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Monday, 22 August 2011 11:04 |
On-page optimization is essentially housekeeping on your own website to ensure it is generally search engine and user friendly.
There are a great deal of on-page factors to consider as time goes by, but to get you started, here are some of the essentials that you should really be taking care of:
Clean code – find a designer that is committed to lean coding, as bloated code with over-use of Flash and Javascript can be harmful to your SEO efforts.
Meta titles and descriptions – craft unique meta titles and descriptions for each of the pages on your website. These have become less important in terms of rankings, yet they still act as your 'advert' in the search results, and can encourage people to click-through to your website, so make sure each title and description is relevant and enticing.
Title tags – make sure each page has no more than one 'h1′ tag, which should wherever possible include a natural use of the target keyword.
Keyword use – use the keyword you are seeking to target naturally throughout the content on each page. Consider inclusion in the title and opening paragraph for maximum impact. Don't overdo it though because keyword stuffing (overly repetitive inclusion of a keyword) is not seen as a good thing by Google or your visitors.
Address, privacy policy and terms – Google likes genuine, reputable businesses, therefore you should always list a physical address on your website, and wherever necessary a privacy policy and terms of service. These act as a signal to Google that you are a real-life, authentic business, worthy of appearing in search results. Make sure that wherever your business is cited around the web, the address and phone number match up, as Google references many data sources for local listings and outdated contact info could cause confusion.
XML sitemap – your website should generate an XML sitemap to help Google find all the pages on your website. There are quite a few plugins and gadgets out there that help you do this.
SEO friendly URLs – many of the leading open-source web publishing platforms enable you to easily create SEO friendly URLS (i.e. yoursite.com/web-deign rather than yoursite.com/c-45678/p-126478/) but there are other ways to do this manually if you don't have the luxury of WordPress and the like.
Speed up your website – loading time plays an important part in visitor satisfaction and also plays a part in search engine performance. You can speed up loading times by ensuring code is lean, your host and server setup is optimized, and if you wish to reach audiences around the world then you might even consider implementing a CDN (content delivery network) to further increase speed.
Source: Freelancer's Guide to SEO – More Visibility, Traffic, and Clients |
