How to Build the Perfectly Optimised Page, On Page SEO

This articles is part of the series, “Understanding SEO for the Small Business Entrepreneur”.

Series Contents

 

How to Build the Perfectly Optimised Page

I’ll give you the quick answer first shall I? You cannot build the perfectly optimised web page, these no such thing, and that’s a good thing. Why?

• The fact there is no cut and dry answer to the problem of perfection with regards on page SEO leaves the door wide open for you to get your page in the top 10 of the search engine rankings.

Although there is no magic solution, there is a set of best practices we can use to try for perfection and at least get close.

In this article, I’m going to share my top recommendations for achieving on-page SEO, keyword-targeting “perfection”. Some of these points are backed by proven analysis (Google and Yahoo have lots of data if you want to do the research), studies, extensive testing and simply gut-feelings based on experience (if you have an idea to share, leave a note in the message box below).

As with all things SEO, the biggest trick is a good set of tools which can be used for constant testing and refinement (see my SEO tool recommendations).

What is On Page SEO?

On page SEO is the process of optimizing the content of your web pages. This includes anything which will show in the HTML code of the page, including HTML tags, images, links and of course the text, on your website. Anything uploaded to your site’s domain which is visible to search engines and/or visitor is considered On Page.

What is the Purpose of On Page SEO?

The purpose of On Page SEO (search engine optimisation) is making sure, as far as possible, your website is as search engine (don’t forget the user) friendly as possible. If your website is not optimised then you have less chance of getting in the top 10 results in the search engines.

 

 

Source HTML Head Tags

Title: The <title> tag is the most important of on-page keyword elements, the page title should preferably employ the keyword term and/or phrase as the first word(s). Using the keyword first gives you the best opportunity to rank highly for this item. Most search engines use a maximum of 70 chars for the title.

Meta Description. Although the meta description does not seem to be used by the major search engines for “rankings” purposes, the meta description is an important place to use your keywords due to the “bolding” which occurs in the visual snippet of the search engine results page (SERP). This description is mainly for human searchers, so a good description will help boost click-through rate, so increasing the traffic for your web site. Most search engines use a maximum of 160 chars for the description.

Meta Keywords. None of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing) seem to be using this tag due to abuse in the past. Combined with the possibility of your competitors using this tag to ascertain your targeted keywords, I would recommend not utilising this tag.

Meta Robots. Not necessary as part of your SEO campaign, just ensure this tag does not contain any directives disallowing access by the search engines.

Rel=”Canonical”. Use the canonical URL tag to prevent any potential duplicates.

Other meta tags, are not thought to be relevant to SEO at the time of writing.

Page URL Format

Length: Shorter URLs appear to perform better but with CMS there could be a problem achieving a short URL. Not a massive benefit.

Keyword Location: The closer the targeted keyword is to the domain name, the better. Again not a massive benefit.

• sitename.com/keyword outperforms sitename.com/subfolder/subfolder/keyword

Separators: Hyphens are recommended as keyword separators in URLs, underscores are not given equal credit (i.e.: sitename.com/article-title).

Root Domain Names: It is not recommended to separate root domain name words with hyphens or underscores (i.e.: sitename.com is a better choice than site-name.com).

Page Body Content

Keyword Repetitions/Density: – It’s impossible to quantify the most favourable number of keyword repetitions on a page, but a general rule of thumb is, 2 to3 times on short pages and 3 to 6 times on longer pages. Don’t employ “keyword stuffing” you will get penalised eventually. Always ensure your text makes sense.

H1 Headline: The H1 tag should (preferably) be used only once on a page and contain at least one of the targeted keywords. In context to the page, the headline tags, seems to have only marginal importance.

H2, H3, H4, Hx tags: These tags appears to carry little to no SEO value but have a great influence on the structure, look and feel of the page for viewers.

Img tags: Ensure your <img> tags contain descriptive anchor, alt and title attributes.

Internal Link Depth & Placement

Make sure all of your web pages can be indexed by search engines – make sure they all have at least one internal link from somewhere on your site.

Link Click Depth: The more competitive a keyword is, the higher it should be in your site’s internal architecture (i.e.: the closer it should be to the home page.).

Internal Link Quantity: The more “linked” a pages is the higher its ranking, so it may help to link important internal pages a greater percentage of the time.

Link Placement: It appears Google and the other engines are now taking page location as an element of link consideration. Link in the Wikipedia-style (in the body content of a piece) rather than in permanent navigation may have a slight advantage. Remember though, Google only counts the first unique link to a page they see in the HTML code.

Link Format: Make sure that the links within your site are complete i.e. http://kingsolutions.org.uk/wordpress/.

rel=”nofollow”: Help the search engines and use the rel=”nofollow” tag in the links you do not want them to follow.

Page Architecture

Keyword Location: Some say keywords should be the first words used in page content but I’ve found no evidence that employing keywords sooner, rather than later, makes a difference.

Keyword Structure: Once again, some swear by the use of particular content formats (journalistic style etc.) for SEO, but I’ve found no evidence which would suggest one format is any better than another. My advice, use the format your visitors would expect.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, these are just a set of rules to guide you. The best rule is still, “Content is King”. Provide good unique content and you’ll get the visitors you deserve. On-page optimization, while certainly important, is only one piece of a larger rankings puzzle:

Well, I hope you found something useful and enjoyed this article, please don’t forget to let me have your thoughts in the comment box below. See you soon.