Friday, April 24, 2009

Top 5 OnPage SEO Factors for Optimising your Website

I believe in getting bang for my buck. I like to maximise the return on investment for my time and money so that I can get more done in less time and with less money.

In that regard I don't imagine that I am too much different to anyone else.

So, when you look at optimising the content of a webpage, what areas do you need to concentrate on.

Before you do anything you must know what keywords you are looking to target. If you want more information about how to do your keyword research check out my post on keyword research for your business.

so, once you know what keyword or phrase you are looking to target on your page there are 5 main areas of onpage content that have a major bearing on how the search engines will treat your website.

1. URL

Other than the home page of your website (which is probably index.html), you should look to include some keywords in the URL of the pages on your site.

eg. if you are a web designer, the url for the main page on your website that relates to your web design services could be something like 'www._______.com/websitedesign.html'.

2. Page Title

This is a crucial piece of information to tell the search engines what your page is about.

If you are calling your home page 'Home Page' then you need to take a long hard look at your website.

I just did a Google search for 'home page' and guess what sites come up on the front page. Websites like BBC, Wikipedia, NASA, Microsoft, CNN, iGoogle, Adobe, Mozilla, Opera and Apple.

That is some pretty tough competition!! And even if you did get on the front page is it likely that your potential customers are typing the search term 'home page' into their browsers in an attempt to find your website.

Make your page title relevant to what your business does and include a call to action to get people to click on your link.

eg. 'Professional Freelance Website Design - Free Website Reviews available to make your website perform better'.

3. Meta Description

This is the part of your page that describes to the search engines what this page of your website is all about.

It also appears in the search results underneath the page title.

Do not overdo the keywords and use some words and phrases related to the main phrase that you have used in your URL and title.

Sell benefits of your product or service because this will come up in the search engine results. Give people a reason to click on your link.

4. The Main Heading

Because people tend to scan web pages rather than read them comprehensively you need to be using headings within your content to break up the text and give the readers a clue as to what the content is about.

These headings are coded into your webpage using the 'tags' H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6. If you don't know any HTML don't worry. Just look at the main heading on your page. This should be the H1 heading.

First question is, 'Is there a main heading?'

Are there any headings at all?

If there is a main heading does it contain your keyword or keyphrase or something very close to it?

If not, this is another area you can make significant improvements to the SEO of your website. Look at the content of your page and for each paragraph write an appropriate heading that utilises one of your keyphrases.

At the top of the page, write a heading that relates to the content of the whole page, and also uses your keyphrase or a related phrase.

Your main heading may even be the same as your page title.

Search engine robots also scan the code on your page looking for the heading tags to find out what your page is about. Use specific terms, rather than no terms at all or a generic term.

One of the most common generic terms I see on websites is the term 'products'. Do a Google search for the term products and see who you are competing against.

5. OnPage Links

These are the links on your website that point to other pages on your website. They might be in your navigation menu, or in the content of the page. this is another great place to use your keywords.

(Come real close just for 1 minute. Closer. Closer. I don't want anyone esle to hear this)

DO NOT USE 'CLICK HERE' to link to another page on your website. Sorry for shouting at you.

When Google spiders follow links over the internet one of the ways they know where they are going to is the text associated with the link they are following. It would be a bit like driving down the highway and seeing a roadsign that said 'There". OK, so you would know you were going 'There', but would you really know if you wanted to go 'There' or not. You would much rather know you were driving to LA or Sydney, as opposed to 'There'.

Just for one last exercise, do a Google search for 'Click Here' to see what websites you are competing against if you use this term to identify your links.

And, are your customers really going to be typing 'Click Here' into Google to try and find your business?
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3 comments:

  1. hi friend you are absolutely right, in onpage optimization it is very important to consider the given factors, Title,Meta tag, header, description, & on page-links. Undoubtedly it is the base of SEO

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  2. Great post! The on-page optimization activities involve modifications in various components of a web page. But in this age of competition, both on-page and off-page optimization are needed one after the other. Thanks for sharing.

    Internet marketing New York

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