SEO Tip #1: Do you know how to see what’s ‘under the hood’ of your website?

SEO Tip #1 - How to view your web page source code

“Is it sufficient that you have learned to drive the car, or shall we look and see what is under the hood? Most people go through life without ever knowing.”

Dr. June Singer

Today I am going to give you a quick tip on how to ‘look under the hood’ of your website to understand a basic first step of SEO.

SEO Tip #1 – Learn how to look ‘under the hood’

If you wanted to look inside to the engine of your car, you would open the hood with a latch from inside the vehicle. With a website, you don’t have a simple open button or latch, but there is a way for the ‘non-mechanic’ website owner to look under the hood of your website. It’s called ‘View Page Source’.

The ‘View Page Source’ command allows you to view the source code for your website. Source code is the programming code that helps to make up your website so it displays in the lovely, graphical format you see on your screen.

Inside the source code, a web designer or marketer, makes sure certain key items are being monitored, much like you’d do with a car. You make sure the car is filled with the right fluids like oil, gas, coolant, etc… so it runs optimally. That is exactly what your web designer does when they optimize your website for search engines. They fill it up with the right ‘fluids’ like: content, tags, meta data, etc… so your site has a better chance of ranking in search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo.

If you’re a mechanic, you know what to look for in the engine. If you’re not, you learn basic skills to keep your car running smoothly between maintenance visits. Viewing source code is one of those basic skills to learn, so you can always make sure your site is being efficiently optimized.

HOW TO VIEW YOUR WEB PAGE SOURCE CODE

  1. First thing to do is pull up your website in a browser.

    Open any website browser like Firefox, Safari, Chrome and type in your website address.

  2. Find any space on the website that is not an image and RIGHT CLICK (Ctrl+Click on a Mac) your mouse button and choose “View Page Source” from the menu that opens up.

    Some browsers allow you to click Ctrl + U (instead of right-clicking on the website).

  3. A new window will open up that shows you the code of your website

    You are now looking at your web page source code.

Pretty daunting if you’ve never seen code before, isn’t it? I know the feeling because it’s how I feel when I look at my car’s engine. But don’t fret. Over the next few weeks, I will tell you specifically what to look for in your website’s code to optimize it for SEO.

Today, my SEO tip #1 is this: learn how to ‘look under the hood’ of your website. Once you know how to do that, you’ll be taking the first step in understanding how the web marketing process works.

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Contact Lisa Caterbone, Digital Marketer in Las Vegas