Titles & Meta Tags

Page Titles: You should write descriptive titles for each page on your website. First off, you'll get better search engine rankings. Secondly, when someone visits your page, they'll see your page title at the top of their internet browser. If they bookmark the page, the title will identify your page. Also the page title shows up in the search engine results. As a rule of thumb, each page on your website should have a page title that describes what that page is all about. Use as many of your chosen keywords in that title as possible, and make sure those keywords match the content on the page!

Meta Descriptions: You should also write a short description (under 50 words) for each page. This will show up as the description in search engine results (right under the title) and is also a good way to improve search engine ranking. The description should be conversational but also contain as many keywords as possible.

Meta Keywords: Make sure to include meta keywords on each page as well. This is purely for the search engines. Google doesn't put much emphasis on them anymore but some of the other search engines still do. Put together 5 - 15 keywords and phrases for each page. It's ok to repeat words but don't repeat them more than twice for each page.

An example on the RIGHT way to use meta keywords:

<meta name="XYZ Real Estate,Boise real estate,Idaho properties,Boise properties,XYZ,homes for sale" />

An example on the WRONG way to use meta keywords:

<meta name="Boise Real Estate,Idaho Real Estate,XYZ Real Estate,REAL ESTATE,XYZ Real Estate,XYZ Properties,Real Estate in Boise,Britney Spears,Viagra" />

Let's start with the bad apple first--what's wrong with the second example?

Using the exact same key phrase twice: "XYZ Real Estate"
Using the words "Real Estate" 6 times - don't use the same words throughout your keywords more than 3 times!
Using nonrelated keywords at the end--this was a trick web people did like 10 years ago to fool the search engines

What's right with the first example: Notice that I've only used "Real Estate" twice but those 2 times have been strategically placed. Most search engines read commas as spaces and so if you put keywords next to each other, they can have different combinations. In this case, I'd have 4 great combinations that include the phrase "Real Estate": XYZ Real Estate, Real Estate Boise, Boise Real Estate, and Real Estate Idaho.

Next step: Headings & Alt Tags

Website Marketing Basics Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Submissions, & Promoting Your Site - The basics are pretty easy but it does take a lot of time & effort.