May 31, 2007 22:28
Category: Optimizing
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Talking of seo tips that stand the test of time, what are those that go to make them? There are several.
With the continual evolution of search engine algorithms that can at best be guessed, not confirmed, the flavor of sure-shot seo tips have rotated among such essentials as keyword-enriched content, usability parameters, internal linking, outgoing linking, heavyweight incoming links, link baiting, easy navigation among pages, locating pages skin-deep (as against deep location), and now, social media optimization.
While all of above qualify as they do as seo tips at some point or other, the one that has remained at the forefront is the need to optimize a page based on a keyword or 2. It's akin to signaling the robots, "Hey, look here, this page is important for this keyword", even as they list pages in response to search-term that has the said keyword.
What does that mean? It means one of the important seo tips continues to be to make a page sensitive to a keyword that search engines understand and acknowledge.
Here are some steps for making, what can be termed, a keyword sensitive page with the sole intention of attracting search engines' attention with respect to the chosen keyword.
We'll take this page as an example, and see where and how the keyword can be placed in the html of a page to make it 'sensitive' in the eyes of search engines with respect to the keyword chosen.
Meta Tags
The title tag is very important because this is what is shown with accompanying link to the page in search results. It has to be concise, appealing (to viewers), easy-to-comprehend, and at the same time it must have the keyword, preferably right in the beginning.
The meta-description and meta-keywords tags need to start with the chosen keyword. Apparently, meta-keywords tag is no longer cared for by the crawlers and therefore is said to have lost its relevance. Yet for all that matters, there is no harm having it.
Headlines
A H1 tag as close to the opening <body> tag as possible is a must. If the page design doesn't permit a H1 tag right at the top, it can be made 'invisible' by manipulating page-style. If you check the html code of this page, you'll see the H1 code appearing almost immediately after the opening <body> tag.
A good ploy is to include more headlines, like H2, H3 down the html code of the page. For example, the visible headline of this article is done with H3 tag. Needless to say, each headline is expected to have the keyword mentioned once.
Opening Sentences
There is no harm in having a preamble that briefly speaks about the topic of the page, and comes just after the H1 tag. It's especially useful in pages like this one where the main topic and the accompanying headline is still some way off.
Usually, the preamble (or 'foreword' if you prefer) is best 2 to 3 sentences long, carrying the keyword may be just once.
Page Content
Now comes the meat of the page. Let's treat this part with care. We come across many seo tips that say the main page content needs to be laden with chosen keyword. This is a misnomer.
In reality, too much usage of keyword in main body renders it utterly devoid of any meaning. To the machine that crawls the page, a keyword-heavy content may make no difference, but the real visitors will simply refuse to read content that fails to convey any sense.
Having said that, it's also true that page content has to have the keyword in its midst. Let there be sprinkling of it here and there, all the while taking care that the whole thing makes a good reading.
Footer
This may not be elaborate. May be a one-liner what the page is about will suffice. The idea once again is to let the robots perceive importance of the keyword for the concerned webpage.
Alt Tag
At least one image - but surely not more than say 3 depending on the size of the page - may have an alt tag carrying the keyword. It may be the logo at the top, or perhaps just a few-pixel strong inconsequential image tugged away in a corner of the page.
Anchor Text
Somewhere along the page content - why not the footer for example - let the keyword be an outgoing link. In this page, the keyword, seo tips, is made an outgoing link as a Technorati tag.
What About Page URL?
This is my favorite. I nearly always try to have the keyword of a page as its URL as well. For example, the URL of this page is 'seo-tips dot html'. Remember the hyphen between 2 or more words of a keyphrase. It has to be that, not an underscore.
Summing Up
While locating keyword in strategic places in a webpage is undoubtedly important, what is more necessary is to make the page enjoyable to read for human visitors.
There are many eminent writers who just do not attempt this so-called page optimization technique. But then they're already established in their field and known (and linked to) widely. So they don't need to keyword-optimize their pages.
But they are few in number. The vast majority of small website owners are in no position to influence viewers on the strength of pure contents that are not keyword-optimized till they become sufficiently relevant to a good amount of viewers.
For them then there's no denying the need of keyword optimization as one of the seo tips.
More reading:
- Search Engine Optimization - The Basic Steps
- Small Business SEO
- Keyword Selection - Why It Is Required?
- Offpage Optimization - The 80/20 Rule
