On Page Optimization That Gets Results!
Starting any search engine optimization campaign with anything other than keyword research is a waste of time. To be truly successful with SEO you must begin with a well thought through keyword strategy and analysis. Once you’ve identified the most important keywords for your campaign, the next step is to optimize web pages for top rankings. I’ve discovered a number of techniques that work especially well for on page optimization.
There are a number of areas to focus on when thinking about on page optimization. The most important factors include meta tags, load speed, and URLs. Although some of these may seem obvious to those of you who have spent just a little time learning about search engine optimization, individuals often address these important areas incorrectly.
Meta tags provide large search engines a quick way to identify what a web page is all about. When tags are formatted correctly, search engine spiders have an easy way of evaluating content and properly ranking web pages. Although meta tags by themselves can’t significantly improve a web site’s ranking, they can definitely hurt if not properly formatted. You need to integrate additional on page optimization best practices but properly formatted meta tags are essential.
The most important meta tags are the title and descriptions tags. The title tag should be limited to sixty characters and include your keyword phrase at the beginning. Sixty characters is the max displayed by Google and although the search engine may recognize additional characters, they will not be shown. Make sure that your description tag is compelling, less than one hundred fifty characters and include a keyword phrase two times.
Another meta tag is your keyword tag. The keywords tag should include your most important keywords. I choose to keep my list concise, usually around 12 keywords. This shows Google and other search engines that your web page is both focused and relevant. Sites that engage in keyword stuffing are only hurting themselves. Consider doing to keyword research to determine which keywords get the most search engine traffic and use them.
In addition to having your meta tags in place, the speed at which your site loads is very important. Slow loading websites are penalized by Google. What’s the big deal with a slow web site or web page you might ask? Major search engines are all about giving the browser a good user experience. If you site has a lot of broken links or loads slowly, Google considers this a bad experience and will penalize you with lower rankings. Make sure that your page loads within 5 seconds on a standard connection. There are a number of tools that can help you measure load speed.
The final on page optimization factor we are discussing today is the web site URL. The best format is to have your keyword in root of the domain. For example, it may look something like www.keyword.com. Truthfully the days of picking up a domain like this are pretty much over but you can find some options on expired domain listings. You can also add your keyword next to the root URL by creating a separate page or folder on your main directory. The other strategy you can consider is a subdomain strategy where you would place your keyword before your domain. Most hosts offer this option.
Before you start any SEO campaign, evaluate your web site, landing page, or blog from the perspective of meta tags, load speed, and URLs. There are additional on page factors we’ll discuss in the next lesson, but the three mentioned herein are vitally important to your search engine optimization success.
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