SEO Tips: On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization is often forgotten these days, as we focus more and more of our time in getting inbound links with targeted anchor text.
On-page optimization, however, is something you can do quickly to give yourself an extra boost in the SERPS.
These tips will help you to optimize your web pages to make the most out of your inbound links.
One Page - One Target
Each page should be optimized for only one search term. If you are targeting two search terms, make pages for each term.
If your search term has a synonym, make separate pages for each synonym. For example, if you are targeting "drywall" and "sheetrock", make separate pages to target each term.
One Target - Two Pages
The preceding tip only tells half of the story. You don't actually want to be #1 in the SERPS for each of your search terms -- you want to be #1
and #2.
Google and some other search engines will display two listings from a web site together if both are relevant to the users search. Therefore, for each of your important keywords, you want to build two web pages which are both optimized for that search.
The URL
Search engines tend to rank pages well when the URL contains the search term.
If your page is about drywall, call your page drywall.html, not page-1.html.
If your content management system (CMS) uses autogenerated URL's, use
301 Redirects to turn those URL's into highly optimized URL's.
Use Hyphens, not Underscores
Google and most other search engines treat hyphens as spaces, but do not treat underscores as spaces.
If your URL is robert-duvall.html, your page will rank well if someone searches for "robert duvall".
If your URL is robert_duvall.html, your page will rank well if someone searches for "robert_duvall".
Which do you think is searched for more often, "robert duvall" or "robert_duvall"?
Optimize the Page Title
The page title should contain the keywords for which you are optimizing, and little or nothing else.
Many sites prepend the site name to every page title, like this:
<title>Smith Drywall -- Sheetrock Delivery</title>
A more optimized title would simply look like this:
<title>Sheetrock Delivery</title>
Leave the company name for the title of the main page of your web site.
Optimize the Description Tag
Not many search engines utilize the description tag anymore, but it's best to set it properly just in case.
<meta name="description" content="Drywall Delivery">
Optimize the Keywords Tag
Even fewer search engines utilize the keywords tag, but it's best to set it properly just in case.
<meta name="keywords" content="Drywall Delivery">
Use Headings
Use the <h1>, <h2>, and <h3> heading tags to define your important content sections, and put your keywords at least once in each heading style.
Use CSS to set the fonts and sizes of the h-tags to something pleasing to your visitors.
Add a Linked Image with ALT Text
Use an image of your page with a filename which contains your chosen keywords, such as drywall-delivery.jpg.
The ALT text for this image should include the keywords for which you are optimizing.
Google is sneaky, in that it only counts the ALT text on linked images. We're sneakier, so we link the image to the page upon which it is displayed.
<a href="drywall-delivery.html"><img src="drywall-delivery.jpg" width=75 height=90 alt="Drywall Delivery"></a>
Validate the HTML
Use the W3C HTML validator to validate the HTML of your page.
Very few HTML errors will cause a web page not to rank well in the SERPS, but you don't want your page to be that page.
In addition, validating the HTML will help to ensure that your page will look reasonably well in the wide variety of web browsers used on the Internet.
Keep Your Body Text Readable
Use your keywords in the body text, but keep your body text readable.
Don't drywall stuff drywall your drywall keywords drywall into your drywall text until it is unreadable by humans.
Make Reasonably Sized Pages
The search engines seem to prefer pages which have at least 500 words of text. Give your visitors something to read!
Summary
If you follow these simple tips, you will get better SERPS with fewer inbound links.
On-page search engine optimization is the first step towards good search engine rankings.
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