On-Page Optimization
As we all know there are two sections which SEO methods fall into on-page and off page optimization. In this post I am going to try and cover things you want to think about when it comes to on-page optimization.
Title and Description Tags
These are used on every page of your site and tell search engines just what you page is about, it is important to be clear and informative on what the page is and to include the words you want as main search terms.
These will also be what are displayed in most search engines as the details for your site when your site comes up for a search term.
Make sure not to spam to many words here you want to aim for about 75 characters for title max and 200 characters for description max.
Meta Tags
<meta name="robots" content=" -, -">
<meta name="googlebot" content=”-, -">
These meta tags control how search engines crawl and index the page. The "robots" meta tag specifies rules that apply to all spiders crawling your site, the "googlebot" meta tag specifies rules that apply only to Google, you can also use other robot names to specify other spiders.
Google understands the following values (when specifying multiple values, separate them with a comma):
noindex: prevents the page from being indexed
nofollow: don't follow links from this page when looking for new pages to crawl
nosnippet: don't show a snippet of this page when displaying it in the search results
noodp: don't use text from ODP (The Open Directory Project a.k.a. dmoz.org) to generate a title or snippet for this page
noarchive: don't display a "Cached" link for this page in the search results
unavailable_after:[date]: remove this page from the search results after the specified date and time
The default rule is "index, follow”
Image Alt Attribute
This is used when images are turned off in the clients browser, but they are also used by search engines that cannot read images so they read the alt attribute so they know what the image is.
Don’t spam these with keywords use them as a way of describing a picture to those who are unable to see it.
Header Tags
Correct use of the h1,2,3,4,5,6 (header tags) is also an important part of on-page optimization, you should use them to denote text as being header text and this text will hold more weight when the search engine reads your content for the page. Be sure to use them in a logical order and to only have 1 h1 tag per page.
Link Text
Text used for links to pages also hold extra weight in search engines for both the page they link to and the page the link is on, so be sure to use descriptive linking text, like if it is a page about red frogs then make sure your link text says red frogs and not click here to read about red frogs, as the page is not about click here.
Content
The actual content of your pages are the most important part of the puzzle though make sure it contains the words that you wish the page to do well in if you want to do well for the search term red frogs then off course the page is going to need some references to red frogs. Don’t spam you content with keywords making it not good to read for your visitors though, after all its not the search engines spiders which buy your products or click on your advertisements. Be sure to make good content visitors of your site will want to read and link to, offer something your visitors carnt do without growth of your site will just rise and rise.
I know I have probley missed loads but this is something I thought i would put together quickly as a referance for anybody new to SEO, I will add to it as I realise the things I have missed.
Last edited by Contract Hire; 15-04-08 at 02:09 PM.
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