On page optimization is very important for search engines. It is not only important for ranking well but for driving targeted traffic to your site by making sure your readers are getting information that is relevant to them.
While there is no perfect answer as to how to optimize your website for search engines and this does not explain every technique possible, (Partly because there are lots of optimization methods and partly because search engines are constantly updating and changing what it considers relevant and important) these techniques can help your search engine optimization efforts greatly when put into practice with other SEO techniques.
I highly recommend continually doing your own testing and refining to see what efforts work best for your site.
Title Optimization
Your title is often considered the most important part of SEO. It is the first thing that shows up in your search results when your website comes up in a query.
It gives the search engine a good idea of what type of information is contained on your site.
Your title should be short, specific and explain exactly what your site is about.
It should also contain the keyword/s you are using to optimize your site.
URL Optimization.
When someone clicks on a post, topic or link it shows up in the URL after your domain name. example: site.com/On page Optimization.
It is very important to optimize the part of your URL after your domain name.
You want your url to be short, specific and optimized with the keyword/s you are trying to target for your website in the url.
Some websites may show their url as something like site.com/#1g8jlj8hwil8 and others may show it as site.com/7/8/2010 optimizing your website to gain traffic today, as well as other formats.
An optimized URL would like something like site.com/Website-optimization-for-traffic, or whatever keywords you are trying to target.
The shorter and more specific the easier it is for search engines to consider your information relevant to the topic it is searching for.
Also the closer your keywords are to your websites url the better.
Link Optimization
It is important to use good anchor text in your internal and external links.
For example keyword optimization is a much better anchor than click here.
Placing more internal links to popular topics and posts can also increase ranking to that particular post or topic do to the increase in click-through traffic.
It is often considered that links that are placed higher in your posts are also more likely to be clicked on, both because your reader’s interest is most often peaked in the beginning of your post.
Especially if it is a long post and because not all readers are likely to read your entire post.
Putting links bellow your post can also be a useful method to keep readers engaged, such as the related post section, or recommendations.
These links are good for readers who are still engaged and want to delve further into your site for more information.
Keyword Optimization
Optimizing your site and your contents keywords are extremely important for search engines to understand what your topic is about so that it can rank you and properly categorize your page for that search term or topic to help people who are looking for information on your topic.
Recommended repetition of a specific keyword is 1% to 4% or once every 25 to 100 words.
So for every 25 to 100 words using your targeted keyword/s allows the search engines to decide the relevance of your topic.
Using keywords too often can cause the search engines to feel that your site is using keywords unnaturally and look down on overuse of those keywords, and there is no proof that using keywords more than a few times will increase ranking further so don’t waste your time overusing those targeted words unless it’s relevant to your information and the readability of your content.
The above paragraph is a recommendation, but not absolute necessity.
My motto is write great content and your keywords will come naturally.
Not all methods of keyword optimization are weighed heavily by the search engines and some may account for very little improvement in ranking, but I figured I would give you some popular methods that have been found to be helpful in ranking well.
Using keyword variation and synonyms also helps since people search for a specific topic in a variation of ways, and while long tail keywords (keywords that are longer than 2 words, such as how to optimize my webpage for the Google search engine) are searched for less often they are also optimized less often which makes it easier for you to rank well using long tail keywords in your content.
Remember variation of the order of your keywords and using synonyms can be useful for your content which makes your pages look more natural and optimized for people, which is what the search engines like.
Image Optimization
Images can play a big role in your optimization efforts.
Not only does it increase click-through do to reader curiosity which helps improve ranking because of the increase in traffic and popularity, but it also allows your to place an extra keyword or two in the title of the image as well.
Best practices for ranking well
Content
Providing great, relevant, entertaining, and informative content that keep people engaged and recommending your site to their friends is very important to helping you place well.
Your content is not only a representation of you but a powerful SEO tool as well.
Marketing
A good marketing campaign can generate a great amount of traffic. Before your site even starts to rank, marketing can drive a large number of visitors to your site and help in your SEO efforts tremendously.
Accessibility
Make sure that your information is easily accessible to search engines so that they can index your information and clearly understand what your page is about will greatly enhance your ability to rank well.
Navigation
Make it easy for your visitors to go through your site, find exactly what they are looking for and link to your information.
This will not only keep your readers engaged but it will also cause them to come back and recommend you to their friends
On page optimization
Optimizing your site to be user-friendly, informative and entertaining to your readers, using specific targeted keywords to spoon feed the engines what you or your business is all about and creating internal and external links to increase relevance and authority will play a major part in making your website stand out.
Do you have any on page tips you’d like to share? Share them in the comments.
This post is part of the seo school series.