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7 Effective On-Site Search Engine Optimization Tips

‘On-Site’ Engine Optimization refers to what you have on your website, and how relevant this is to what people are searching for. Not only your content is an important on-site criteria for your website’s ranking in the search engines, but also the invisible elements, the ‘code’ of each page. We call these on-site factors. The good thing with these is that you can optimize them pretty easily… it’s simply a matter of editing your website.

Before you start optimizing your website on-site you should do a keyword research, e.g. using the free Google keyword tool, and select for each page of your website up to three ‘keywords’ you want to optimize that particular page for. These keywords should be relevant to your page’s content and related (e.g. women’s leather jackets, women’s denim jackets).

Here are the 6 most important things you should do in order to improve your website ‘On-Site’:

1. Include the keywords that you are optimizing for in your title

Your title doesn’t actually appear in the main part of your page, but shows at the top of the internet browser window. It is also the clickable headline that appears at the top of your search listing in the search engines.

It is important that your <title> tags contain the keywords that you’re optimizing that particular page for. It gives the search engines a strong clue as to what your page is about. Your title should be less than 70 characters including spaces and contain the keywords that you’re optimizing that particular page for. It gives the search engines a strong clue as to what your page is about. To use this limited space best, it’s a good idea to avoid ‘stop words’ like and use the | separator in order to add in some extra keywords.

When you use WordPress, the headline you enter when you start a new post or a new page will automatically added to the <title></title> tags, but if your website is built using a regular static HTML script you may have to enter your title tag manually in the HTML coding.

2. Include your keywords in your headings

Headings are defined in <H1></H1>, H2, H3, H4 tags of your website’s source code and are like headlines in a newspaper. They should be used in sequence: first the H1 (your main heading), then your subheading as H2 and so on. The search engines read these headings first to find out what your page is about. If the bots find your keywords in your <H1> tags, your page will be seen as more relevant for that search term.

Unfortunately many people don’t use H1 tags on their sites because the default styling of an H1 tag is rather big and ugly. However, it’s easy to style these tags with CSS so that they look good in your site and capture the attention of the web spiders. When you are using WordPress, look in your menu for the ‘Appearance/Editor’ link, and then for the file with the name ‘style.css’ and then for a line that defines your h1 tag and change the ‘font-size’. If you are not familiar with css be very careful not to change or delete any code or your website’s design might be damaged!

3. Include your keywords in the first and last paragraph

Search engines pay more attention to the first and the last paragraph on your page than to the rest of your content, so make sure to include your keywords within the first and last 50 words. It is also a good idea to include links to other pages of your website in these paragraphs. Make sure to add ‘keyword rich anchor text’ to these links.

4. Include your keywords 1-3 times for every 100 words in the text of your page

The days of appealing to the search engines by ‘keyword stuffing’ your website’s source code are long gone. These days, it’s necessary that you write relevant content that includes your keywords and related variations of your keywords in the course of your page. Experts recommend a ‘keyword density’ of about 3% (=3 keywords per 100 words of copy). Don’t stuff your page with more, or your site will look like a spam site to the search engines, and may be penalized! You can analyze the keyword density of your page with free online tools, e.g. at http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/.

5. Interlink your pages by including your keywords in your internal links

To help getting all your pages indexed, it’s a good idea to link in a circle between your internal pages. This means, you should not link from page 1 to page 2 and back, but rather from page 1 to page 2, from page 2 to page 3, etc. Your most important pages should also include links back to your home page. Remember, each link for a page counts as ‘vote’ for that page and will raise its importance in the eyes of the search engines. Even when your internal links are not as powerful as external links from authority websites to your pages, they can still increase your ‘page rank’.

Search engines use the words in your link text (otherwise known as ‘anchor text’) to figure out the subject of the page you’re linking to. This can be used to your advantage in your on-site and off-site SEO efforts, giving your pages a little boost for your keywords.

If you refer to another page of your website by a ‘click here’ link you are missing out on some easy and free keyword optimization. If your keyword for one of your pages is ‘big green widgets’, then link to it from your ‘green widgets page’ using the anchor text:

click here to see our <a href=”http://www.mywebsite.com/big-green-widgets/>big green widgets</a>

and not

to see our big green widgets <a href=”http://www.mywebsite.com/big-green-widgets/>click here</>

6. Name your images including your keywords and use them to link

The image ‘alt’ tag is a widely overlooked but very powerful on-site search engine optimization method. Every ‘keyword-relevant’ image of your website should be properly named by giving it a short description that includes your keyword for that page. When you use WordPress, look inside the ‘upload’ image form for the ‘ALT’ field and enter your description here. Google reads all your images, but the bot won’t understand what your image shows unless you label it. A word of warning: Never miss-label your graphics! Don’t call your an arrow or your buy now button ‘leather jacket’.

Your images are also a great way of linking to other internal pages of your website without interrupting the flow of the text with a text link.

7. Create good, original content

The search engines are looking for websites that provide the highest value to their searchers and don’t want to display twenty sites with the same content in the search results. So try to create quality content which will not only keep the search engines happy, but also your visitors engaged. Your highest search engine ranking doesn’t help if your visitors immediately hit the ‘back’ button after landing on your site.

Search engines are using very complex and always evolving algorithms to determine website positioning, but when your website is optimized on-site keeping the above in mind, it will have a good chance of ranking well, provided your on-site search engine optimization goes hand in hand with strategic ongoing off-site optimization.