Search Engine Optimization Techniques & Strategies On-Page Factors

Before you start diving into search engine optimization, you need to make sure that your website reflects the terms you wish to rank for. There are a few free tools out there that can help you along with this decision.

Which keywords do I use?

Here are a few tools the pros use to come up with appropriate targeted keywords. One is sponsored by the Google’s AdWords program and gives you basic search volume graph statistics. The other is the Yahoo’s Search Engine Marketing tool that gives you statistics on how many times a search was done on a particular keyword the previous month.

Whatever tool you fancy, they do just about the same thing. They both let you know which keywords are more popular than one another.

Google’s Keyword Selection Tool

Yahoo’s Keyword Selection Tool

Finding the General Terms

The above tools only help you narrow down your keyword selection if you know what you are looking for. Coming up with the selection is part science and part art. In fact, nearly all of it is common sense. You only need to answer one question: What is the main subject of your website/web page?

Let’s go back to our real estate example. If your website is promoting selling real estate in Phoenix, there is no reason you need to rank #1 for the term “real estate.” Ranking for such a general term will send ample amounts of traffic to your website, but only a slim percent will actually be looking for real estate in Phoenix.

How else can we say Phoenix Real Estate?

Real Estate in Phoenix
Phoenix Homes
Phoenix Homes for Sale
Phoenix Property
Phoenix Commercial Homes



Focused Keywords

With website visitors, we must think “quality” and not “quantity.” It doesn’t matter how many visitors your website receives if they are not turning into sales or leads. To make sure you get the most bang for your buck with your SEO efforts, it is best to focus on the quality of your visitors.

For instance, having a visitor come to your website that found you by searching “Phoenix Real Estate,” is more likely to convert to a lead than one that found you by “real estate” alone.

Target Audience Example:

Phoenix Golf Communities
Phoenix Active Retirement Homes
Phoenix AZ Golf Homes
Phoenix Condominiums
Phoenix Condos
The list again goes on and on. Your more targeted terms should focus on your “niche” market. Higher quality traffic will be brought to your website when ranking for niche terms.

On-Page SEO Factors

There are several factors that go into making a search engine optimization campaign work. They are a combination of relevancy with Meta tags, internal navigation structure, clean code, anchor text, website content, content freshness, and outgoing links.

Utilizing Meta Tags for SEO Benefit

There are 3 parts to meta tags that matter when it comes to search engine optimization. All meta tags are placed within the “header” of your website code, and become the title and description found within a majority of search engine results (SERPs). Each page should contain it’s own set of meta tags for best search engine positioning targeting specific keywords.

Title Tag: The first and most important meta tag is the Title Tag. The title should be descriptive and contain your most important keywords for that specific page. The title should also make sense for a viewer to read. After all, the title is what you click on from the search engine to enter your website. Titles are usually no more than 64 characters in length.

Description Tag: The second most important is the Description Tag. The Description Tag should give a brief introduction to the page it is linked to. Using your specified page keywords in this section are also important. Your most important keywords should be at the beginning of the description. Descriptions are usually 2-3 sentences long and contain no more than 150 characters.

Keyword Tag: Lastly is the Keyword Tag. The keyword tag is where you list the keywords you want your page to be found by in the search engines. Each keyword or keyword term is separated by a comma. Your keywords should be listed in order of importance. Even though you can use over 1000 characters in this section, it is best to use no more than 45 keywords.

Squeaky Clean Code for SEO

When push comes to shove, a website that uses clean code will do better in the search engines than one packed with JavaScript (.JS) and flash files. Not because flash and JS are bad, it’s just because websites containing large amounts of code that is not HTML are usually ones that lack content the search engines can read. We suggest the use of CSS; which is where all your formatting is kept in a separate file.

Having a flash based website, or one that is full of JavaScript or has a JavaScript navigation, will only make it difficult for a search engine spider to crawl through your website. If you have JavaScript navigation, you are highly suggested to have a Site Map and HTML based content. A search engine spider only sees what is in HTML format. All other code is skipped past. You want to make sure the HTML used in the back end of your website is optimized to be clean and contains mostly content and internal navigation links.

Keep in mind that a search engine spider does not have eyes. A search engine cannot see images or read text within images. The only way a search engine spider can gather information about your website is reading the HTML formatted content. A search engine spider cannot see how pretty your flash video is. It could simply care less.

Know How to Navigate

Internal website navigation is very important. You will want to create your website so it’s navigation flows. If you are just starting out and looking into building a website, this is one of the first stages of website building you will encounter.

You have several levels to your website you want to consider before building. The homepage should be generalized to the entire subject; and then broken down into other factors. If we were building a website about Arizona SEO, we might create a first level navigation structure with: About our SEO company, SEO Results, Contact Us. Each of these sections can be broken down further by creating a second level navigation. About our SEO company can be broken down into: Our SEO Process, SEO Tips, Meet the SEO Staff, etc.

Having a clear navigation path helps the search engine spider navigate through your website. The spider gathers more and more information on deeper subjects, allowing your visitor to do the same thing. This earns you major points in the search engines.

The idea is really simple. Keep organized! This is best down by building your website like an upside down pyramid. Broad topics at the top, and then drill down to narrow keyword specific pages.

SEO Benefits with Anchor Text

Let’s take a step back and understand how search engine’s know what your website is about. When a search engine spider enters your website, all they have to go by is content and links. As they approach a link within content, they enter onto the linked to page. The name of that link (anchor text) is their introduction to what they can expect to find on that page. If you title your links according to the page’s subject, you give the search engine spider information to go by. The spider will take this links information along with information on the website, and store it within a database.

Yes, content is still King.

Most website marketers will spout “content is king” and “content, content, content” Why? Because it’s the truth. The single most important factor to get your website ranking high is by making the content relevant to your subject matter. You also must understand that you are not writing content just for the search engine’s benefits; it must speak to your audience. The more content that relates to your subject matter, the merrier.

Fresh and new content gets the catch. Stale and old content gets the trust . You need both of these factors to have a successful website.

Keep your alloted keyword terms in mind when writing your content. A search engine will look at you as a more trusted source if your page contains the same keywords you are asking to be ranked for.

Update It and They Will Come

As mentioned above, making changes to your website content, and building to your existing website by adding pages, will keep the search engine spiders and visitors coming back. As the search engine sees you have new content, they will re-evaluate your website and re-index your pages. Keep in mind they will re-evaluate your website with updates or not, this is a great opportunity to give them fresh food.

If a search engine comes to your website and sees the same ol content, and your competition is keeping theirs up to date, your competition will rise above you. Because information changes at such a fast pace, you will want to update your content as frequently as possible.

Outbound Links Can Hurt You

A lot of first time website owners don’t know this, but having hundreds of outgoing links to various websites could actually hurt you. Especially if you are linking out to just anyone and their dog. All links going to different websites should only be used to help your visitor. They should be on subject with your website, and should be trustworthy.

Before you direct users off of your website, re-evaluate your goal. Instead of pointing them away for the information, try to keep them within your website by summarizing the information in your words. Link to resources that prove your point, or provide extra information.

Search engine spiders will praise you for this. Plus it will keep your visitor on your website without having them wander off. You must remember that search engine users are easily distracted and ‘click’ happy.

Lesson 3: SEO Off-Page Factors

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