This weekend I made it to Clemson, SC for the Clemson vs. Boston College game. I went with no tickets, and I was accused of being crazy. I ended up sitting 6 rows up from the field due to a little networking and some very generous friends.

I found out that part of the group that provided tickets owned a real estate company, Avocet Properties, in Charleston, SC. The co-owner, Lisa, asked me what I did, so I told her about Merge. We started talking shop.

Lisa’s main concern was search engine placement, which they are currently working with a provider and “getting pretty good results.”

I took a look at their web site, and wanted to share with you, blog reader, what 5 things they could do today to start the process of improving their rankings:

1. The Title of the page:

Should have keywords in it. Suggestion:
“Charleston, SC Vacation Rentals, Real Estate - Avocet Properties”

2. The content on the page is an Image — a big no-no. This should be text using CSS:

3. No Alt Tags. When you rollover an image, it should say “Charleston, SC Vacation Rentals, Search>>” Instead, you get the file name. This violates both usability and SEO practices.

4. No Meta Tags. Arguably, Meta Tags are not as weighted as they used to be. However, it still doesn’t hurt to have them.

5. Site map. Having a site map page for both usability and SEO is key. This allows robots/spiders to easily index your site.

Five quick tips for making your site more SEO friendly. You never know what you’ll get when you give free advice. It seems what compes around goes around-even in the form of tickets 6 rows up for the big game…