Search engine optimization (SEO) allows your website, blog or community to be easily searched and found by search engines like Google. If you are a web designer or a blogger, you should follow certain SEO guidelines if you want users to locate your website or blog while searching for relevant stuff. Following SEO rules gives your page a higher ranking by search engines.

Here are a few important SEO guidelines you can follow:

Choosing Keywords: Select your keywords after some research. Try to understand what keywords are most commonly used by visitors while conducting related searches.

Content is King: Ensure that you have good content with proper use of keywords. This helps search engines determine whether your website is a good match for what a visitor is searching for. Proper use of keywords helps search engines work more effectively. However, ensure that your content is not all about keywords alone. Otherwise no one will want to stay on the website.

Keywords in Images: This is useless. Keywords that are embedded in images can not be read by search engines.

Update your content: Make sure to regularly update the content on your site. If your content is too old, it will be given a lower priority than content that is more recent.

Simplicity in design: A simple website is easier for search engines to detect. On the other hand, design with flashy animation and images can not be easily read by search engines.

Site map: Always create the site map of the website. The site map should have links to important sections of the site. If the site map is larger, say more than 100 links, divide them over separate pages. These pages help search engines locate all of the content on a website.