SEO – On-Page Optimization Explained

On-page SEO includes every method of optimization than can be used on your own site (unlike off-page SEO, which focuses on methods used on other websites). These methods pertain to every form of content on your website, such as each webpage’s text, additional documents that are in Word or PDF form, and videos.

The items you must optimize your site for are the following: page title, page description, keywords, internal and external links and your image alt tags. Let’s look at each one in more detail.

Page Title

When the search engine spiders crawl your site, the first thing they see is the Page Title. Therefore, this is perhaps the most important element to optimize for. A proper title should include the keyword your are optimizing for and provide a strong call to action for visitors to click through to your site. In addition, you should also include your business name in the title, as many directories prefer -sometimes require- this for your submission to be considered.

These present a challenge. How can you write a title that is optimized for the search engines and still provide your business name and a strong call to action? Unfortunately, there aren’t any easy answers for this, and you will have to sacrifice one (at least in part) in order to gain another.

Remember the following points when optimizing your title:

Page titles should be no longer than 64 character including spaces, according to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Each title should be different to avoid confusion, and should follow a uniform design.

The title should include your business name, keywords and a call to action in that order.

Your title should ideally be less than 64 characters, but never over 120.

All keywords in the title should be copied into the description and keyword meta tags.

While there are certainly enough folks looking for your digital cameras did you know that there are millions of possible destinations a visitor could go to all of which comprise the results of that simple “digital cameras” search? So herein lies the old equation of supply and demand. Keywords, like everything else to be brought into the marketplace, will better serve you when viewed in the supply and demand model. You’ve got to find a niche for yourself – perhaps building on “compact digital cameras” or “digital slr cameras,” something small enough to yield a realistic chance of making it to the first few pages of search results – so you get some traffic vs. no traffic.

In time, as your site grows in content, in-pointing links, and other attributes that search engines seek out you can think more about going for the heavy keywords… like tackling “digital cameras” again!

Your next step is to submit the sitemap to the two following locations:

Google Webmaster Tools

Yahoo Site Explorer

When setting up outside links to your site, it’s always good to incorporate the keyword as the hypertext so the search engines see your keywords in links directed to your page.

Paying attention to your keywords and knowing how and when to use them can give your pages a significant boost in the search engines but remember to temper all of this with your page’s ability to hold the visitor’s interest otherwise the value of having folks visit your site is instantly lost when they find your site uninteresting and inevitably click away never to return!

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