In the previous post, we looked at an overview of the on-page optimization attributes. Now we’ll briefly explain each one so that you’ll be able to accurately go about getting them to work for your site’s better ranking in the search engines.
After you’ve done your keyword research, you should have one main keyword you want your web site to rank for and 3-5 related keywords. When doing your keyword research, keep in mind that longer-tail keywords tend to convert better (i.e. more people coming from those keywords are likely to buy from you) and are easier to rank well for, but shorter-tail keywords tend to have more searches. Short-tail keywords consist of one to a few words (depending on your key phrase) and long-tail keywords consist of more than that.
Examples of short-tail keywords: “SEO” or ”Search engine optimization”
Example of a long-tail keyword: “SEO for WordPress blogs to rank high fast”
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s quickly look at each on-page SEO attribute:
Website URL. It is very good, especially for ranking on Yahoo! and Bing, less important for Google, to have your main keyword in your website’s URL (Uniform Resource Locator). For example, if your main keyword is “Rank high in search engines”, ideally your domain name should be something like “rankhighinsearchengines.com”. Or at least something like “example.com/rankhighinsearchengines.html”. Don’t worry about the related keywords, we’ll deal with them in later steps.
The <TITLE> tag. This is a very important SEO attribute. Your title tag should contain your main keyword followed by your related keywords. Make sure you don’t make it spammy. Don’t go for more than 3-5 related short keywords. The content within this tag will also appear in Google results as the title. So, it makes sense to make it catchy if possible.
The <META description> tag. In this tag you should shortly describe your web site and insert your main as well as your alternative keywords. Again, make it catchy because in most cases (when people search for your main keywords), the description tag will appear as a short description in Google (below the title). It also makes sense to make this part catchy to attract more clicks.
The <META keywords> tag. Many people in the SEO industry think that this tag is ignored… This is absolutely FALSE. You HAVE to have this tag. It is important for Yahoo!, Bing and some other search engines. Even Google will acknowledge it if you use it correctly. The trick is to include only the keywords that appear in your Title tag and in the actual content of the web site. Don’t stuff it with keywords that you don’t use on your web site!
Internal links structure. Make sure your links are consistent on every page. I prefer the “http://mywebsite.com/internalpage.htm” format. If you intend to only use the “internalpage.htm” format, do so consistently. But they will carry slightly less strength. If you can, make sure the anchor text reflects the main keyword of the pages it points to. So, if you have a web site about animals and your inner pages are devoted to Bears, Pandas, Koalas and rabbits, it makes sense to have those as anchor text as opposed to “page 1″, “page 2″ and so on. Also, if your internal links appear near the top of the page and before the main text, they have a better chance of being picked up by the search engines and included in the search results:
The first paragraph. In your first paragraph, you should use your main keyword within the first 15 words or so. I like to use it as quickly as possible. Also, make sure you put it in bold or italic or you underline it. This way you also tell the search engines that this keyword is important on your web site.
A picture with the “alt” attribute. It helps to put a picture on your web site as it makes the reading experience better and it helps the search engines determine the importance of a keyword on your web site. Not only is it good that the file name of the picture contains your main keyword, it’s also important to put a little “alt” attribute within the image tag. If you hover over the pictures on this web site you’ll notice that a short description appears under the mouse cursor. That’s the result of such alt attribute. Example <IMG src=”example.com/image.png” alt=”your keyword here”>.
Keyword density. Search engines, especially Google and Yahoo! are counting the density of keywords on the site. They also base the importance of such a site for those keywords. Optimal density should be about 2%. This means that for every 100 words you write, you put in your main keyword twice.
Relevant content. This should be obvious but I will say it anyway because people sometimes don’t realize one simple trick the search engines use to determine if the content is relevant to the keyword or not. It’s called LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). What this simply means is that Google looks for words related to the main keyword. So, if your site is about Internet marketing, it makes sense that somewhere down the line you also mention search engine optimization, pay per click, copywriting and so on. Including similar keywords such as website marketing and marketing online is also a good idea.
The very last word on your web site. For some reason, if you put your main keyword as the very last word on your web site, it will rank higher. I always at least end my articles with my main keyword and if I can, I make sure it is actually the very last word. I get away with it by simply putting the site’s copyright information at the bottom of the page, followed by “- my keyword”. For example: (c) 2010 bestmarketingresource.com - Internet marketing
So, those were the main 10 factors that contribute to your web site rankings. In the next post we’ll take a look at another eight factors that will give your web site the edge when you use them in on-page optimization.