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Basic Search Engine Optimization 10 Key factors in on-page SEO
1. Research your keywords.
You have to know what people are looking for, it just might not be what you think.So try these links https://adwords.google.nl/select/KeywordToolExternal and http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
I don’t need to explain them to you, You know what to do when you get there. Tip: In the Google Tool, when the results come in form “Keyword Popularity” sort themon Search Volume. Then click “add” on the once you like.Then you are able to download the list Google created for you.
2. Create good Titles
By now you have your keywords list of high demand searches.Put those keywords into your Title, but make it work the right way.
Create Titles that work!For example “Templates for your Joomla website” will not rank higher in a Search Engine then“Free Joomla Templates – Download the Best Templates”If you would find these to titles in a Search Engine, which one would you click?Tip: Want to read more on How to create effective Titles? Go to
http://www.copyblogger.com
3 Create Quality Content
I won’t go into this one to deep, it speaks for itself.If you build a website, make it stand out with high quality content that people are coming back to
because they want to read and read again.
They might even place it into there favourites and send it to there friends…or even Digg it?
Best part from this is, if you are found and people click through the site and don’t go back to search
the some keyword again in Google, you just won some extra points for your Page rank
People don’t read the page once they found it, they “scan” to see if it contains the right information
they are looking for.
Make your pages “scan able” with short paragraphs and white space between sentences if it
makes the page easier to read.
Use bullet-point if you are listing things like features of products, web readers love these sections…
it gives them a quick overview.
Tip: Try to make pages that fit on one screen and make sure you have a “next” and
“previous” item link at the bottom of each page, it can easily bring you more “click troughs”
4 Create good Headings
Headings are the Text items that stand out, like “Nr 4. Headings” in HTML Country they come as
<h1>Big Heading Nr 1!</h1> and <h2> Somewhat less Big Heading Nr 2</h2>
And there are their buddy’s <h3>Nr 3 </3> and <h4> nr 4 </h4> and the list can go on and on…
For Search Engine’s a H1 means that this most be really important!! So let’s give it somewhat
more power is somebody looks for the keyword within that Header.
A header H2 is given also so what more importance.
So make sure you have your Keywords in between those HTML Tags, most of the time your online
WYSIWYG editor give you the option to select this kind of header.
Tip: Use the <h1> just once on a page just at the start, further down you can use some
<h2> tags.
Too much of these <h1> tags and the Search Engine’s will not give you what you want…you could
get a penalty by a lower ranking.
5. Using Bold and Italics
The use of Bold and Italic Fonts are for Search Engines also an indication that this text is
Important and is given a priority in showing them on the Search Engine Results page.
Ever wondered why on earth these one page sales pitches that go on and on and on… use Bold
Fat text on a Yellow background?
Well, does this stand out or what… most be Important. Just analyze a few of them and look and
learn how they put their major keywords in these fields.
Now I am NOT telling you to go there, unless you really need to, I don’t think it looks nice on a
“normal” website.
But Bold and Italics, yes you should use them!
Create paragraph headings in Bold, so each paragraph stands on its own.
Tip: People “scan” a webpage, make sure you “capture” them with your paragraph
headings in Bold, so they can easily see what your site is about and they can Jump to their section
of Interest.
.
6. How to get the right Keyword density
This is one of the more difficult ones.
Keyword density means, in short, that you should balance the number of times you use your
keyword on a page in relation to the total of words on that page.
Let’s say you write down Joomla Templates 20 times on a page that has a total of 400 words, not
including stop words.
Then you divide 20/400 = 5%
If you would do the same on a 100 words page, you get 20/100 =20% you are in trouble here!
With this rate, Search Engines consider this spamming and call it Keyword stuffing.
They will penalize you for this….basically try to keep it between 2% to 8%, some people go even
as low as a maximum of 5%.
But don’t spend to much time on this, just be aware your are not purposely overdoing it
Tip: Write your page like you normally would tell someone about your topic. Then read it
again and see if your keywords distract you from reading in a normal flow.
