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Following is a list of essential tips on how to structure your site and its pages and directories optimally for search engine optimization purposes.
Page Content - Keep your pages short, between 2 and 8 KB in size.
- Place your most important keywords and phrases in your <title>, <h1>, and <strong> tags. But be careful not to overuse the strong tag - it is important that the strong tag be used to naturally emphasize important words, and not merely keywords, or your page may be given a Keyword Stuffing penalty.
- Minimize JavaScript, Flash, sound, etc. as these are not recognized by search engines. Quality text content is much more important.
- Eliminate irrelevant content - minimize content and maximize quality (relevance).
- Pages with quality content usually rank better (because they are linked more, giving you higher link popularity) than mere online brochures or pages that focus on selling things.
- Content should come first - read about the SEO table method you can implement to ensure that your quality content is sourced by spiders first.
Keyword Phrases
- Link to your start page (front page or home page) from all pages with your most important keyphrase (combination of keywords). Your start page should be based on this keyphrase.
- Represent your important keyphrases well on all pages and use the keyphrase as linktext (the text that people see when they click on a URL, as opposed to the actual URL)
- Also include the keyphrase in image alt tags, as these are read by search engine spiders.
Meta Tags
- Each page should contain no more than 4-6 keywords in the keyword tag.
- Description - no more than 120-150 characters.
- Meta tags are rarely used by Google anymore - the description tag only to display your site's description in the search results.
- Keyword and meta tags should never use "global keywords" (you should have unique keywords for each page).
- Focus on specific keyphrases that you are optimizing on - no need to include general words.
- All other meta tags are unnecessary for SEO purposes.
URL Structure Tips
- Apply static URLs for your website pages instead of dynamic URLs. XML site maps should take care of dynamically generated pages, such as those in CMS
- Follow a logical directory structure with appropriate levels of pages, the most important ones being on the first level
- Try to keep the site as flat as possible. Do not go more than 4 levels deep in your directory structure
- Use Mod Rewrite to convert dynamic URLs to Static URLs for your website
- Avoid repeating a keywordin the URLs multiple times. This looks cheap to users and looks like keyword stuffingto engines
- Use hyphens instead of underscores to separate keywords in a URL structure
- Do not use very long file names or directory names for your website pages
- Avoid using special characters in website URLs
Hierarchy Within Your Pages / Internal Link Structure
No matter what hierarchy you have planned for your site, the search engines are going to make up their own mind according to how you structure your site. Therefore, if you want your home page to be considered the most relevant page, you have to communicate that to the search engines. The best way to do this is to provide links from the other pages back to your home page.
It is best if these links contain your keyword phrases and if they are present each page of your site. Once you have enough links back to the home page, you can determine the second most important page by putting the second most amounts of links back to that page. This will help the search engines to determine the importance of each one of your pages.
Create a Sitemap
A site map is something which makes it easier for the search engine spiders to crawl your site and index your content. It also helps to convey the structure of your site and the hierarchy of your pages. In the resources below, you will find a link where you can create a free site map simply by entering the URL of your website.
Analyzing these elements and providing corrections and improvements will benefit your site across three major areas. First, your site will be easier for the search engine spider programs to find, index and categorize. Second, your site will be more logically laid out for human users, enhancing their ability to get the information they need to choose your business over your competitors. Finally, your site will have a consistent, more upgradeable structure. You’ll be able to expand in the future without having to start from scratch.
One time service to create a free sitemap: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ |
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On-Page Optimization
