Jump-Start Your SEO With These 6 Surefire Tactics

I’m often asked the question, “Where do I start with SEO?” Though there is no one-size-fits-all approach, my answer is generally to find the biggest need for your site and start chipping away at it.

It’s kind of like paying off your credit card bills. Pay the one with the highest interest rate first so you’re spending less on interest and more on paying down your debt. (Or pay the lowest balance off first.)

Here, I want to focus on what those biggest needs really are. Of course, since I haven’t seen your website, I don’t know what your particular biggest need is, but I’ve outlined a handful below that are typical of many sites looking to jump into SEO.

If you’re engaging in SEO, whether internally or with a contractor or agency, take a look at these six areas to find out if they are a concern for you. If they are, they represent a great place to jump-start your web marketing efforts.

1. Optimize Your Tags

A lot of SEOs focus their efforts around keyword research. This research is the basis of almost all of your online marketing efforts, with a heavy emphasis on the on-page optimization of your content.

But for large sites with hundreds of pages, products or services being offered, it is implausible to perform a detailed optimization of every page on your site quickly.

Instead of waiting until you can optimize all those pages, you can start by taking a quick pass at them by optimizing a few key tags first. These include:

• Title Tag
• Meta Description Tag
• H1 Heading Tag
• Other Heading Tags
• Alt Tags

On each page, you want to make sure every tag is unique and representative of the content of that particular page. If you have anything from your keyword research that fits a page, use it.

A detailed optimization isn’t necessary here. It’s just about hitting the broad strokes. Move quickly, and move on. You’ll circle back around when you do a more thorough optimization of each page.

[Read the full article on Search Engine Land.]

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Stoney deGeyter

Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing, a leading online marketing strategy company established in 1998 and currently based in Canton, Ohio.