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Simple And Successful SEO Strategies - On Page Optimization
SEO doesn't have to be complex and by following these simple on-page
optimization techniques you can give your SEO campaign the perfect
start. SEO is often seen as being a difficult and in-depth process,
but the reality is that by following some reasonably common sense
guidelines it is possible to get good rankings. That's not to say
that optimization is a simple or quick process; there are,
unfortunately, no short cuts. Your SEO efforts should be a concerted
and long term effort in order that you will enjoy the best possible
results and should incorporate both on-page and off-page
optimization techniques. By following the on-page SEO strategies
below you can set a strong foundation to all your SEO work.
Keyword Research
Before you begin penning content and writing title and meta tags you
first need to research the keywords you will use on each of your
pages. Using the wrong keywords can negatively impact your entire
campaign, causing you to lose untold hours and days of work and
eventually forcing you to concede that you made the wrong decision
and start all over again.
The most appropriate and most beneficial keywords are popular enough
that they will enjoy regular searches but without being
prohibitively competitive or overly generic. A number of keyword
research tools exist and your competitors' websites are a good place
to start your early research. Ensure keywords are targeted
specifically to the type of content you will provide as well as the
service or product you will be selling. More targeted keywords will
result in more targeted visitors and targeted visitors mean greater
conversion rates and an improved return on your efforts.
Niche And Semantically Related Keywords
A good strategy is to incorporate a reasonable list of competitive
keywords with less competitive ones. The more niche keywords will
serve you well during the early days of your website and over time
you should be able to start competing for the more challenging of
the keywords you use. Also incorporate semantically or topically
related keywords into your keyword list because the search engines
are placing more and more emphasis on those pages that use related
keywords as well as primary keywords.
Accessibility And Standards
Site accessibility is an integral part of good website design but it
should also be considered an important factor in any SEO strategy.
Using standards based code for your website will help to ensure that
anybody that wishes to access and view your website will be able to
do so. It will also mean that the spiders used by search engines
will be able to access and index your pages effectively ensuring
that you get the full credit for your site.
Navigation And Intra-Linking
Your navigation menu and internal links should be prominently
placed, easy to see, and easy to follow for the spiders. It is good
practice to include a text link from the home page to a compliant
sitemap on your site, alleviating any potential problems that might
arise from broken links or the use of graphical or flash based
navigation menus. You can also consider adding links into the main
body of your content, although too many will make the page difficult
to read and therefore diminish the overall effectiveness so don't
get too carried away.
Title And Meta Tags
While search engines do not specifically use the meta tags to help
assess the value of a page like they once did, meta tags are still
critical to good SEO performance. The title and description tags
that you add at the top of a page are used in various ways including
in the compiling and display of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
This is the first thing a potential site visitor will see from your
site so this mini listing needs to be as effective as any paid
advert or PPC ad. Poorly written titles and descriptions can put
many readers off viewing your pages so a little time and effort here
can have a very positive effect.
Using your keywords in the title and the description is good
practice because these will be highlighted in the search results if
they were used in the search query itself. This will make your
result more prominent and instantly identify your page as being
relevant to the user. Don't needlessly use keywords, however, and
don't throw extra keywords into the description at the cost of a
well written, short ad.
Other Formatting Tags
On-page content should always be written with the visitor in mind,
although obviously it can still be optimized for search engines. As
such, proper page structure is important to your reader as well as
to the engines. H1 and H2 tags are an effective way of breaking up
page content, and give readers the chance to skim through a page and
determine its relevance.
A page should only contain a single H1 tag at the top of the content
but can include multiple H2 and H3 tags. Alt tags on images should
also be included and these as well as the actual file path to the
image itself can include important keywords (but do make sure that
they actually make sense and are more than just a keyword thrown in
for the sake of SEO).
Page Content Optimization
Finally, we get to the heart of the page - the content itself. Use
the keywords you researched for a page including semantically
related keywords. Write as naturally and appealingly as possible
while keeping those keywords in mind and don't get carried away
stuffing or cramming them into the body of the text. Not only is
this unappealing to readers but is seriously frowned upon by the
search engines.
The reader really is the most important aspect of your content. If
the majority of your visitors are coming from the search engines
remember that they arrived using specific keywords. This means that
they are searching for equally specific information relating to
those keywords - make sure you deliver on the promise that you made
in your title and description tags. |
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