Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and USAGov applies SEO practices to improve (optimize) online content to rank/perform well on different search engines:
1. Put primary keywords in the:
- URL (such as usa.gov/topics/social-security.html)
- First words of the page <title>
- Meta description (summary), which is readable, plain language, and inspires clickthroughs from Bing, Google, Yahoo, etc.
- Page title, tagged as an <H1>
- Body (at least two or more times)
- Link titles or nouns that are descriptive of what you are offering the user, but not the verbs (for example, download passport forms; not download passport forms)
2. When appropriate, use secondary keywords in the fields listed above, plus in the asset heading, which is tagged as <H2> and secondary headings, which are tagged as <H3> and <H4>. Examples:
- Scam, scheme and swindle are secondary keywords for fraud.
- Arrendar and rentar are secondary keywords for alquilar.
3. Keep key page elements short:
- Titles: fewer than 75 characters with spaces.
- URLs: fewer than 90 characters with hyphens.
- Meta description/summary: fewer than 160 characters with spaces.
4. Link to authoritative sites, and avoid broken links.
For additional information, go to Search Engine Land’s Guide to SEO.
