Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be rather difficult to fully comprehend, but knowing the basics behind it can help boost your business’s performance. Understanding basic SEO terms is important because most Internet users use refer to search engines immediately to find exactly what they are looking for. When trying to rank high for your small business, it is important to remember various major factors, including on-page factors.

On-Page Factors

The way your website is built and the content on your website are large factors in how well you rank in search engines. Here are the most important factors involved:

• URL structure: this is how to URL of your web pages appears to the user. For example, naming the page (www.yourbusinesswebsite.com/page-name.html) is more effective name a random number placed in the URL (www.yourbusinesswebsite.com/5678.html). Relate the URL title to the content that is on the specific page on your site you are publishing.

• Title tags: Title tags appear in the URL bar of a website and is also used in sharing pages on Facebook and other social media sites. Title tags are also a big part of rankings in Google. Keep your tag to less than 70 characters, but make sure it is creatively done for each of your pages and that keywords are included in these titles.

• H1/H2/H3 tags: Marketing up text on your site shows that the information provided is important. Playing up on words using bold, italics, or underlying type text can draw attention to them, but the best, more proper way to rank higher and grab attention is using these tags – specifically H1. Make sure that each page of your site has an H1 tag that contains the keywords you are looking to rank.

• ALT tags and Image names: these tags are titles given to the images you are putting in your pages. Make sure you name them appropriately – like including keywords.

• Meta descriptions: meta descriptions are the few sentences that show up in search engine ranking pages (SERPs) under the title.
• Website content recommendations: the information you publish on your website is obviously important. The more useful the content is, the better for not only your users, but your business. You don’t need to write pages upon pages, but a couple hundred words and keywords you want to rank will boost your page ranking.

Understanding that while SEO takes a bit of effort, the work will pay off for your business. Make sure all your on-page factors are properly set up and implemented, including keyword repetition!