Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a very comprehensive process that is constantly changing and takes a complete marketing strategy. However, these are a few simple ways to start you on the right track for ranking higher in search engines.

Spruce Up Your Title Tags

Title tags name the individual pages within your site, and can be one of the most important parts of on-page SEO. These are what search engines use as headings for their listings. They are also displayed at the top of the browser when a user views a page.

For example, on the food photography page of our website I have added a title tag that reads: “NJ Professional Food, Restaurant Photographer NJ”, not just ‘food photographer’. Doing this gives the search engine more details and tells it exactly what the content of this page is going to be. You can see that this title tag is also displayed in the gray bar at the top of the browser.

Google Listing

Top of Browser Window

In the above example my Google search was for “food photographer NJ“. You can see that the listing in Google matches the title tag that I programmed into this page. Google also bolds the words that are exact matches between the search and title tag. The more word matches you have in your title tag, the better.

The title tags should be around 70 characters long and the most relevant keywords should be placed toward the beginning. If you are developing a brand and are a new website it is also a good idea to add the company name to the title tag.

Description Tags Sell Your Listing

A description tag is the brief text that comes up with your title tag in a search engine. A description tag isn’t really going to influence your Google ranking, but this can be the make or break moment when it comes to whether or not the user is going to click on your link. This is where you really have to sell your product or services because this is most likely the first thing people will read about your company or product.

In the example below I searched “graphic design NJ” and this is the listing I got.

Google Listing

You can see that the viewer is given a brief description of what we do. Even though Google doesn’t place too much weight on the description, I still fill this with as many different keywords and locations, which are very important when trying to persuade someone to click on your listing. Google once again bolds all the matching keywords which helps grab the user’s attention.

Use Keywords In Your URL

Another strategy to help SEO is naming all the html pages using keywords wherever possible. You can see above the name of our graphic design page is graphic-designer-nj.htm which is also bolded within the listing in Google. This may help convince the user that that page is exactly what he or she is looking for.

Be warned… you have to be careful when renaming your html pages. If you have had a site live for some time, your pages have probably already been indexed by Google, and if you change the name of the page you will run into a 404 missing page issue. To handle this you need to make sure you put 301 redirects in place to tell Google that the page is still active, but has just moved to a different location. If you do it this way you will not hurt your Google ranking and Google will eventually re-index your pages correctly.

Make Your Keywords Headings

If you embed keywords throughout the pages of your website in the form of headings Google will recognize that. Below is a screen shot of our website design page. I’ve created what’s called heading tags for all my important keywords on the page. I gave the main heading “Website Design and Development” an h1 tag. The list of services underneath that is my sub heading, which I gave an h2 tag. Google sees these keywords and places more emphasis on them.

To do this you need to wrap the text in heading tags within the code of your website. This portion of our website’s code looks like this:

Complete Your Google Places Listing

This last tip happens outside of your website. You should search Google and see if it has your listing within Google Places. If it does, you need to claim your business and make sure it is up to snuff. Complete the listing by adding all the information that you have including address, phone number, and web address. You also can add categories to your listing to help your rankings. It is also a great idea to add any photos or videos you may have available. If your business is not listing you can create a Google account and add a business to Google Places.

Check out our Google Places listing as an example of how yours can be set up. Click here to view it.

If you complete all the above steps you may not come up #1 overnight but you’ll be well on your way to climbing the Google ladder.

If you need any help implementing these things on your site please give us a call at 973-305-8999. You can also visit the main section of our website to see all the services we offer.

It seems that these days everyone uses Facebook to stay connected to family and friends. From a business standpoint Facebook offers you the ability to stay connected with your customers, but can also serve as a catalyst for great growth of your clientele. The trick is to get as many people as possible to your page. Getting new customers to “Like” your business provides you with a lasting connection and allows you to pass along information to them on a consistent basis. It makes your business, relevant, current, and easy to reach. Sounds pretty simple right? Not so fast…

Unfortunately, just using Facebook in the traditional way probably won’t attract the fans you are looking for, without which your business loses out on endless opportunities and connections.

When someone looks at your Facebook page, by default they are sent to your wall. Your wall shows people your most recent activity and posts, but really doesn’t provide any information on what your business is or what you provide to your customers. More importantly it doesn’t give anyone any incentive to click on that little “Like” button at the top of the page. Take a look at the picture below. In this screenshot of the business’ wall the button is hidden and the user has no reason to click it. A potential client may browse around a bit and look at your posts but will then most likely leave your page, losing you the connection.

When someone finds your business on Facebook you need to seize this opportunity to promote it and give the person a reason to click “Like”.

So having a potential customer look at your Facebook wall just won’t cut it. What do you do? Create a custom Facebook landing page and make that the first thing people see. A landing page is almost like a mini webpage that grabs the customer’s attention and draws them in to what your business has to offer. A custom landing page also showcases that all important “Like” button and gives the customer a reason to click it. The screenshot below is the custom landing page for the same business as above.

The landing page offers the potential customer a hook. In this case it’s an opportunity to actually win something, which is very appealing to most visitors. You can see how the user is directed to the button with a huge arrow that can’t be missed.

Even if you don’t currently have a promotion to offer your visitors, you can still create a graphic that will grab the user’s attention and intrigue them.

This is our Facebook page and it doesn’t offer any information about our company right off the bat but it does engage the user’s curiosity, which is also something that most people can’t resist.

While there are several challenges to keeping your business’ Facebook page current and interesting, you need to get as many customers as possible to “Like” your page. Creating a custom landing page is the first important step in achieving this goal.