20 Jun 09 SEO SIMPLIFIED: On-Page Optimization Part-I

Written by: bikram

Till now, we have been discussing separately different concepts and tools that you can use to optimize your website. I hope you are comfortable with the concepts we discussed so far. When all of these concepts come together, we call them on-page optimization. In this and the following article, I will be sharing some valuable tips that will help you optimize your webpage for maximum result. I will recommend you to keep this and the next article handy.

Domain Name: Having your main keyword in the URL will help your website rank better. Hence, start with looking for the most-valuable keyword for the niche you want to operate into, before buying a domain name. (Read SEO SIMPLIFIED: An Overview).

Static URL: Static URLs are considered search engine friendly. Keep the URLS short and static because major search engines do not like dynamic URL as it confuses their spiders. If you have a lengthy or dynamic URL in your website, convert it to short and static URL.

Example of Dynamic URL: http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGGL_en___IN326&hs=jKW&q=static+URL&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

Example of Static URL: http://blog.gossimer.com/seo-simplified-an-overview/

Which one reads better?

XML Sitemap: XML Sitemap helps search engines in determining the kind of content your website has. It helps web crawler to index even those pages which are generally not accessible, like pages with rich media content, AJAX, JavaScript, etc. (For more details Read Sitemap Primer).

Keyword Density: Before making the webpage live, ascertain that the overall keyword density of the webpage lies between 2-7 percent. You should also avoid stuffing any one paragraph with keywords. The keyword density of each paragraph of the article/content as well as the overall keyword density of the article/content in question should lie between 2-7 percent. (Read Keywords in Content for more detail).

Title Tag: Put the main keyword in the title tag, and make the title tag interesting to read. The title tag should be very creative and should have crowd-pulling capability.

Meta Description Tag: You should write the description of your webpage here. Use the 160 characters available to you to describe the nature of your webpage. A good meta description tag increase the chances of click-through.

Meta Keyword Tag: List all the keywords used in the webpage here. Do not optimize any page for more than 3 keywords.

Image Optimization: Images and flash contents of the websites are inaccessible to the search engine. As the crawler cannot read or see the content of an image or flash file. You can use alt tag to make the image and/or Flash content of the webpage accessible to search engine spiders. (Read Keywords in Content Part –II for more detail).

Links: Avoid using any JavaScript, image or Flash link in your website. Always use text links, and use your primary keyword as anchor text for all the links.