In your last lesson, we discussed the first and most important element of search engine optimization, keyword research. By now, you should have created your refined keyword list. Next, I will show you how to use the keywords on your actual website using a process called on-site optimization.
Before Proceeding
Please make sure that you have done the following two things:
- Registered a free SEOMoz account (it’s free for 30 days, which is all that you need) – we will use this data in this lesson. Click here to register.
- Performed your keyword research – if not, please go back to the Keyword Research lesson.
Once That’s Done, Read On…
SEO comprises of two main elements – on-site optimization and off-site optimization. The first refers to everything that you do to your actual site and its contents to make it search-engine “friendly”, and the second refers to everything outside of your website. We will focus on on-page optimization for now though… (Off-site optimization is the topic of your fourth lesson).
- You currently have an existing website and want to edit it to be better optimized
- You are planning on registering a new website and want to optimize it from the start
Essentially, you can be in one of two positions at the moment, both of which have their respective pros and cons:
Either way, the same rules apply. It is however somewhat easier to build a new site with SEO in mind from the start, than to rework an entire existing site to be more optimized. It is important to note that a lot of on-site optimization requires a basic understanding of HTML coding. If you don’t have this understanding, you can simply instruct your website designer to edit the page as required. Don’t be put off by the lingo used here – you can pop me an email if you get lost!
Before we get started
Open up your SEOMoz dashboard and scroll to the “Crawl Diagnostics” section. Keep this window open whilst reading on and take note of the different elements discussed here in comparison with what is shown on your crawl diagnostics.
- Above: The On-Site SEO Crawl Diagnostics
The Essential Elements of On-Site Optimization
Whilst there are entire books written on this topic, the following are essentials that every site needs to have. There is endless depth to each element, but I am only going to touch on the basics to get you started. Most of the time, these are all you need in any case.
How you go about creating and editing these tags will differ depending on how your website is built. Some of the most popular website creation options include Adobe Dreamweaver, Joomla, and WordPress. Whatever system you use (or your designer has used), these elements can easily be implemented.
Title Tag – Your title tag (the name of your page) needs to reflect your chosen keywords. If you have chosen 3 keywords, you should put those three keywords in your title tag, separated by commas. If you are able to make a natural title with most of the keywords included – even better! For optimum display results, keep your title tag to a maximum of 70 characters.
For example, if you visit http://www.seobasicscourse.com , you will see that I have used “SEO Course” as my title tag. This incorporates most of my main keywords, namely:
- SEO Course
- SEO Basics Course
- Free SEO Course
Above: The Title Tag For http://www.seobasicscourse.com
Meta Tags – Meta tags serve to tell the search engines what the website is all about. There are essentially a summary or introduction to the website, and as such are quite important. There are essentially two important meta tags, namely:
- Keywords Tag – Insert your chosen keywords in this tag, separating each keyword using a comma. You can have as many or as few as you like. Google does not take note of this tag, but smaller search engines still do.
- Description Tag – Insert a description of the page in this tag. The description that you use in this tag will be what Google shows when your page is ranked. Remember, this is your opportunity to get people to click through to your site, so write it something like a mini advert. So many websites waste this opportunity by writing drab copy which inspires a zero click-through rate from their prospective customers. This is such a waste, especially if you are ranking well. Try sprinkling your keywords throughout this tag as well if possible. For optimum results, keep your description tag to around 160 characters.
http://www.seobasicscourse.com" width="650" height="72" />Above: The Meta Description & Keyword Tags Of http://www.seobasicscourse.com
Tip – If Meta tags have got you confused, simply visit http://www.addme.com/meta.htm which can generate your Meta tags for you to copy and paste, or hand the job over to your website designer. This shouldn’t take them more than a few minutes.
Header Tags – The header tags show the search engines headings on your page (or else they would just see headings as normal text). At the top of the page, insert you main keyword, and label it as a “Header 1” or “H1” tag. You can also insert your second keyword and label it is “H2” if this looks natural. Don’t force it if its look unnatural. Remember, people need to be able to understand your website as well.
Something to note – for best results, customize your title, meta and header tags to each page on your website. This will require going back to the keyword research phase and researching keywords for each page, but is well worth it. An example of this would be a company that sells stationery, having different pages optimized for different products. For example, pens and pencils on one page (optimized with relevant keywords) and calculators and electronic items on another page (optimized with another set of relevant keywords).
Remember, the more keywords your website is optimized for, the more opportunity you have of being picked up on different terms in Google. Try to keep each page down to 3-5 keywords though.
Alt Image Tags – Unfortunately, although to us humans, a picture is worth a thousand words, this is not the case with search engines. Search engines cannot see pictures and as such they need to be “tagged” with an Alt tag. Edit the alt tag of each picture on your website to describe what the picture is about – you can even use your keywords if they are relevant to the picture.
Domain Address – Ideally, you want to get a domain name (your www address) that reflects your chosen keywords. For example, if your main keyword was “stationery new york”, then having the domain address, http://www.stationery-new-york.com would yield the best possible SEO results. Quite often, this factor alone can secure you a top position on Google for your keyword. PS – for the cheapest and easiest domain registrations, visit GoDaddy.
