How to optimise your website's HTML for search
Search engines such as Google and Yahoo use your site's HTML
coding to help them decide how to rank your site. Within the HTML,
SEO mainly takes place within invisible meta tags, which explain
which results search engines should include your website in. Use
this guide to learn more about meta tags and their
significance.
- Title tags
- Keyword tags
- Description tags
- 'Alt' tags
Title tags
Title tags are often seen as the most important meta tags. The
text you put between the title tags will become the clickable
listing for your website on search engines, so try to make sure
you've used your keyword at least once.
Google will display up to 66 characters, so try to keep your title
text short. Your title tags should look like this: < title
>Your title text here
- Your title tags are the most important meta tags
- Your title text will come up as your clickable listing on
search engines
- Try to keep your title text below 66 characters
Keyword tags
While there is debate among SEO experts as to exactly how
important keyword tags are after they were subject to widespread
abuse in the early days of the internet, search engines still
definitely place some importance on keywords, so make sure you
include the tags at the top of your page. They should look like
this: < meta name="keywords" content="your keyword here" /
>.
- Search engines still place some importance on keyword tags
- Make sure you have embedded the correct coding at the top of
your page
- See our guide to using
keywords
Description tags
The text you place in the description tag will come up on most
search engines as the text below the link to your page, so again,
it's important you include your keywords in this. You should also
ensure it has provided an accurate explanation of your website -
but keep it below 160 characters, which is Google's limit. Your
description tags should look like this: < meta
name="description" content="Your description here." />.
- Description text will come up as the text below your link on
search engines
- Try to include your keyword in your description
- Make sure you keep it below 160 characters
Alt tags
This tag provides alternative text for images if they don't
load, and helps visually impaired people navigating the internet
using special software by providing a description of the image.
Because search engines also can't 'see' the image, they use the Alt
text to determine the subject of your images, and therefore your
website - so try to include your keyword in Alt tags. Your Alt tags
should look like this: < img src="yourimage.jpg" alt="Your alt
text here" title="Your alt text here" >.
- Provides alternative text as a substitute for images
- Search engines use alt tags to help determine the subject of
your website
- Try to include your keyword in your alt tags
To help you on your business journey, we've created Smarta Business Builder, the complete online
tools package for growing your business. Website, Business
Planning, Accounts, Legal Docs and Email - all in one place - from
just £20 per month with no contract! Try it out today!