SEO
Many on-page SEO ranking factors are related to the use of keywords. I’ll cover those first, and then cover some other factors that are not directly related to keywords.
Keywords in the Tag
Your page titles will show up in the SERPs, so make them concise and relevant.
You should use the TITLE element to identify the contents of a document. Since users often consult documents out of context, authors should provide context-rich titles. Thus, instead of a title such as “Introduction”, which doesn’t provide much contextual background, authors should supply a title such as “Introduction to WordPress” instead.
One of the most critical on-page SEO factors, the tags is not to be dismissed. Search engines tend to use the tags text as search results titles. All pages should have unique page titles. All page titles should be crafted wisely, using the most important keywords found in the page copy. The page title should contain specific keyword phrases to describe the page. Using a company name in the page title by itself can prove ineffective if it is not accompanied by additional text that briefly describes the product, service, or topic being discussed
Titles in search results
Titles in search results have a maximum length. A long title will not hurt your site, but it may not appear in its entirety in the search results. If you have to use longer page titles, from a usability perspective ensure that the part of the title that could show up in search results contains relevant keywords. The last thing you want is for your key- words to get cut off in the search results. Don’t be afraid to change your HTML page titles.
Pages using no titles or default titles as generated by various HTML programs are useless and can be detrimental to your site’s visibility.
Title keywords in the page copy
Titles need to be relevant to the page copy. You need to ensure that most, if not all, of the words found in the tag can also be found on the page itself. Of course, some pages will be exempt from this rule, but this should be the goal for any page.
Keywords in the Page URL
Keywords in a page URL are useful—and not just for SEO. Many of the newer CMSs, blog sites and news sites allow for URL rewriting techniques to make their URLs stand out by using keywords in the URLs.
Keywords in the Page Copy
When I talk about keywords in the page copy, I mean the number of times a particular keyword or keywords occur in the body of a document. Before optimizing your key- words, do the necessary research and figure out what people are searching for on the particular topic you are writing about.
Use tools such as Google AdWords to obtain keyword suggestions as well as to check what your competitors are using. You may want to target no more than two or three keywords per page.
High keyword densities may be viewed with more suspicion. Typically, keyword den- sities range between 0.2% and 4%. This does not mean your site will be penalized if your keyword density is 10%, nor does it mean your page will not rank if your keyword density is less than 0.2%.
Keywords in theDescription Tag
The text in the description tag is not visible on the page itself but is often displayed in search results. This should be enough of an imperative to fully optimize this tag. Here is the format of description tag:
Keywords in the Heading Tags
Make proper use of your H1 heading tags. Webmasters have used multiple H1 tags in the belief that search engines give those tags priority. The problem with this and similar techniques is that search engines are not stupid and will adapt very quickly to counterattack less scrupulous techniques such as this. Use H1 tags where and when they are appropriate.
Domain Name Keywords
If your domain name contains an exact (or partial) match to a search query, chances are it will show up on the first page of the SERPs—at least on Google. Google gives keyword matching domains preferential treatment.
The exception to this rule is for competitive keywords. However, the chances of a- quiring a popular keyword domain are minimal, as most, if not all, dictionary words are taken, in addition to the most popular two- or three-keyword phrase combinations. This has led to the recent popularity of nonsense words as business names. Note that the guidelines for subdomains are the same as for domains. The benefits of subdomains are multifold, but subdomains can also be viewed as search engine spam if you create too many of them. With subdomains, you can pick any name you like, as you are in control of the domain record.
With so many variables used in search engine rankings, optimizing for the most in- important ranking factors is paramount. Nobody has time to optimize for everything. Internal ranking factors are divided into two broad categories: on-page and on-site ranking factors.
On-page ranking factors are pertinent to each page. Many on-page ranking factors are related to keywords. This includes keywords in the title tags, the page URL, the description tags, and the HTML heading tags. Other on-page factors include the keyword proximity (and prominence), the link anchor keywords, the quality of outbound links, the page age, and the page size.
On-site ranking factors affect the entire site. These factors include the domain name keywords, the size or quantity of content, the linking architecture, and the page freshness…. To be continued…..
