When it comes time to optimize my web sites, I am quite familiar with the normal SEO things we do to HTML pages to help the search engines better understand what my site is about. SEO practices that include meta descriptions and keywords, <title> tags, and header tags are standard in SEO - and are very important. However, when it comes time to make a lens on Squidoo, do you know how to optimize for SEO?

Optimizing Title Tags on Squidoo

When creating your Squidoo lens, be very careful when choosing your title. These words will be in the code that creates your lens in the <title> tag. This tag is VERY important SEO-wise to the success of your Squidoo lens.

This <title> tag is also what changes the words you see at the very top left of your browser (in the blue) and is also the title of your page that is seen in search engine returns.

Optimizing Description Tags on Squidoo

Most websites that are SEO optimized have a meta description tag (or attribute) in the coding. Sometimes, these words that are chosen are shown when a search engine returns your site as a result for a query as opposed to randomly selecting text from your page. This can be very helpful in creating a search return that is “click-able”. So, how do you optimize description tags on Squidoo?

The words you type in the content on your intro module will also be entered in the meta description tag in the code of your lens. Choose these words carefully - they count heavily.

Optimizing Keyword Tags on Squidoo

The other meta that is important from an SEO standpoint is the meta keyword tag (or attribute). Squidoo gets these keywords for the code of your lens from the tags you choose. To promote relevance, make sure the tags you choose for your Squidoo lens are words that are actually within the content of your lens. Choosing keywords for Squidoo lenses is a very important step that should be taken BEFORE you ever click “make a lens”.

Optimizing Header Tags on Squidoo

So, what about the all-important <h1>, <h2>, and <h3> tags? Header tags are important when using SEO to optimize a site. These header tags help the search engines spiders understand what your page is all about. Squidoo takes your title (that is also your <title> tag) and makes it a <h1>.

Each module title you create is put in <h2> tags within the code of your Squidoo lens, and each module sub-title is put in an <h3> tag.

Why Use SEO on a Squidoo Lens?

Instead of trying to explain how all these SEO tips affect your natural search engine rankings and appearance , I’ll just let Matt Cutts explain the anatomy of a search return in this video. It is very good…

I hope this free web site optimizing lesson helped! Bottom line about SEO and site optimization, tho. Be sure you create your content for the user - but take the time to optimize your site for the search engines, too. Little things you do can really help the search engines process what your site is relevant to - and return better search returns for their users.

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