Posts Tagged ‘web site optimization’

On Page Optimization That Gets Results!

Posted by Michael Fleischner in SEO on October 21st, 2009

Improving your search engine rankings always begins with thorough keyword research. By identifying the right keywords to help you achieve your optimization campaigns, you stay ahead of the competition and make the vision of number one rankings a reality. After you’ve selected the right keywords the next step is to focus your efforts towards on page optimization. This is where you apply some techniques to your web pages to ensure top rankings.

There are a number of factors to consider for purposes of on page optimization. The most important factors include meta tags, load speed, and URLs. Although some of these may seem obvious to those of you who have spent just a little time learning about search engine optimization, individuals often address these important areas incorrectly.

Meta tags are important because they provide some basic information to search engine spiders. Properly formatted meta tags go a long way towards enhancing search engine rankings. My research as shows that meta tags by themselves cannot radically improve rankings. It is my belief that meta tags may be used to verify other aspects of your website and are important for getting users to click through from search engine results.

The most important meta tags are your title and descriptions tags. The title tag should be limited to sixty characters and include your keyword phrase at the beginning. Sixty characters is the maximum that is displayed by Google and although the search engine may recognize more characters, they will not be shown. The description tag should be short and concise, usually less than one hundred fifty characters and include a keyword phrase two times.

The last meta tag worthy of description is the keyword tag. This tag is misused all too often and it may actually be hurting your search engine rankings. When using a keyword tag, focus on only a dozen of your most important and highly trafficked keywords. You want the search engines to know that you are an authority site and worthy of top rankings. Do your research and only include the keywords that truly matter. You can also evaluate the sites in the top positions and model their keywords as long as they are included on your web site or blog.

When users search the web, they are not only looking for valuable content related to their query, they are also looking for well performing web sites. The second factor we need to look at for on page optimization is load time. You should be aware of how quickly your web site pages load and continually work to make the faster. When sites load quickly, major search engines take notice and improve rankings. Focus on improving the user experience in addition to a properly formatted web page and success happens more quickly

The last but certainly one of the most important factors we are going to discuss is URL structure. It is true that having your keyword in the URL helps but it is not the only or the most heavily weighed optimization factor by Google. There are plenty of examples of sites that include the keyword in the URL being outranked by other web sites. If you can purchase a URL that has your keyword in it though, consider it advantageous. If you are unable to do so, consider adding a folder or page to your site that includes the keyword you want to optimize your site for. A good example would be www.sample.com/keyword. By doing so you are placing your keyword close to the root and giving it more value. Also consider a sub domain strategy.

When thinking about search engine optimization and embarking on your first optimization campaign, start with on page optimization. Focus your efforts on developing a web site that is easily searched and ranked with the help of the on page optimization factors we discussed. The topics we discussed including Meta tags, website load times and domain name are among the most important on page optimization factors you can apply to improve your rankings.

Looking for help with your SEO? Check out our SEO training program. Also, if you’re looking to improve search engine rankings check out our Webmaster Training Guide.

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Web Site Optimization

Posted by Frank Palani Madan in SEO on July 9th, 2009

by Frank Palani Madan

Web site optimization will turn your site into an effective sales machine and get it front of people who are looking to buy what you have to sell. You should make web site optimization your number one goal when building your site.

Website analytics is a good place to start. This refers to the process of analyzing the reports generated about a website to discover what keywords are getting customers to the site and what keywords are leading to sales.

Unique content with keywords that relate to the products you sell is vital. You probably have heard this many times but it still holds true. Offer good, relevant, content, keep it updated and people and search engines will come back.

You want to have great titles for every page. Your main web page might be the one which comes up in the search results most often but do not forget your other pages. If you do it right your other web pages will show up in the search results. This will not do you much good if nobody clicks on them because of a lame title. Make sure to include good keywords in your title. Think about what keyword a customer will enter into a search engine to find the products on that page. This is the keyword you want to use. You also should make sure that every single page has a clear description so that anyone who sees it will immediately understand what the web page will be about. Not all of the search engines display the description in their listings but Google does, and people will see it on the Google search results page.

The load time of your pages are important. Even though most of your visitors will have high speed internet connections many people still use a phone connection and modem to go on line. For these people you should make sure your web pages load fast.

Content is probably the most important factor of web site optimization. If you have good unique content your website will rank well. This is what search engines look for. The more fresh, unique content you can get on your site that is related to your topic the better. Google and other search engines love big web sites with unique content and the more content you have, the more pages the search engines can index. Be sure all your internal links are working. It is annoying when visiting a web site and there are broken links also the search engines will not like it.

Keep adding content on regular bases. It is a good idea to include automatically refreshing content like a guest-book, forum, or an RSS feed with related articles.

It is best to stick to one or two keywords per page. Each page of your site should have every single page optimized for only one or two main keywords. When you write articles and post them to article directories, link these keywords to your article on your page in the resource box at the bottom of the article. Use these keywords between h1tags, make sure that the keywords or related keywords appear on every couple of paragraphs of the page. Include the keyword in the title and the last line of the text of the article. Do your keyword research carefully. Try to find keywords that get searches but are not too competitive.

One way inbound links from high page rank sites is the main basis for every site’s page rank. The higher the page rank of the sites that link to you, the higher chances of getting higher ranking in the search engine results page.

Reciprocal linking still have an effect on your page rank but isnt as valuable for your search engine ranking as it used to be. If you really want to be found in the search engines you need to take your one way links to the next level. You need to become one way link obsessed.

The best way to do this is to write articles and submit them to every single article directory you can find. Post the article on your web site first and slightly change it before submitting it to the article directories. There are many article directories which accept free submissions. They are looking for your content, that’s what they do. This should be an ongoing job and that it might take several weeks before your site gets results.

Search engines algorithms change often but fundamentals will always apply. The techniques to optimize a web site and bring it to the first page are also changing. Things like not having broken links and good, clear navigation will always be important.

Web site optimization is an ongoing job and should be taken serious if you want to get listed on the first pages in the search engines and receive all that free traffic.

About the Author:
By Frank Palani Madan, visit my Web Marketing Blog also visit Web Site Optimization.

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