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Essential Onpage Optimization Tips -
Top 5 On-Page SEO Tips
By - Peter Claridge
When the majority of people think of
search engine optimization they often only consider things like meta tags,
keyword density and doorway pages.
However, as with many things when it
comes to SEO, what worked a few years ago no longer applies in todays search
engine algorithms.
Take meta-tags for example. Way back
when the internet was still in it's infancy, meta tags were introduced to help
search engines (at the time the big search engine was AltaVista...Google hadn't
even been invented) work out what the theme or topic of the site was. Naturally
it wasn't too long before spammers started abusing the Meta Tags and after the
next generation of search engines arrived the importance and value of the meta
tags has declined.
There are still a few self styled gurus
out there that will tell you that you need the optimum keyword density to rank
well in the search engines; "get a keyword density of 2.48% and achieve
higher rankings!". The truth of the matter is if there were an optimum
density then it would be very easy for people to rank their sites in the search
engines. The best advice I can give you is to keep your writing natural and
focus on providing great content to the reader first and treating the search
engine second.
Now page optimization doesn't count for
too much nowadays. The way a search engine (at least the most up to date ones
like Google, Yahoo and Live) ranks your site is to record how many inbound links
your site has and assign a certain weight to each of these links. A search
engine is focusing on making sure that your site is relevant to what the user
searched for and if there are plenty of inbound links, chances are your site is
providing good content that the user is searching for.
The classic example that is used by SEO
experts to prove to people that on site optimization now has a lower relevancy
to the search engine optimization process is the "<strong>click
here</strong>" result in Google. If you perform a search on Google
for the phrase click here you will find that the number one result is for
Adobe's Acrobat Reader.
If you check out Adobe's site you will
find that the phrase "click here" does not appear anywhere in the
title or the text. What can this mean? The site is getting it's high ranking not
because of it's on page optimization (because there is none), but because of
it's off page optimization. In other words, there are thousands of inbound links
to the Adobe page with the words "click here" in the link. Based on
Googles current algorithm, it naturally assumes that this page is the most
relevant for the phrase "click here".
Unfortunately, unlike Adobe, most of us
don't have millions of inbound links to our site - and despite our best efforts,
never will, so we have to use every resource available to us to make our site as
search engine friendly as possible - and this does include on page optimization
to a certain extent.
But what are the most important factors
to consider when optimizing your website? Let's take a look...
5. Keep the content tightly focused
Far too often webmasters will try and optimize their home page for every
relevant keyword that they can think of. Ultimately this over-optimization works
against you as you are diluting the relevancy of your main keywords. Try to keep
the content of the page focused on a single keyword. If you are targeting
multiple keywords then it is best to create individual pages for those keywords
with the content tightly focused around them.
4. Use more than 500 words on your site
Way back in the 90's a technique called doorway pages were ultra fashionable.
Webmasters would create doorway pages for each keyword they were targeting. All
these doorway pages did was provide a short amount of text focused on a
particular keyword and invited the user to enter the site. The search engines
eventually got wise to this and as the algorithms were refined doorway pages
were relegated to a thing of the past. When you are creating your laser focused
page use more than 500 words to show the search engine that this page contains
valuable and useful content to the user. Don't repeat words too often and
certainly don't simply list keywords - search engines know that game too!
Try no to worry too much about keyword
density, as long as you follow the rest of the instructions your page will rank
well. No one can accurately tell you what the optimum keyword density is because
quite frankly nobody knows!
3. Create a good internal linking
structure
The power of good inbound links to your site cannot be underestimated in SEO,
nor can the power of using keyword rich anchor texts. Well guess what? Your
internal link structure counts towards your SEO rankings too! So why try using
your main keyword instead of using the text "Home" in a link to take
people back to the home page. This way Google (and other search engines) know
that it is going to a page that is all about your keyword.
Follow this internal linking structure
throughout your site - but always remember to keep your links readable and
understandable to humans too! Using the correct internal link structure is a
little known and underused SEO method that really pays off in the SEO game.
2. H1 tags
I have a feeling that as the word gets out about the power of H1 tags then the
impact that they have with search engines will diminish. The main reason a lot
of webmasters don't use H1 tags is because it creates very large text and
creates a big gap underneath the text. However, using simple CSS we can change
the style of a H1 tag to anything we want.
For example this code shows you how to
make your H1 tag really small:
Try and get your main keywords within
the h1 tag but remember to keep it readable! Don't simply list your keywords.
1. Your Page Title
Finally, your page title is possibly the most important factor of on page SEO.
Whenever you do a search on Google or any of the big search engines the results
always highlights the keyword in the title. Far too often webmasters and online
businesses misuse their title tag by writing something like:
Welcome To XYZ Company Ltd!
Now if this company sold widgets, there
would be no highlighting in the search engine results page if someone searched
for widgets. The truth is no one really cares about the company name. When a
user clicks on a link in the search engine results page they do so because they
think the site might solve their problem (in this case a severe widget
problem!).
Therefore, don't use the company name in
the title, but include your primary keywords. Don't over do it either, the more
keywords you use the less effective they become. If you are targeting a dozen
keywords then consider creating 12 individual pages targeted around each
keyword.
Conclusion
There are dozens of other factors involved in on page optimization such as file
naming, alt tags, title tags and your domain name, but the factors above are
amongst the most important that you need to consider when optimizing your
website
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About The Author:
Peter
is a search engine analyst and consultant. He keeps up to date on the latest
trends in SEO and is constantly looking for new and innovative ways to attain
better search engine positions. He maintains a blog that provides
search engine optimization advice
along with other interesting articles
centered around internet marketing, AdSense and webmaster issues.
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