Five Ways to Improve your Site's Ranking (SEO)
Follow these suggestions, and watch your website rise the ranks to the top of search-engine results.
1. Publish Relevant Content
Quality content is the number one driver of your search engine
rankings and there is no substitute for great content. Quality
content created specifically for your intended user increases site
traffic, which improves your site’s authority and relevance.
Identify a keyword phrase for each page. Think about how your
reader might search for that specific page (with phrases like
“mechanical engineering in Michigan,” “best applied physics
program,” or “Michigan Tech degrees”). Then, repeat this phrase
several times throughout the page—once or twice in the opening and
closing paragraphs, and two to four more times throughout the
remaining content.
Don’t forget to use bold, italics, heading tags, and other emphasis
tags to highlight keyword phrases, but don’t overdo it.
Never sacrifice good writing for SEO. The best pages are written
for the user, not for the search engine.
2. Update Your Content Regularly
You’ve probably noticed that we feel pretty strongly about content.
Search engines do, too. Regularly updated content is viewed as one
of the best indicators of a site’s relevancy, so be sure to keep it
fresh.
3. Metadata
When designing your website, each page contains a space between the
<head> tags to insert metadata, or information about the
contents of your page. If you have a CMS site, the UMC web team
will have pre-populated this data for you:
- Title Metadata Title metadata is responsible for the page titles displayed at the top of a browser window. It is the most important metadata on your page. For those with a CMS website, the web team has developed an automated system for creating the meta title for each webpage.Title tag should be around 60 to 70 char but every page title not necessary to have 70 char long.
- Description Metadata Description metadata is the textual description that a browser will use in your page search return. Think of it as your site’s window display—a concise and appealing description of what is contained within, with the goal of encouraging people to enter. Metadata description size should be around 150 to 160 char long.
- Keyword Metadata Keyword metadata are the search phrases that people type when they want to find your page. You’ll want to include a variety of phrases. However, don’t get greedy: if your list becomes excessive, the browser may completely ignore the data. As a general rule, try to keep it to about 6-8 phrases with each phrase consisting of 1-4 words. A great example would be "computer science degree."There is no official limit on the number of meta keywords you can have. Each search engine sets their own rules. However, it is a good practice to have less than 10% of the total words of a page. If for example your page has 300 words it is better to have maximum 30 words in your meta keyword tag.
4. Have a link-worthy site
Focus on creating relevant links within the text. Instead of having
“click here” links, try writing out the name of the destination.
“Click here” has no search engine value beyond the attached URL,
whereas “Michigan Tech Enterprise Program” is rich with keywords
and will improve your search engine rankings as well as the ranking
of the page you are linking to.
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