SEO Basics

This is the title that is displayed at the top of a browser window and as the headline within search engine results. 

• Page titles should be descriptive but concise, typically 50-60 characters. Longer titles will get cut off in search results.
• Ensure that your page titles are unique.

This is the description you will find for your page link on the search results. This is also the blurb you will see in link previews while social sharing.

• Meta Descriptions should be kept to 155-160 characters, longer descriptions may get cut off.
• The description should be concise, relevant and compelling with the goal of encouraging people to click on the link.

Heading tags help provide a semantic structure to your page and improve readability.

• Your page should have only one H1 tag. This is typically the title of your page.
• Follow a hierarchical order for your headings and subheadings within the content with the use of heading tags H2 - H6.
• Do not skip a heading tag. For example: H1 cannot be followed by an H3 without the use of H2.

• While large images have great quality, the file size of an image impacts the page load speed which is also a ranking factor. Ensure that your images are below 200kb without compromising the quality. You can test your page load speeds using the PageSpeed insights tool available.
• Include alternative text (alt text, Image Description) for all the images. This will assist screen readers in interpreting the image.
• Use descriptive keywords for the image filename. Name the image with hyphen-separated words.

Do not use generic link text like “Click here”. Use link text that is relevant and descriptive on what the user would expect when they visit the hyperlinked page. Descriptive links improve SEO and also add value to your users.

A sitemap ensures that all the pages of your website are discoverable by search engines. This is usually an xml file consisting of all the pages that you would like to be found by search engines. Exclude the pages in your sitemap that you don’t want indexed. Sitemaps can be submitted using Google Search Console and must be updated regularly with addition of any new pages to your site.