Sure, most SEO firms probably don’t give away valuable intelligence, but our unofficial motto is “We’re not like the other firms”.  Besides, there are literally hundreds of things that companies should do to optimize their sites, and these 5 tips are only the tip of the iceberg on strong search engine optimization.  That being said, these are also the 5 things that, if your site doesn’t handle properly, will cause your site and your business to fail miserably, lose money every single day until it is fixed.  And no, that is not overstated.

1. Optimize your page titles with the keywords that you want to target
   Single-handedly the most important aspect of search engine optimization are page titles.  The page titles are the text that appears in the blue line at the very top of your browser Window.  Use this wisely and do not abuse.  Mis-using the title tag can be worse than not using it at all.  But using it properly will tell search engines what your page is about.  This should contain about 8 words, and should not use stop words such as the, a, an, etc. Do not use the same word more than once, but be sure to use phrases that people would actually type into Google if they were looking to find your company’s site.  Also, page titles must be unique for each page of your site.
2. Have and maintain a site map for your site
   This is not the page that you see on a lot of sites that serves as a table of contents for users, but actually is an XML file that Google uses to index all of the pages on the site.  There is a specific format for creating this file, and gives the site owner a little flexibility in prioritizing and ranking their pages.  This file is never seen by visitors to the website, but is critical to SEO purposes.   
3. Use proper HTML header tags to identify important information
   <H1> and <H2> tags are HTML tags that Google uses to identify what the site owner considers to be critical information on a specific page.  These are header tags that are very important common, but not used nearly enough by many web developers. Successful e-commerce sites use header tags to wrap around product information such as name, product ID numbers, etc. Frequently, this data is prioritized in a manner where the most important content is in an <H1> tag, next most important in an <H2>, then an <H3>.  Typically, there is no need to go lower than an <H3> but sometimes people go all the way to <H6> or so.
4. Optimize for Google
   Some SEO firms guarantee top rankings or offer submission on hundreds or thousands of search engines. Google drives 72% share of our search engine traffic on our sites, similar to the industry average.   Yahoo delivers 11%, Ask.com brings 8%, and MSN/Live drives about 4%.  There is no need to even care about other search engines when these 4 engines drive 95% of all searches.  These large, respectable engines handle their ranking algorithms remarkably similar, rewarding quality, solid content and best practices.  There is no need to worry about anything else, as optimizing a site to rank well in Google will also enable it to rank well for the others, and in the case of a conflict, you have to go with Google since they deliver almost 3 out of every 4 search visitors to a web site.  There are some things you can do as well (creating sitemap.txt file for Yahoo, for example) for other large search engines, but for the most part, worry about ranking for Google and don’t waste time or money on the others.
5. Content is King
   I think I wrote this same thing back in 1998, and I’ll write the same thing in 2018.  Content is, was, and always will be king when it comes to search engines.  After all, a search engine, by definition, is something that helps web visitors find content that they are looking for.  Therefore, providing that will automatically improve your site’s ability to rank well.  On the contrary, it is very difficult to optimize a site that has weak content, and to be honest, deservedly so.  If you have a page that provides valuable content for a visitor, it will be relatively easy to get that site to rank for a keyword the person would use to find that content. 

These are what we consider the 5 no-brainer, ‘you-have-to-do-this’ basic tips that you have to do on your web site.  These are always the first five things we will look for when we do a site analysis for your business, but when working with us we also go much deeper and provide you with a complete recommendation of what needs to happen to rank your site as an industry leader.