As a business owner, how do you check to see if any search engine optimization was done to your website? For a small business, not being found in a search engine is crucial in today’s competitive market. It can also seem like a waste if you have put a lot of money into your website and you are not seeing any impact from the website on your business. Here are a couple of simple steps that anyone can do to check their website.
Checking your website for Meta Tags
Meta Tags are sections of code on a website that provide details to search engines about your website. The only way to view this is by looking at the code of your website. Don’t worry, you only need to look at the top of the page and you will not have to translate any strange alien scripture. To do this, go to your website, right-click on the page, and then select “View Source” or “View Page Source”.
The most important one you want to look for is the Meta Description.
‹meta name=”description” content=”TEXT ABOUT YOUR SITE”›
All websites should have a Meta Description and it should be unique on every page.
Next is the Meta Keywords. This is an optional tag but should still be considered when building websites.
‹meta name=”keywords” content=”KEY PHRASES FOR YOUR SITE”›
Checking for a Custom Error Page
An error page is displayed when a page cannot be found or has moved. These pages are also referred to 404 pages. By default, every website has a basic error page provided at all times. The downside to these pages is that it does not provide a link back to your website. The browser’s back button has to be used in order to return to the website.
This hurts your website because only a human can click on the back button, a search engine has no way of returning to your website in order to index additional pages. By creating a custom error page, you can provide links back to your website. This may also help you save a potential customer because when most people see an error page, they move on to a different website. To check this, simply add “/Q” at the end of your web address, for example: http://www.youraddress.com/Q and see what comes up.
Now, these are very basic search engine optimization techniques, and just because your website has them does not mean they are done properly. There are several different items to take into consideration, and if you are concerned about the performance of your website, contact our top full-service web design agency to get a second opinion.