I’m sure you all know how important SEO (search engine optimization) is to the success and visibility of your site. SEO straddles technical implementation, content development and user behavior.  Today I’m going to focus on the technical side because that’s often the most mysterious to a non-technical person.

There are several factors to consider when designing a new site or making changes to an existing site. They can be categorized into two groups – factors that impact search engine results (does the site come up when a user searches for a certain phrase?), and factors that impact click through (even if the site comes up on a search results page, does it entice the user to click on it?).

Here’s a simple list of the top factors.  It’s in no way an exhaustive list but if your site does these correctly you’ll be well on your way to SEO-friendly pages.

Factor	What Is It?	SERP*	CT**
Title tag	Page title – shown in the browser’s title bar and as the “heading” of the page’s listing on the search results page.  See screen shot below.
Keyword tag	Not shown on the web site.  Once used by most search engines but currently only used by Yahoo.
Description tag	Not shown on the web site.  Doesn’t impact search results. Shown below page title on search results page so it has great impact on click through.  See screen shot below.
ALT tag	Used as the words to describe an image.  Since search engines can’t read an image, they fall back onto ALT to describe the image.  Words in ALT are used by search engines to determine ranking.
XML Sitemap	I’m not talking about the user-friendly site map that’s often linked to in the footer of sites.  I’m talking about a file that search engines look for when indexing your site.  It’s a specially formatted listing of all pages on your site and an XML sitemap makes it easier for search engines to find those pages.  Motivating search engines is not unlike motivating people – make it easier for them to do their job for you and they’re more likely to do a good job while they’re at it.

* SERP = Search Engine Results Page. Here’s an example of a SERP.
** CT = Click-through – when a user clicks on a link it’s called a click-through.  Make your hard work effective – entice users to click on links to your site.

I’ve just touched on the elements of a page that impact SEO. There are dozens more but I’ll leave that to your tech team.  The items I outlined are the minimum – make sure your team is at least addressing them when creating or updating your web site.

Next time I’ll discuss something even more impactful – how other web sites can increase SEO for your site.