“On-Page” Search Engine Optimization Techniques

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization; which means ‘how a webpage or website can be optimized’ for search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. SEO help the search engine bots to crawl the web pages easily; understand and index it to the database, based on the information available from the webpage.  

When a user request for a search,  Search Engines can list the most appropriate information from the “‘database indexing” based on category, keywords etc.  Proper SEO helps your website to rank high in search results naturally (organic) and thus increasing traffic to your website. Obviously increased traffic to your websites will boost your business and brand your products high.

There are several types of aspects and techniques in SEO. On-Page SEO is one of the most important techniques among them; that must apply for the organic ranking of a webpage. “On-page SEO” means all the optimization techniques that can be applied “on” your webpage. It is the techniques applied within the webpage/website itself for URL, html, content etc.

Important “on-page” factors that should apply on “On-page SEO Techniques”

1. Domain Names - Try to get a domain name that is relevant to the website business;  memorable, catchy , short and free of hyphens including important keywords.

• Sub Directory Names- Make it Short; and relevant to the section or categories.

• File Names – Include key words; Make it short, descriptive and relevant. Use hyphens between words. Try to use same keywords in ‘page title’ and ‘filename’.  Limit the file size below 101 K.

• Design & Layout – Easily accessible, understandable, navigable and interactive. Minimise frames, ads, & java scripts; as they may block crawlers. Avoid fancy stuffs like Flash, Animations and rollovers. 

• Keywords – Find keywords having low competition and high search volume. Choose right and relevant keywords that can attract targeted audience. Avoid Keyword stuffing. Give Keyword prominence by giving them in first heading or in the first paragraphs. Try giving keywords before a comma (,) or period (.)  Give keywords in content as ‘anchor text’. (<a href=”....”> some anchor text </a>). But Anchor text should not be the same “focusing keyword”. If do so google will not list the page. Keywords can place in “<title>” tags, <Meta name="keyword">, <Meta name="description">, heading tags like <h1> or <h2>, body content, ‘alt’ tags, inside comments, url or website address. 

• Page Title – Meta title should be meaningful, without spelling mistake or grammatical errors. It should be unique for pages, impressive, descriptive and include “focusing keywords”.  It should match with body content. We can use min three words and a max of 8 to 10 words in a title. (Maximum 70 characters in total). It is wise to limit the total characters within 55 to 60 characters. Never give SEO title full of Capital letters as it will take more pixel width. Allowed pixel size for title is maximum 512. Give title in an attractive way. If we are not giving SEO title, google will take “<h1> content”  as SEO title. If <h1> also not found, it will take <h2>. Otherwise link reference from other sites/ blogs/forums also may take. 

• Meta Description- There should not be any spelling mistake or grammatical errors in Meta description. It should be unique and descriptive with focusing keywords. But be careful to avoid keyword stuffing. If Meta description of a page is not good/valid; Google may take any content from the webpage or take descriptions from any Open Directory project if the site is listed in an ODP. Meta description can be up to 155 - 160 characters long. For blog posts, it should limit in 155 characters as google need to show dates before Meta description of a blog. Pixel width for Meta description is up to 1024 characters.

• Image Optimization- Image name should be relevant and meaningful to the image. Use hyphen, if more than one word in the image name.  Including relevant keywords in image title may help your site to list in search results.  ‘Alt tag’ will increase the SEO value and hence give image ‘alt tag’ with proper keywords included in a meaningful way. If image’s ‘alt name’ is a focusing keyword, never give a hyperlink to another website or page. Reduce the Image size as possible to load the pages fast. 

• Content Optimization- Unique and high quality content, relevant to the service offering by the webpage. Content should be simple and easily understandable. Give authority to the content. Include keywords in the content but b conscious about not to do keyword stuffing.  Arrange the content in paragraphs and give proper headings and sub headings. 

These are the major On-page SEO techniques that should use in your website, to increase your webpage ranking. Using any one of them alone will not give you the result; But if apply all the techniques together in your site will definitely give better ranking in search results.

Raji Pramod

Read my post about Search History