SEO or search engine optimization is a means to draw traffic to your website through the use of search engines. If you have a website but really haven't seen significant traffic, you will probably need to optimize it. Don't feel daunted, there are things you can do yourself to increase your search engine traffic.

Absolutely! Some of the web design elements that can impact compatibility are your web pages Title Element, META Description Tag and Body text with keywords. There are others, but these are the basics to look at first.

Also known as Title tags, your title element is actually one of the most important elements of your web page. Search engines look at the Title tag of web pages to help determine relevancy against search queries.

If you want to view the HTML code of your page, you can simply open it in your browser, right click on your page and select View source. You will then see the HTML code makeup. Can you see your Title tag? It will be near the top and look like the code below.

<title>SEO It Yourself!</title>

When your page is open, look at the top of your browser. The browser heading and your Title tag should match.

When creating an effective Title tag, it is important to use keywords relating to your business.

Let's say you own a jewelry store in Eden Lake, Minnesota. This fictitious store's name is Au Jewelers and they specialize in Italian yellow gold chain. They have a website and ship their product throughout the United States. Through research, we have selected the following keywords to target: jeweler Eden Lake, Italian gold chain, and yellow gold chain.

These keywords should be incorporated into your Title tag as follows:

<title>Au jewelers in Eden Lake - Italian yellow gold chain a specialty<title>

When a searcher enters any combination of our targeted keywords into their search engine, Au jewelers listing should show up in the search results.

For best results, Title tags should be no longer than 65 characters. Title tags longer than this will appear cut off in your browser display.

META description tags are used to describe the contents of your web page. Generally, Search Engine robots will collect this information and use it when displaying pages in the results.

When writing META description tags, it is very important to incorporate keywords/phrases into the copy. Let's use Au Jewelers as an example. Using the targeted keywords mentioned before, their META description tag would be:

<META name= “description” content= “Au jewelers in Eden Lake, Minnesota, specialize in the sale of fine Italian yellow gold chain. They gladly ship throughout the United States. Order online and a free gift will be included with your purchase!”>

An effective META description tag is 200-250 characters long and one or two sentences. Keywords should be towards the front of the tag.

If you want search engines to determine that your site is relevant for a certain search query, you must include relevant keywords. Let's look at Au Jewelers again. Their body text might look something like this:

Au jewelers…the look of luxury.

Our buyers at Au jewelers, Eden Lake, hand select only the finest Italian yellow gold chain available. If you are looking for a lasting, meaningful gift or an exquisite item for yourself, you will appreciate our vast selection.
We will ship your item anywhere in the United States.

Our initials Au make an incredible statement of quality!

Your gift arrives in our distinctive royal blue case with the unmistakable Au logo. The moment they open it, a memory will be made. You will instantly know you’ve just given the gift of a dream come true from Au jewellers, Eden Lake, Minnesota.

When you purchase your jewelery from us, we:

• Guarantee your satisfaction. click here for our guarantee
• Offer toll-free customer service. click here for contact info
• Offer a free gift when you order online.
• Gladly ship to our friends in the US.
• Send reminders so you won’t miss important holidays.

Au jewelers…A gift for every occasion.

Give the gift of gold. We buy meticulously crafted yellow gold chain direct from Valenza Po in Piedmont, Vicenza in the Veneto, and Arezzo in Tuscany. Our imported yellow gold chain is the finest Italian gold available. We stake our reputation on it!

When you choose from our finest Italian yellow gold chains, you’ve found the perfect complement… Au jewelers, Eden Lake, MN.

Body text should contain at least 250 words to be effective. We'll cover other design elements that can affect search engine compatibility in future postings.