Optimising on-page SEO – Beginner SEO Part 2
Continuing on from Competitor Link Checking, the first post in this Series (Beginner SEO), I thought it may be a good idea to actually look towards optimising your homepage for SEO. The homepage is the key part of your website, and is more than likely going to be the page where you draw the majority of your traffic! Remember that this page will be the most powerful on your site, so you want this page to target the most competitive terms and biggest wins!
So without further a do, I thought I would list them in number form, sort of like a check list with recommendations for each one!
1. Title Tag:
The most important and immediate aspect of optimising your home page is creating a killer Title Tag. This is one of the strongest attributes of your site, and is the title displayed at the top of your browser. It is also the main text displayed in your Google snippet. The title text can be no longer than 70 characters long, and you need to mention your main key phrase in here! Make sure that you don’t repeat your key phrase over and over, you need to keep your title clean, but still optimised for the job you need it to do. This is also the text that users are going to see, so make sure it is something they want to click on! If you want you can also use your brand name, preferably at the end of your title, although this will have no SEO benefit, but it is a way of getting your brand name noticed more!
2. The Body (content):
This varies depending on what your site does. We are going to look at it from a retail perspective, which means looking through a sales formed site. If you are selling a particular product, it is recommended to have lots of copy talking about this product! Remind people of what it can do and include all it’s specifications, however they may be laid out! Try not to spam your content with the same key phrase too much. This will be counted as spam (this will be a regular occurrence through this post, basically too much of the same thing being repeated = spam). If you have a lot of copy I would recommend using your main keyword about 1.5-3% of your overall copy!
3. Headings:
Another key part for SEO and usability are your H1 tags. H tags allow you to give importance to certain key terms, but only use them for Headings and no longer than 5 words in length. They shouldn’t be used around masses of copy, and you should use one H1 tag on each page! When you want to use less important headings you can label them as H2 and H3 descending in importance. Headings are a key part of usability and SEO, they allow users to see straight away what sort of product they are looking at, and are a good way to start the page!
4. Your Link Structures: Make sure that you have many pages built for your site, each one targeting individual key phrase sets. Hyperlinks are the main structure in which your site is built, connecting everything together. Make sure that the anchor text for each page exactly relates to what each page does! Do not overload your pages with links as you will end up damaging your site. Having more than 100 links on each page of your site can become a problem, and the power you are funnelling through the site can be distributed too thinly! Anchor text as mentioned is very important, especially for SEO, always use the term you are targeting for that page consistently throughout your site. (When linking from other sites you can vary your anchor text but this will be covered in a later post).
5. Your Meta Description:
Not really considered as a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm, but is good for usability and is used by other search engines as a possible ranking factor. The Meta Description is the part that lies just below the Title in your Google snippet. You can optimise it to be 165 characters long, and is much better used to help describe to your potential customers what your page is selling!
6. Image Alt text:
Another possible avenue for you to get some extra relevant key terms on your site, not to mention another possible route for traffic! There is always a chance that your site could be found in Google Images, so make sure that you name your images correctly and give them a correct Alt Text name as well!
These are the basics for on site optimisation, there are many more that would need to be taken into account, however these core principles allow you to keep a relatively free flowing and well optimised site!
Mark C works with a Web Design agency heading up the SEO team for a Maldives holidays tour operator!
Category: SEO
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Without sounding to Corny - Mark C helps out where he can with any SEO issues around the web! The #1 Hurstpierpoint SEO, Follow Mark on Twitter if you want to know more: Marcus SEOSubscribe
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Sites That Link to this Post
- Getting Lost in the World of SEO – Beginner SEO Part 5 (Final) | Netchunks | August 3, 2010
- Top Tips: Pulling Rabbits/SEO Out of a White Hat | Netchunks | April 23, 2011
Cool… But getting Traffic for Image increases Bounce Rate..what say?? do we really want 6th point?
Chethan recently posted..Nokia Confident of Fighting back and re-establish
Twitter: netchunks
says:
Oh Yes you got a good point out there….And yes it is quite a point of debate cos Image traffic does increase the bounce rate. I think it would depend on the webmaster what he wants….more traffic so that he can flaunt it to lure potential advertisers to buy ads or less traffic but decreased bounce rate so that conversions improve.
