SEO and Title tags - how to format

Most of the major search engines give the most relevance to keywords in the title tags within the Web page. As such, every page should have a title tag. In general, I have found that short keyword rich descriptions in title tags work best.

Good title tag:

Not so good title tag:

Header tags

Many of the major search engines place a lot of relevance on keywords in header tags (H1, H2 and H3). As such I recommend that you sprinkle keyword rich header tags on your Web pages.

Sample header tags:

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Positioning

ALT text

Always include ALT text to describe the contents of an image. Use keyword rich descriptions in the ALT text, as some search engines index the keywords.

You will also provide a text description to visitors with slow download connections or have their images turned off. But to ensure that the text is visible, you must set the image’s width and height dimensions.

The use of ALT text also enable visually disabled visitors using screen readers, or reviewers, to interpret the image on the screen. Images can be translated, only if there is alternative text describing the image.

Also consider adding a period “.” at the end of the ALT text, so that someone hearing the page can tell where one image stops and another starts.

Sample ALT text within an image tag: