Hold a firm belief that the Meta tag will push your business site into the top ranks of search engines like Google? Well you might be a little disappointed to know that Meta tags are becoming more than a little out dated. All those keywords you spent hours coming up with may affect your ranking in some search engines, but the affect will be so insignificant that you may not even notice the difference.

Just like everything related to technology, trends and strategies change. Instead of focusing on things like Meta tags your page rank can be determined by XML site maps, tag structure, and involvement in social media sites.

Don't forget your Alt tags
Does your website include a lot of images? Be they image links or simply photos of your business, it's always a good idea to describe them with an alt tag. Not only does this make your site more handicap accessible but it also adds another piece of information for search engine crawlers to pick at. Many search engines now have a separate tab to search for just 'Images', something you should be taking advantage of.

XML Site Maps
XML site maps are currently one of the best ways to get your site comprehensively crawled by search engines. An XML site map is a bit of code in your website that shares information such as when your site was last updated and how often it's updated. If you set up your site map for auto-discovery, search engines will pick up on your site updates sooner than if they were left to discover them on their own. And, let's face it; fresh content is always more popular then old content.

Mixed Media
Do you have photographs on your website? What about videos? This content not only makes your site more interesting, it also adds opportunities for more traffic. Make sure you know the appropriate ways to optimize these items for search engines. Think about showing off your company video on sites like YouTube.com and Google Video, these can generate traffic to your company's website that otherwise might never find it.

Natural Links
Have you made a donation to a non-profit organization this year? Maybe garnered some local press coverage? Have you checked to see if these sites have physically linked to yours?

Natural links are used by Google to determine your sites relevance to a searched topic. An example of a natural link would be a link surrounded by relevant text (such as in the middle of an article about your business). Thanks to bloggers, certain people or events can be associated with keywords and propelled to #1 ranking in search engines over night because of natural links placed in blog posts.

Don't be Anti-Social
So you've stepped out of your box and put your company videos on YouTube and your photos on Flickr. Have you ever thought about Twitter? Did you know that companies like Dell, Bank of America and Home Depot are known for their Tweets? While having a designated Twitter representative may not be a viable option for your business right now, it definitely won't hurt to keep the idea on the back burner for future review.

The internet is increasingly becoming a Web 2.0 universe. This means your website can't just be static and sitting there waiting for people to come to it. A good list of keywords will no longer get you to the top rankings. Making your business an active part of community based sites (Twitter, YouTube) will greatly expand your available audience and having your page inform crawlers of updates instead of waiting on them to see the changes will bump your ranking up quite a bit more then static terms sitting in the background. Can you afford to be anything less than dynamic in your personal business environment? Neither can your website.

If you think your website is lagging behind, TurnKey Creations can help you with your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Call Kevin at 319.752.9898 or 319.752.1155