Welcome to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) section of the NSNA Newsletter! Each month you will provided with the most up to date tips, tricks and suggestions for SEO success in this highly competitive market. For the first couple of months I will provide some suggestions for cheap and easy ways that you can get your client’s site started on the track towards Search Engine greatness!

The first step is using our ProFusion applications built in abilities to have dynamic Meta Tag Titles, Descriptions and Keywords. This should be unique for each page of your site. Here are a few guidelines for each section:

1. Meta Tag Titles:
   • Make sure that the text in the title tag conveys the meaning of the page.
   • Depending on your primary search engine of choice
     A) Google indexes 65-68 characters of title tag text
     B) Yahoo and other search engines tend to index more character
     C) Play it safe, keep your first 70 characters the most important, then add another 25 or so for the other search engines. Le them use what they want…
   • You can use your primary keywords in the Title, just make sure they are applicable
   • When possible shake it up and pose a question to your reader
     A) “How to Cook Lobster?
     B) “When is the best time of year to visit Lake Tahoe restaurants?”
   • Some readers will respond to numbers in the title
     A) “101 Ways to clean Laminate tiles
     B) “177 different styles of Women’s shoes”
2. Meta Tag Descriptions
   • Should be under 250 characters, keywords should be used, however most importantly the content should be readable by the end user
     A) Side Note: Google only indexes around 160-175 characters
   • Remember to research Industry specific keywords to use in the Descriptions.
   • Each of your page descriptions should be unique, do not simply copy and paste them on every page. Each one of your pages is an advertisement, be sure yours can sell the reader.
   • Try providing your end user a reason to come to your site. Calls to action can be very helpful
3. Meta Tag Keywords
   • Should also be fewer than 250 characters
   • Try not to reuse the same word over and over on a page. You want to try and bring a large audience to the page, make sure your wording can reach all audiences.
   • Use a thesaurus to discover similar words you may not have thought of
   • The basic guideline is 5-6 keywords or phrases per page
   • Have friends and family tell you what they would search in Google to find your company or product. Be sure those words and phrases are used throughout your keywords and site in general

The key to successfully setting up your site is, studying your end user. Search Engines like Google raise their stock price by being the most used search engine on the internet. People use search engines they feel generate the best results. Thereby forcing the search engines to constantly strive to provide the most relevant results for their users if they want to keep the end user happy. With that in mind if you are writing for the end user, you are also writing for search engines.

Stay with the above guidelines and you will find yourself on the road to success. Stay tuned next month when we will analyze Google’s Free Search Engine Features!