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 an 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.
<img src="drywall-delivery.jpg" width=75 height=90
alt="Drywall Delivery">
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.