If so, read and rewrite till it sounds naturally. Write for humans not search engines!
7. Use your Alt Tags in Images
Alt tags for Images are most of the time overlooked or not used properly.
If you use images in your pages, make sure you always include Alt Tags.
Alt tags are shown instead of the image if you are reading through a text based browser.
They also come up if you hover of the image with your mouse pointer.
Make the tags (and images) fit the content of your page so if you got an image of a Joomla
template, then the alt tag should read “Joomla Template example” and for the download
icon…”Download your free Joomla Template here”
If possible, and this depends on you editor, try and use the Title tag as well.
In the source code it will come out as
<IMG SRC="joomla-template.jpg" WIDTH="140" HEIGHT="100" ALT="Joomla
Template example" TITLE="Joomla Template">
You might not see this text, but it is not hidden and Search Engine spiders will read it!
Tip: If you use images, make sure the relevant keywords are in the name of the image.
In the example above, I used an image called Joomla-template.jpg.
People are searching images more and more, via Google, Yahoo and Live…this will bring your site
into the “Picture”.
8. Using Meta tags or Not
Should you fill your Meta tags like Description and Keywords or not?
Some webmasters consider this a waste of time….
I am telling you it is definitely NOT a waste of time and a must do in my book.
Fill these items on every page, and think about their content!!
Why go trough all this trouble, there are even generators that can fill these fields for you.
In my opinion, they will not do such a good job as a Human can.
And before you go on and tell me the Keywords Meta tag is not as relevant as it used to be, I
know….
But you should not stuff is with keywords and you should use only a few keywords that are also
mentioned in the page content.
It won’t harm your ranking in Google, but could help in other Search Engines like Live and Yahoo.
And the Meta tag description?
This is real important, as some of the Search Engines, yes even Google will use this if the can’t
use a part of the pages content.
So think long and hard about this description, you must make it like a small advertisement.
Try and search for a topic in Google, and look at the reason why you would click on a link!
First you read the Title that is displayed… next thing you read the description of the page that was
found…got it?
Tip: Write your Description and Keywords if you are done with the content of the page.
This will make it a lot easier to make an excerpt of your page, and you already know which words
you put on the page.
9. Use Internal Linking
If possible link your pages together with the titles.
This is called internal linking, but works for Search Engines just fine.
It is not as important as External links, but still you can control this better than anything else.
Make your links work for you, don’t make your link in Graphics, or like Click Here it does not bring
anything…
Well this one does, but it is not a good example of the way you should form your links.
If you are linking internally you should look for the same Link Build, so use the keywords, or use the
Title of the page you are linking to.
You did get your Keywords in your Page titles, right?
Tip: A Sitemap is a really great way to get an overview of the site, as well as getting one
page with all Internal linking, Search Engine Robots think this is great food! They will eat it.
10. External Linking
External linking is kind of a Hype right now, everybody seems to try and get more external links to
there website.
Google does indeed give you a better ranking if you have a lot of links pointing to your website.
But, and this is a BIG but…
If these link come from a Bad Social neighbourhood you won’t get what you are looking for, ranking
wise that is.
Linking Farms, Websites with a lower PR then Yours, Websites linking to you that are not even
close to your subject…they all pull you down instead of lifting you up.
Try to find the best sites that do not directly compete with you, but are close to, or on your
website Topic, so they should be related.
And ask them friendly if they would link to you, in return for a link back from your website.
Try to make them all link to you in the same, give them the code for implementing the link!
That way you make it easier for them to link, and you have some control over the way they link.
Code you link code to include your major keyword in the description of the link!
What do you think that brings? Nothing! Because if People look for that, they already know your
domain name.
But if you ask them to link like Joomla Optimization that will bring you much more visitors that don’t
know your domain.
Tip: Try to get a link from dmoz.org, which is a Directory with a reputation of being hard
to get in.
That is because real human editors have to look at your website and decide if it is good enough
and that can take a while.
Google Directory uses this as a base, sometimes even using their description of your website.
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