SEO Magic. Is there such a thing? It depends. SEO is not technically complicated. Yet, seeing your page to the top of a Google results page is still the holy grail of web masters. So it seems like SEO magic exists. Yet, while it may seem like magic, there are some basic (really basic) things that you should be doing to help you get to the coveted Page 1 (or at least not keep you from getting there).
Let’s take a quick peek at some Google results pages.
These are the page 1 results when searching for the phrase “javascriptserializer example”. (Pardon the misplaced period here, and below. I’m making it easier to cut/paste phrases).
Let’s pull back that curtain on this SEO magic trick a bit.
Page Title
You will see that my page with a Javascriptserializer example comes in position two (2). That’s about as good as your’re going to get; right behind the listing for Microsoft’s MSDN article. Notice the RED highlighted text. That’s the page title. Also notice the GREEN highlighted text. That’s the description meta-tag content (we’ll discuss the Description tag below).
The key here is that the page title matches the search term “Javascriptserializer example” exactly. Had my page title been “Example on how to use Javascriptserializer”, the page rank would have been lower. So my title matches the search phrase.
OK. Let’s pull back the SEO magic curtain a little more.
First Rendered <H> Tag
Below, is a screen-capture of my actual post discussing how to deserialize JSON encoded text with Javascriptserializer class. Notice the RED highlighted text.
That text is the same as the page TITLE tag (in the screen-cap above). Only in this case, it’s part of my page content. Specifically, it’s the first <H> tag rendered on the page. Not necessarily the first visible <H> tag. But it is the first <H> tag in the mark-up. Notice that this text matches the page title.
Finally, let’s pull the curtain all the way back on this little SEO magic trick.
Description Meta-Tag
The last item is a piece of HTML that is becoming over-looked but is still very important: the DESCRIPTION meta-tag.
Below is my mark-up for the description meta tag on my page. Notice that this text is the same as the text as the GREEN highlighted text above.
This is the text that will appear in the summary of your listing in the Google results. This is what the searcher will actually READ to determine whether your site is the one he/she wishes to visit. This has to catch the searchers attention. Create a description that will make the searcher think “that’s the site I want to visit” and you will go far!
So there you have it: your first SEO magic trick.
Don’t get too excited, this is the equivalent of the “I got your nose” trick you can pull on a two-year-old child. Nonetheless, it’s a SEO magic trick that will help you get started.
DISCLAIMER: I must point out that these techniques are targeted to the Google search engine. However, these items will also work on other search engines such as Bing and Yahoo! as well. Besides, Google is still the 800 pound gorilla when it comes to web based searching. So getting good Google page rank is still very important.
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