One of the most popular questions I get asked is “how do I optimise my web page for ….?”. In truth there is no definitive answer, however it is possible to follow a set of known best practices and call upon experiences to get as close as possible to a “perfectly” optimised web page!
Factors Used:
Page Title
The Page Title is believed to be one of the most important factors for on page Optimisation. From my experience, placing your most important keyword/key-phrase at the beginning of your title tag can significantly increase your chances of ranking for a competitive term than if it isn’t there at all, or if your keyword/key-phrase appears later in your title.
Suggested Practice:
Most Important Keyword/Key-Phrase, Secondary Keyword/Key-Phrase | Brand Name
e.g
Vintage Guitars | Example Store
*Many people will choose not to include the brand name on Internal Pages of the website, however if your brand is well known, or has a geographic reference, it can help to increase the click through ratio from your Search listings.
Meta Tags
Meta Description
Although the description tag is said not to be one of the ranking factors in Google, including your keyword/key-phrases in your description tag can help increase the chances of users clicking on your Search listing.
e.g
Vintage Guitars from Example Store. View our stunning range online, or visit our showroom.
Meta Keywords
This tag is missing from the Image as Matt Cutts (head of Google’s webspam team) has stated that the Search Engine no longer uses the Keyword tag as a Ranking factor. It is believed that Yahoo! And Ask still do, so place a few targetted keywords/keyphrases specifically relating to your page content in there – but don’t spend more than around 1 minute doing so!
e.g: Vintage Guitars, Vintage Guitars For Sale, Buy Vintage Guitars
Page URLs
Length – The shorter the url the better! Shorter urls tend to help pages rank higher than those with longer urls in Search Engines. Shorter URLs are also easier to remember for your users.
Use of keywords & proximity – It is recommended that you include your keywords in your URL, seperated with a hyphen (e.g example-page). The closer you can include your keywords to your domain name the better as well.
e.g
http://www.examplestore.co.uk/vintage-guitars
Heading Tags
Use of H1 – Although the h1 tag is believed to carry less weight than it once did, it is always recommended that your h1 tag contains the same keywords/keyphrases that your title tag does.
e.g Vintage Guitars From Example Store
Use of additional Headers – If you have sub sections to your content, you should separate them by using h2 or even h3tags to do so
Body Text
Use of Keyword Repetition – You should be looking to write your content for your visitors and not for Search Engines. Your targeted words or phrases will appear naturally in your content, so don’t go over board as stuffing your content with repeated words or phrases can have a detrimental effect on your ability to rank.
Keyword Variation – Although once again this should occur naturally when you are writing your page content, try and incorporate some variations of your keywords or key-phrases. For example you could write “vintage guitar” instead of “vintage guitars” in one instance.
Keyword Density – This term is an outdated and in fact, never proved belief of many SEOs who would “tweak” their page content so their chosen keyword or key-phrase would appear in the body of the text so many times. Ignore any reference to Keyword Density!
Use Of Bold/Strong or Italic/Emphasized – Although the effect of using these tags on your fonts is believed to be very minimal in terms of ranking factors, it can help to grab the attention of users who are skimming through your content. It is currently believed that Italic/Emphasized text actually has a more positive impact than Bold/Strong.
Images
Image Alt Attribute – Although the ALT tag was once thought to carry no weight as a ranking factor, recent studies have suggested that when used appropriately, it can indeed have a positive effect on your rankings. Use the ALT tags to accurately describe your images to search engines and of course to users viewing your page via alternative software (e.g screen readers).
Image File Name – Much like page URLS, the file name of an image can help Search Engines understand what the image is about, so name the files with your targetted keywords or key-phrases and separate them with a hyphen.
E.g: Vintage-Guitars.jpg
So there you have it, a guide on how to optimise your webpage, incorporating different factors. It isn’t always possible to incorporate all of these factors on every occasion, but if possible, try to include as many as possible.
