How do I optimize my website?

Here are a few tips on what to focus on, when you search engine optimize your website:

  1. Set unique and describing Title-tags (browser titles)for your pages, the text that appears in your browser window tab and also as the linked text in a search result. The title-tag is one of the most important factors for search engines and should include the company name and preferably a describing phrase on the page in question (ex. Color Palace: Professional equipment for painting, washing, plastering and wallpapering). A good guideline for the length of a title is between 55 and 60 characters. Also note that the page title serves two purposes – first, it should contain the keywords your customers are looking for, to get you high up in the search results list, but also written in a way that it attracts customer clicks.

    The 'Title-tag' can be found below the 'SEO' or 'Meta data' tab for the page settings of a page, in TYPO3.
     
  2. Apply unique descriptions and keywords as metadata on each page (yes, this is a bit difficult, but definitely worth it).

    The 'Description' should describe the page content in about 300 characters. Make sure to use important words connected to the page content.

    Keywords aren't included in the indexing Google does of a page, any more. But if you do add them, remember not to have too many keywords on a page, 5-15 is usually about right. If you have too many you can even get worse rankings than without keywords.

    The 'Description' and 'Keywords' can be found below the 'SEO' or 'Meta data' tab for the page settings of a page, in TYPO3.
     
  3. Work with your headers. They must be formatted with the classic HTML tags - H1, H2, H3, etc. H1 is the most important, but remember that there should only be one type H1 per page. In TYPO3 the header types will be listed as H1, H2 etc, Layout 1, Layout 2 etc or as Heading 1, Heading 2 etc.
     
  4. Get links. Try to get your suppliers, resellers and partners to link to your page. The more relevant sites that link to your page, the more relevant it is to Google. So make sure that the websites that link to yours are within the same type of business area.
     
  5. Update your startpage often. If nothing ever happens on the websites startpage, Google will eventually stop indexing it. Even the ordinary visitor will get tired and stop to visit you if the page never changes. So try to update the startpage once a week, or at least twice a month, to get and keep your ranking. A good option is to have a news feed there.
     

The image below specifies how the 'Title-tag' (1) and the 'Description' (2) is displayed on a search result on Google.

Read more about SEO for your TYPO3 website