PROVEN STRATEGIES
On-Page Optimization
At the top of many SEOs’ agendas is on-page optimization, one of the most obvious yet misunderstood strategies of an SEO campaign. First off, it should be remembered that this isn’t the only optimization strategy, nor is it even the most important. Remember that SEO is also about optimizing for people, not just engines. Past making one’s site accessible to the search engines, it needs to also have great content and an even better user interface.
That said, on-page optimization is extremely viable for increasing rankings. There isn’t an exact guideline for doing this as it should first and foremost be shaped around the structure of usability, but there are many tried and true tactics that shouldn’t be ignored. I’ll start from the outside tactics and dive deeper as we go.
URL
Your URL is your site’s brand. This is the go-to. With that in mind, your URL should be short and simple since you want people to be able to remember how to get to your site. Employ your targeted keyword that is the essence of your site in the URL, and try to make it the first word, it works better.
When making a URL for each page of your site, things can get messy as you go deeper into your site. Separate words with hyphens, it’s clear and works for the search engines as well.
SITE ARCHITECTURE
Internal Links and Location
Deciding on the design of your landing pages can pretty meticulous, and to add to that meticulousness (or maybe lessen the options) there are some guidelines for where to put your links.
Your permanent navigation links should be at the top. It’s best for the user, and there’s evidence that Google may ignore links in the sidebars and footer. Though you don’t always have to employ the usual permanent navigation links, instead you can link within the copy à la Wikipedia. Whatever you choose, note that the more linked-to that your pages are, the higher rankings they’ll receive.
SITE ARCHITECTURE
Page Structure
How you deliver your content is really your call, whatever you think sends your message the most effectively. As far as what is in that content however, it’s best to start dropping your keywords sooner than later. Think within the first 100 words.
SITE ARCHITECTURE
HTML Head Tags
Titles are very important, do not miss this one. Let your keywords shine here, once again, at the front.
Your meta description, while not used for rankings, is important for how your link appears on the SERP. Adding a meta description will visually make your link appear more relevant and attractive.
Also make use of the Rel=”Canonical” tag to separate duplicate content pages. This will save these links their juice.
SITE ARCHITECTURE
Body Tags
This is where on-page optimization, for one reason or another, gets muddled. There seems to be myths and exaggerations fueling practices that just don’t work. Let’s clear the haze:
- Number of Keyword Repetitions – Do not think that repeatedly mentioning your keyword in the copy is going to help rankings. Your content will come off as phony and will thus suffer. For a short article, mention it 2-3 times. For a longer article, 4-6 times is probably sufficient.
- Keyword Density – This is the absolutely BS notion that saturating your content by strategically placing keywords near each other will increase rankings. It won’t.
- Bolding/Italicizing – Words in bold or italics carries very little weight in the SEO world, though doing so once or twice can help a little. Italics seem to carry a little more weight than bolding does.
- H1 Heading – While long thought to be of critical importance, your H1 looks to carry very little weight. Regardless of this, it still seems to be a good idea to have one and mention a keyword or two in it.
- Alt Attribute and Image Filename – While classically images aren’t counted for by the search engines, they can be if you add the alt attribute tag and/or a filename for the image. This will increase rankings, especially in an image search. Images can draw a lot of clicks.