On Page Optimization SEO Tips

If you want to increase your website's or blog's ranking in the serps (search engine results pages), to increase visitors or traffic then applying simple SEO (search optimization techniques) will help. SEO optimization is becoming more important, both for changing search engines techniques to extract relevant content from search queries, and also from blog and website publishers whom are now becoming much more experienced or better trained in SEO methods. SEO on page methods, tutorials, and techniques, are comprehensively described at various SEO websites, and also in forums - perhaps more so than ever.

In some forums, many are now describing at length SEO techniques (many true and tried) rather than merely asking for SEO help - a bit of a reversal from a few years ago. I believe many are now learning and adapting SEO more intensely to try reach out - and now it is more important - because the web is becoming increasingly cluttered and very competitive in many topics, niches, article sites, e-commerce shopping sites, social platforms, and video upload sites. Just visit article directories - their are many quality articles in certain topics, but essentially describing the same theme. The same with many e-commerce sites - more or less of the same products, services, reviews, affiliate products and so on.

Thus it's important to "SEO enhance" a web site, with quality and relevant content to attract the engines, but also at least a steady stream of visitors that will return to find a relevant solution to their needs. I saw a forum on TV with Ken Auletta (a media expert - whom I never heard off - but authored the "Googled" book) which was interesting as he talked about the digital age, i.e. the internet vs traditional news papers. One point he mentioned was something like the rate at which people learn/adapt to new major communication concepts that reach 50% of Americans. The spans between new ideas/concepts are becoming much shorter - and included the internet's role, and thus could apply to SEO: Many want to learn now, adapt it, refine it, and further optimize to reach out to the masses.

Anyway, I have listed (yeah I guess like elsewhere online), some on page optimization techniques, which should be applied. This list is nothing entirely new, but hopefully at least a reminder for future reference, and can be applied with my popular post: How to Increase Visitors to Your Blog. It's a bit of work - but only part of it, as their are also "off page optimization" techniques as well. This is partially covered in other posts of mine.


On Page SEO Tips

- Try them if you have not already. Really it all revolves around primary keywords, secondary keywords (called "long tails" in the SEO industry), and related terms or "LSI" words (latent semantic indexing - closely related words between pages that are relevant for indexing). Image of Global Search By topfer.

Title
Use keywords or relevant business name in the title tag that primarily relate to your business or topic. Should be short and relevant, as title tags get indexed and displayed in search results. Try include heavily searched for keywords in the title, that you think would be appealing to a searcher's query.

HTML Header Tags
Apply html H1 (Site Title), H2 (Page or sub titles), H3 header tags to reach out to Google to reference as important. Also use bold and/or italic html text to highlight important points throughout your content. Visit html sites for the suitable tags to use, which may include the new html 5 code for better placement.

URL Title
Try to use keywords or relevant url name, though I think some authoritative sites have no such relevance. Amazon for example - the url name does not relate to selling - but it correlates well as it has become a major online selling authority.

Keywords in Content
Important - particularly for at least semi competitive niches.
- Try to lightly incorporate searched for primary keywords and long tail phrases in your content. Use Google's Adwords Keyword Tool or Word Stream or similar. You need words that people are searching online for visibility ranking.
- Use a bit of diversity and density for keywords. Try online dictionaries, synonym generators, permutation generators, niche title generators etc, and even the Google Suggest Tool when conducting a search.
- Perhaps use qualifiers with your keywords that add emphasis or relevance if suitable. so terms like the "latest" or "best" may help.
- Their are many keyword strategy articles tools to read about, which are important source of current info. So visit SEO blogs/sites like Search Engine Land and Search engine Journal.

Meta Description Tag
I use and I believe it helps for competitive or similar posts on the search engine results pages. So include a relevant and brief description pertaining to your site to increase the likelihood of a visitor click through. Include keywords similar to your title and content, of which I did for my post about increasing blog traffic.

Google Maps: Create and claim
List your business on Google maps, add relevant content, and make sure to "claim" your map. many listings (e.g. Hotels, fast food outlets, etc) are listed in the serps as a "map pack". I made a user generated map that I embedded or link to my Auckland Hotels and Motel Supplies NZ blogs to reach out and to add a more insightful user experience.

Internal Navigation: Links and Site Map
Perhaps add a internal site map for a large site, and Google have recently mentioned a video map. Internal links to other posts may help. I searched a term, and one of my links on a search result post was displayed in the search results, more so than the actual post that the link pointed to.

Images: Add tag attributes
Because search engines cannot read images, then you need to optimize with alt tag attributes, ideally with a primary keyword. I also add the title attribute that displays relevant keyword text when the mouse is hovered over the image (like a tool tip). You can add captions as well, and a relevant title to the image to increase optimization.


Associated code for the above globe image, to indicate keywords in the alt and title tags. Hence alt ="Your keywords" (for the engines to read and interpret) and title ="your keywords" (to display tool tip on mouse over)

So applying on page SEO techniques will help get your site ranked up in the search results, but it could take anywhere from 3 months to 18 months or longer (in my experience) depending on the level of competition. It would be easier for competitive niches, to effectively control/introduce keywords, e.g. starting with low competition keywords and terms then gradually towards higher competitive keywords in content posts. You would need to track search queries to possibly introduce additional keywords over time. Also need to keep in touch with changes in Google's search algorithm, by subscribing to SEO news blogs or similar.

Then their are more slightly complex issues at the site's structure/design level, e.g. url redirects, language search/translation/server issues for multi international sites, "breadcrumbs" navigational structure, load times, css scripting enhancements, creating and analyzing visitor segmentation statistics (e.g. in Google Analytics and Webmaster tools), and so on. But start with the basic SEO fundamentals (as above), then apply more advanced on page techniques if relevant, which you can learn from subscribing and reading expert articles from authoritative SEO sites and blogs.

On Page Optimization SEO Tips