10. On-Page Search Engine Optimization

Do you know what’s so great about this part?
The fact that everything you need to do here is at your finger-tips as you own the website and all files that are located on your server.
This includes pages, pdf files, images, videos, word documents, etc…

The on-page elements include:
1. Page Title
2. Meta Tags
3. Headings Tags (h1 to h6)
4. Content (also known as Body Text)
5. Internal Linking
6. Outbound Links
7. Images alt tag
8. Link (href) title tag
9. Paragraphs ( text included between <p> …. </p> HTML tag)
10. Bold, Italic and Underlined text

plus a lot more.
Some of the points mentioned above, have been already covered, but for now we will look at the Body Text.

Heading Tags

Heading tags are HTML elements that can be found in the source code of a page as h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 & h6, and they are considered as the second most important SEO element, with H1 being the most important and H6 having the least value.

Many web developers give the H tags a go, but due to the fact that they look quite large in the browser, they move to other options.
That is a big NO, because heading tags, as most of the page layout and text, can be easily controlled from the CSS stylesheet.
A good example can be seen on this page, where the “Heading Tags” text above is enclosed between <h3>…</h3> tags and the style for it is:

h3 {font-size: 1.3em;}

plus some other CSS rules below to give it a background-color and control how it looks if it’s a link.

.entry h3{background-color:#CC0000; padding:2px;}
.entry h3 a:hover{color:#cc0000; background-color:#f5f5f5;}

The next question it’s probably how many of them can you use on the one page.
Our answer to that will be:
A. One H1 tag is enough and should include keywords found in the Page Title
B. One or Two H2 tags per page
and so on….
If you need to use more than that, why don’t you split the one page into two or more pages…

Image alt tag

The power of image alt tag is the fact that you can include a small amount of keywords (without stuffing) which in some way helps with search engine optimization.
The meaning of alt tags is to help users using screen-reader software to understand the content of the image itself and for users using browsers with images turned off.
They can be seen as a small text pop-up while holding the mouse arrow over the image, and should describe the image itself without over-doing it and keyword stuffing.
An example code for image alt tag:

<img src=”path to the image” alt=”image description” />

Link title tag

Same as above, but this time the title tag can be found in regular text or image links.
An example code for a regular text link:
<a href=”link to the page” title=”go to page short description”>Anchor Text</a>

Example code for image link:
<a href=”link to the page” title=”go to page short description”><img src=”path to the image” alt=”image description” /></a>

HTML validators are great for detecting the missing tags, and we have even designed something similar that can be found here: Page Validator

Paragraphs, Bold & Italic

The body text should be divided into small paragraphs by using the <p>…</p>tag and each paragraph and should have no more than 3-5 sentences, keeping the most important key-phrases as close to the top as possible.

Make use of the bold (<b>…</b>, <bold>…</bold> or <strong>…</strong>) and italics (<em>…</em> or <i>…</i>) style to highlight the keywords withing the body text, but don’t over do it.
This helps visitors and search engines to identify the important keywords inside the body text.

Another common and useful tag is the “underline” text (<u>…</u>), but not recommended as users expect this type of text to be a link to another page.

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11. Internal Links

In this section we will be talking and concentrating more on the ”Main Navigation Links“ and “In-Context Links“ elements.

Many website owners spend a lot of time trying to acquire inbound links from other websites, but ignore or forget their own site which they have so much control over.

A study carried out on how users read the content of a web page came to the conclusion that the pattern is a F shape- the reason main navigation links can always be found at the top of the page or on the left-hand side and, most important key-phrases / keywords should be located at the very beginning of the content.

Main Navigation Links

This is your chance to create keywords-rich navigation links, avoiding images and make use of real text.
There is no excuse for using images, as the same or similar effect (background color, etc.) can be easily achieved through the use of CSS style sheets giving you the opportunity to create keywords-rich anchor text for the website internal linking structure.

In-Context Links

… are key-phrases/keywords linked to related pages, products and articles within your site and can be found in the body text of your page.
Make use of them whenever possible but don’t over do it.

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12. Outbound Links

Outbound links to quality and relevant sites can help your own performance in the search engines but take into consideration the following points:

1. Not too many links – don’t over do it
2. Make sure they are relevant to your topic
3. Use keyword-rich anchor text to make the link (helping both websites)
4. Link to high ranking sites for better effect (PR [PageRank] 6 or better)
5. Avoid linking to websites that could end-up as an exit for your users, but to sites that have quality information on your topic.

Giving your visitors quality outbound links could convert them into regular users and there is a chance of getting a link back to your own website from their own site.

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13. Off-Page Optimization

For a search engine optimization campaign to be successful, you need to acquire a large amount of (preferable high-quality) keyword-rich links to your website, this method  has a very strong influence in search engine ranking.

How many is too many?

We don’t know for sure, but if the website is running a competitive profile we would say get as many as you can.
Acquiring high-quality links is proven to be harder than you think, as the more relevant to your profile the website is, the stronger the link.
This is due to the fact that many website owners might not have direct access to modify pages or they might not be interested in link swapping or giving outbound links from their site/s.

Link building needs to be done slowly, over a long period of time while the pattern of the anchor text will vary as well. Too many, too fast and too similar in the anchor text, trigger red flags on the search engines side and can have a negative impact, so play it safe.

You can acquire two types of links as outlined below:

Deep Links
Are links from other websites pointing to internal pages on your site using keywords relevant to the page content itself.

Main Links
Are links from other websites pointing to your website Home Page using the primary keywords available in your keyword list.

Generally, you should make sure that the Main Links have the highest priority and percentage 80%-20%

How can you acquire links?

Links can be acquired by Reciprocal link exchange (2 or 3 way), Directory Submission (Free, Paid, Reciprocal), Search Engine Submission, Forums Participation, Article Submission, etc…

2 Way Reciprocal Link Exchange – You link to me my way and I link to you your way (easier said than done but that’s the way this works)

3 Way Reciprocal Link Exchange – As above but instead of giving / getting a link from the linked site, is done from a third site (this could go many ways but this is the simplest way I can put it for you)

Directory Submission- They don’t carry as much value as other linking types but they still count if done the right way and it’s time consuming. Some are Free, some charge a fee for this service or require you to give them a reciprocal link, so it’s up to you on this one as it could get expensive.

Search Engine Submission – submitting your website URL to search engines across the web for them to crawl. Some are Free and some charge a fee for this service so it’s up to you on this one as well.

Forums Participation – It’s a good idea to join forums related to your website niche in the fact that you can add a link to your website with your signature and you can get / give great advice from / to other members, but please note: do not be a drive-by user and do not dig out old posts as you will probably end-up getting banned and this is not what you are looking for….

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