Essential On-Page SEO Factors
On-Page Seo Factors Step-by-Step
If you’re not implementing these essential On-Page Seo Factors, you are not squeezing out all of the advantages of your SEO efforts. Do this right and you won’t need as many back links or have difficulty getting your pages indexed by the search engines.
AND, YOU MUST DO THIS ON EVERY PAGE!
Also, check out my article Do It Yourself SEO.
Importance of Meta Tags
Although of less importance in recent years, the Meta Tags you define on your pages quickly let Google know what the page is about. When the rest of the page is congruent with these tags, Google will be able to index the page with ease.
Without this important SEO on-page technique, you’re just making your job much more difficult.
If you are using WordPress as your content management system, you can install the “All In One SEO” plugin to provide a quick and easy template for entering this information.
Two Meta Tags are essential:
- Title
- Description
The Title Tag should include the primary keyword you’re targeting for the page. It’s better to keep this keyword phrase as close to the beginning as possible, but don’t go over 160-170 characters. This phrase is what normally shows up in the tab at the top of a browser when on the page and in the title of a search engine listing of sites as a result of a search. Capitalizing the first letter of each word is good. Capitalizing all of the letters is bad.
The Description Tag will often get picked up and used as the text for a description of the site just under the title in search results. You want to also include your targeted keyword phrase in this description and, at the same time, try and create engaging copy so that the reader will want to click on the link to the page from their search results.
The third key Meta Tag, “Keywords,” has been irrelevant to Google for some time, but is still used to some degree by the lesser search engines. Take care not to use all of your most valuable keywords here as the negative consequences of visibility to competitors probably outweighs any benefit you’ll receive from marginal search engines.
The Code for these Meta Tags looks like this:
Note: these tags are usually positioned between the <head> </head> section.
H1 Header
Your page should include an h1 header, which is the main title at the top of the body copy on the page. What makes this a header are the <h1> </h1> code surrounding the text. This tells Google that this text is the most important on the page and defines the content of the page.
Be sure to include your targeted keyword phrase in your header.
Body Copy
Shoot for a 400 – 600 word article or content on a page. Less isn’t enough content; more isn’t necessary for Seo Content support.
It’s important to use your targeted keyword phrase once within the first paragraph of the page; even in the first sentence, but try and be natural and don’t overdo this throughout your site…
And, DON’T over-stuff your page with the same keywords over and over again. Use synonyms and semantically related terms to keep the content natural. Google knows the types of terms that relate to your subject and will expect to see some of those terms in your content.
Proper keyword research before you begin to write any page is critical. In fact, your keyword universe for your entire site should be built prior to designing the structure or creating your content.
Also, don’t over “bold” any text, but it helps to bold the keyword phrase somewhere on the page. You can also add an italicized version or include the keyword within an italicized phrase on the page for emphasis.
Towards the bottom paragraph or sentence on the page, include the keyword or an equivalent related or secondary keyword to help wrap up the meaning of the page for the search engine bots that will be crawling your page.
One More Thought on Keywords
Target ONLY one primary keyword (phrase) per page. You can include a couple of secondary keywords that are closely related, but don’t try and jam multiple keywords into all of the places mentioned above (meta tags, body copy, etc.)
Internal Page Linking
Within the copy of the page, try and include at least one link to the main category page under which this page resides. In addition, create relevant links to one or two other articles on your site, both within the category and across categories.
Don’t do this the same way for every page, but rather break it up and try and keep it appearing more random.
Anchor text: when I say linking, I’m referring to “anchor text.” This is the actual text that the visitor can read that when clicked on will take them to another web page. The code typically looks like this in html:
<a href=”http://www.domain.com/page-name.html”>Keyword phrase</a>
If your site has a standard navigation bar and footer, then appropriate links will be pointing back to your home page and key pages from every page. A sub-menu will create links back to category pages as well. Even so, in content links are critical.
Secondary Titles and Subheadings
Typically, these sub headings are designated by second level header tags like h2, h3, – h6. Use primary, secondary keywords and relevant synonyms and other related terms in these sub-headers.
Al Tags for Images
Indexing images is huge with Google. To take advantage of this, be sure to include image alt tags that utilize relevant terms to the image and the subject of the page. The alt tag is descriptive text.
Don’t, overdo this, but rather identify relevant images only, not every image on the page… And, not to many of them.
Page Name URL’s
Name your pages according to your keyword phrase where each word is separated by a dash (this is NOT for your main web address URL). Since pages will be named after your targeted keyword phrase, you’ll benefit greatly in the search engine indexing and ranking.
Note: in WordPress, you’ll want to customize your “permalinks” structure.
On this note, it is a good idea to organize your sites pages or posts, into categories. So if you have several topics, create categories for these topics and place your pages and posts into these categories.
Authority Site Linking
Creating relevant links to authority sites in your niche helps Google align your site with these authority sites. Obviously, you don’t want to link to direct competitors, but links to .edu, .gov, Wikipedia and other sites that have authority content about your subject provides Google with a relationship… And, search engines seem to respect this to your benefit.
No more than five or six are necessary.
Now you have a step-by-step process for ensuring that your pages are index ready and your content is available for high ranking. You won’t have to over-do your backlinks to get the search engines to figure out what your pages are all about.
Author Steve Josephs is owner of Intellidon Marketing LLC, a Search Engine Marketing and SEO Services firm specializing in attracting new customers for local businesses through Online Marketing Strategies.