Obviously this is easy for a new site, but what if you already have an existing website? The best bet then is to try register a better domain (one with your keyword in it) – move your site across, and then ask your service provider to do a 301 redirect (they’ll know what this is) to your new site. This way, you won’t lose any customers who still type in your original address as they’ll be automatically redirected. Alternatively, just leave it as is – don’t worry about this too much. Keyword domains are not the be all and end all of SEO – they simply assist in the process.
File Names – Just like your domain address, each file name (page) should reflect a keyword. For example, if your website has a page that is all about office furniture, then that page’s file name should be “office-furniture.html”. Notice that I use a hyphen as opposed to a space, as this is search engine “friendly”.
Example Of An Untidy URL
Content – Content is king when it comes to SEO. The more fresh, quality and unique content (information, text, news, etc) you can put on your website, the better. Now you might be thinking “but I’ve got nothing to write about”. There are endless things that you can write about on your website including:
- Product information
- Product reviews
- Testimonials
- Industry news
- Company news
- Specials
- Upcoming events
- Support and instruction manuals
- Tips and advice
- How-to articles
Tip: You can also hire a freelance writer to write quality, informative articles for you, for as little as $10 per article.
Within all of the content on your site, try to mix in your keywords at a ratio of 1% – 2%. For example, if your page has 500 words on it, try to get your keywords in 5 – 10 times. This is called “keyword density” and is a hotly debated topic in SEO circles. My advice – keep it natural and don’t “stuff keywords” just to meet your quota. Rather under do it than over do it. Both the search engines and your website visitors will see through this “trick” immediately.
Content is possibly the single most important on-site optimization factors. Always try to keep your content fresh and interesting. The more regularly you update your website, the more regularly the search engines will “crawl” the site (crawling refers to the search engine visiting your website). So rather do little bits regularly, than one big batch once every six months. Consistency is the name of the game here.
Rich, fresh content will also ultimately get your website ranked for keywords other than the ones you have specifically chosen. This is a great freebie that really makes content creation well worth the time and effort.
Tip: Add a simple WordPress blog to your site (or ask your designer to do so), and you’ll be able to easily add news, articles, and so forth whenever you want (without having to pay your designer). Google also seems to have a certain affinity for blogs, so don’t be shy!
Internal Linking – Always link to other pages in your website using text links. A lot of websites have “pretty” or “cool” looking navigation bars using images and/or flash, which the search engines cannot read. Rather use text links with your keywords in them wherever possible.
For example, using the stationery example, a text link called “Pens & Pencils” which links to the page about pens & pencils is ideal. This tells the search engines what the page is about, as opposed to an image which tells them nothing about the page.
Remember to have a “Home” link on every page to take visitors back to the home page – BUT – try not to call it “Home” – use an appropriate keyword which tells Google what the page is about.
What Not To Do…
I’ve mentioned the basic elements that you need to incorporate into your website to ensure that the search engines can easily “crawl” it. Of course, there are also certain “no-no’s” when it comes to on-page optimization. You might read about these “tricks” on SEO websites, but I assure you that they are not of any use (at least not any more). These include:
- Frames – Search engines don’t like frames (at all!). Some search engines (such as Ananzi) even go so far as to disallow them altogether. If you or your designer is using frames on your website, find an alternative – quickly!.
- Flash – Although Flash looks nice and can add some user-friendliness to your site, it’s useless to search engines. They cannot read the site, and for that reason cannot rank it. Avoid flash. Consider the value of traffic vs. “prettiness”…
- Keyword Overuse – As mentioned earlier, your maximum keyword density on any given page should be 2-3%. Remember that this includes any titles and navigation text.
- Image Overuse – Similar to flash, search engines can’t “read” images, so they don’t contribute very much to your SEO efforts. Use images where necessary (there’s nothing worse than a boring, drab website), but don’t overdo it. Also, when using images, make use of the “Alt Tag”, which allows you to provide a text description of the image. This gives the search engines a much better idea of what the image is actually about.
- Hidden Text – Some optimizers stuff a whole bunch of keyword rich “babble” at the bottom of the website, and then make it the same color as the background so as to hide it. The idea is that the search engines will like it and the human visitors won’t see it. Unfortunately the search engines caught on to this tactic ages ago. I will go into more detail about these “black hat” techniques in a later lesson.
That’s it for this lesson – here’s your “homework”:
- Using what you’ve learned in this lesson, assess your site’s on-site crawl stats in SEOMoz.
- If you design and manage your own website, implement as many of the above mentioned optimization methods as possible. If you’re stuck, you’ll most likely be able to find the answer by “Googling” it. Remember that your site is meant to serve its visitors, not just search engines – so keep it as natural as possible… Balance is vital. Also ensure that any MAJOR errors in SEOMoz are corrected.
- If you outsource your website design and maintenance (as most people do), get in touch with your designer and tell them what to amend. Be very specific with them as to what you want and need done – Remember that most website designers are not SEO experts. Don’t take it for granted that they have implemented any of the above tactics into your website as is.
In the next lesson, it’s time for lift off! Once you’ve completed your homework, I’ll be taking you through the process of getting your website listed in the main search engines as quickly as possible with the best starting position. Please feel free to post any questions you may have below.
To start the next lesson, click here…
