media site, but there is one key benefit you won’t want to miss out on. With Google+, you can attach your big ugly mug to your webpage. This way, every single time your page pops up on a search result, your face will pop up as well. Research has shown that people will click on the fourth link before the first link if there is a picture provided. Even though you may be lower in the rankings, you may be able to draw in the traffic of the number one spot with a simple addition of a picture.
Get into Google Places
It’s to the detriment of most companies that they are not savvy to Google Places and all the features and functions they provide. This page will boost all of the other branches of your online presence. Google’s newest thing is local searches. This will actually list your business’s location, and provide an easy access click option to Google maps that will map out precision GPS coordinates to your location. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Hyphen Versus Underscores
Knowing the difference in impact between the use of a hyphen in between words and the use of an underscore to separate words in your individual URL addresses. Every time a browsing customer clicks on a link, the address changes. If you’re addresses get super wordy, separate your words with hyphens instead of underscores to cut down on confusion. A lot of people will type the address incorrectly when_this_happens as opposed-to-this.
Know the Power of a Link
It’s easy to fall into the habit of using easy linking phrases like “click here for more information”. Don’t do that! All you’re going to accomplish from this method of linking is boosting the linked page’s traffic, because the main words are “click here”. For example, you wouldn’t want to use “click here for more information” if you were trying to build traffic for an online college. You would want to place the link on a set of more appropriate words like online-training-courses.