Hi Chethan,
Although bounce rate may increase because of the image search, there is also the chance that your image could get used by people on their websites and then there is the chance of a reference. Something that i have noticed is that, people regularly search Google Images for images to use on their sites. If you find one of your images on another website, you are more than entitled to request link, although most of the time they provide one anyway
.
So you could argue bounce rate increases, but you could also argue there is the chance of an external link. One thing that is for certain is that you need to make sure your images are optimised for the rest of your web page. The image names and Alt Text provide that extra space for keywords, which will then increase the effectiveness of the page as a whole
. (These keywords are legitimate keywords, because they are relevant to the image).
Hope this makes sense, bit rushed (still i wouldn’t get too hung up on bounce rate, especially if it is related to an image search).
Yeah..i do agreee with all of the above mentioned seo techniques as far as online optimization is concerned..but offline optimization equally important..
Ovais recently posted..History of Delhi
Twitter: netchunks
says:
Yup, you are right Ovais..Offline optimization or on page optimization is quite important
Bro thanks for this article
))))))
Technolic recently posted..Details Leak – Windows 8 And Apps Store On The Way
Google does give some priority to meta description since keywords are no longer considered but I realize that ranking high in google goes beyond just title and description. You still need back links to your article.
Paul Tech recently posted..Paul the Oracle Octopus 100 record in World Cup Predictions
Twitter: netchunks
says:
Yup Paul and that will be the other part of this series as I can see
these tips is a must do when seo is concerned. quite basic yet important.
himanshu recently posted..Links for 2010-07-05 Digg
Twitter: netchunks
says:
Yup the main thing in SEO is that the basic matters the most
very useful article , first basic things before competing for a niche . competition is the hardest part to judge …
sometime , even you have good backlinks still cant beat a PR2 site , just because its older domain than yours . its a tried and tested method by me. But the secret to success is keep trying , keep experimenting
Twitter: netchunks
says:
Well there are many things affecting SEO and Google and it is really hard to know all of those. But the best idea is to keep on experimenting and working for the betterment of our sites
Twitter: mohdaatif90
says:
These are basics but important tips for blogger .
aatif recently posted..Internet Censorship Report 2010
Twitter: netchunks
says:
Yup Aatif these are some good tips by Mark
Really nice blog , Thanks for voted my blog in blogengage. I found your blog via blog engage. Looking forward your new blogs.
Twitter: netchunks
says:
Glad you liked the blog and the post bro. Hoping to see you more often around here
sure, I would love to give support for your blogs.
Thiruseo recently posted..Basic Blogging Tips for Beginners
Nice post Shiva. I think need to be selected good keywork for SEO
Hieu Martin recently posted..8 Twitter SEO Tips To Search Engine Optimize Your Tweets
Twitter: netchunks
says:
Yup Hieu, selecting a good keyword is the first step in SEO, after that comes competition analysis and then on page optimization and after that off page
Nice stuff here….your’s SEO part 1 was also nice ….
Thanks for sharing….
Twitter: netchunks
says:
Glad to know that you liked it bro
Hi,
The traffic generated from 6th point. Is it relevant traffic?
Hi Umair,
Here is the reply that i sent to Chethan further up in the comments:
“Although bounce rate may increase because of the image search, there is also the chance that your image could get used by people on their websites and then there is the chance of a reference. Something that i have noticed is that, people regularly search Google Images for images to use on their sites. If you find one of your images on another website, you are more than entitled to request link, although most of the time they provide one anyway
.
So you could argue bounce rate increases, but you could also argue there is the chance of an external link. One thing that is for certain is that you need to make sure your images are optimised for the rest of your web page. The image names and Alt Text provide that extra space for keywords, which will then increase the effectiveness of the page as a whole
. (These keywords are legitimate keywords, because they are relevant to the image).
Hope this makes sense, bit rushed (still i wouldn’t get too hung up on bounce rate, especially if it is related to an image search).
”
Thanks!
Mark C
Twitter: seonetasia
says:
I remember reading a research report from seomoz that commented that On page factors account for 25% pie of the overall link building effort. The other 75% comes from Off page factors. Having say that, it is important that we get every new website to be well optimized and supports our link building effort. SEOpressor is a good tool to ensure that whatever content we write is well optimized. Another favorite – All-in-one SEO for wordpress.