When Google introduced the Panda algorithm in 2011 this created a flurry of activity from webmasters. Many people became so focused on creating new and relevant content on a consistent basis that some basic search engine optimization practices that had been standard for years started to be ignored. Great content is vital for a quality, high-ranking website, but do not ignore standard SEO in the process. Here are three different tags to use on your website that can help boost the SEO.

• Alt tags – This is such an easy task but it is incredible just how many images appear online without alt tags. Every image you place on a page of your site should possess an alt tag that appears when a user scrolls over the image. The alt tag should briefly describe the image shown and when possible contain a keyword term.
• Meta tags – There is a lot of debate as to whether meta tags are even relevant anymore. Creating solid meta tags once was considered to be a critical element of SEO. Today some SEO experts completely ignore optimizing metas since the focus has shifted so dramatically to content. The fact is it is not very wise to ignore creating relevant meta titles and meta descriptions for the pages on your website. Ensure that your title tag contains at least one critical keyword term and one secondary term. Do your keyword research before creating the title tags to make sure you select tags that are most important to the page you are optimizing. Your meta description should very briefly describe the page, include a call to action and include one or two keywords. Keep the meta description brief, approximately 156 characters so the entire description is shown online on SERPs.
• Strong and italicized tags – The <strong> and <em> HTML codes will cause terms located within those bullets to either appear in bold print or italics. This is a good SEO tactic in conjunction with keywords, particularly within the first 100 words of a piece of content. Do not overuse these tags because Google will frown on that practice, but at least one instance per page is good for SEO and will draw the user’s attention to that part of the content.

Be cognizant of using appropriate tags throughout your website in an effort to improve the SEO. Following these pieces of advice in addition to writing great content could do wonders for the ranking of your site!