Essential Components of on-page SEO
One of our newer optimizers recently asked me if there were certain steps that were critical to on-page optimization. I felt it was a good idea to have a checklist that lists the critical elements that we optimizers should keep in mind while working on a site.
Title — Each page on the site should have a unique Title containing the target keywords The keyword/s should figure prominently in the Title and should be under 60 characters.
Description — Create a customized description to provide a a reason for people to click your listing when displayed in the search results. The description may or my not contain keywods but must have a call to action that is attractive to the viewer.
H1- Header — Each page should have an <h1> header that contains the targetted keywords , if possible use variation such as the singular or plural version of the keyword that has been used in the Title.
Keywords — Ensure your keyword/s occur at least 3-4 time within the content on teh page, highlight keywords by bolding of italicizing or underlining them.
Anchor text — Link to your other pages by placing your best keywords within your links. Limit the number of links on a page to less than 10. If you link to an extrenal site , make sure it opens ina new window.
Page URLs – Format your URLs consistently to avoid confusing the search engine spiders and lowering PageRank.
“Anchor” is generally a technical term indicating a link within the current document, so when you ask, ask for “links” or “hyper-refs”. They are all (anchor), but don’t confuse the developer, we are confused enough.
When he says “bold”, he means . Make sure your developer is using current XHTML standards. Standards are key to natural SEO.
And, this is overlooked, make sure you name your pages correctly. Did you know, that naming (-) instead of CamalCase will increase keyword relevance. Go through your site and look at the url. The page should be named such as plastic-surgeon-procedures.html. Search engines will break the (-) and use spaces, which create multiple keyword relevance.
But thank you for posting the relevance of page names. Don’t forget images. Google search on images are big, and several apps are dedicated to picking up images based on “naming” relevance to keywords.
Finally- Page 1 is making an awesome impression on an industry with little marketing to turn to. I’ve been watching you all grow, and you hit the ground full steam and are still going.