A Few Things You Need To Know About Onpage SEO.

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by mr_banks, Nov 22, 2008.

  1. #1
    Look if your trying to generate traffic through search engines there are a few things you need to know. One is that google does not rank based on metatags. I'll tell you a few things you can do to optimize your site. What we are going to go over here is called in-site optimization.
    When google reads your site they read it from the top left to the bottom right. The first thing that you want google to read is a <h1> tag with your keyword in it. This is the only time you are going to use the <h1> tag on your site. after that if you want to use a header tag use the <h2> tag and always with your keyword in it(and you do want to). If you have any images on your site, for every image make sure you use the alt tag with your keyword. This is what it will look like

    <img src="/images/my_image.jpg" alt="keyword" />

    you are also going to want to rename all of your image file names to have your keyword in them.

    You are going to use your keyword once or twice per paragraph on your page. You want bold your keyword once and italicize it once and only once on your page.

    The last thing you want google to read before it leaves your page is your keyword. The best way to do this is in the footer. This is how I make my footers look

    2008 mysite.com keyword

    It does not look strange and accomplishes what we need.

    One last thing on in-site optimization is you want to control the order that google reads the content on your site. most sites are set up with a header section at the top links along the left hand side and content on the right. This is a good way to set up your site people like this it is what they are expecting so it makes it easy for them to navigate. Remember it not about what we like it's about functionality over ascetics. that's what keeps people on your site once you get them there. Back to the subject you don't want google to read your site, header --> links --> content --> footer. (remember it goes from the top left to bottom right) We want google to read our content first then links. Here is a way around that. when you make your tables use this layout.

    <table>
    <tr>
    <td height="61">&nbsp;</td>
    <td rowspan="2">content section</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td >links section</td>
    </tr>
    </table>

    This puts an empty table row above the links section and as you can see google will read your content first and your layout looks the same. This will make google read our keyword rich content first then the links.

    Now if you think about what we have gone over you most of these things do not change the content that will be seen by people at all it is all done behind the scenes.

    In-site optimization will not make your site rank highly in the search engines. however it is still important. Once you get a top 10 ranking having your site optimized this way will be the difference between a number 1 or 2 ranking or a 9 or 10 ranking. The top 3 rankings get the most traffic.

    How do I get into the top 10 you ask?

    That is where the real work comes in. Off-site or external optimization is what moves you up in the ranks and if you want to rank highly in competitive markets you have to get good at it and submitting blogs everyday will not do it for these markets. Don't get me wrong blogs will work in less competitive markets but we want to make money right. (there's a reason they're so competitive).

    Unfortunately that is beyond the scope of this post I will probably start a new post covering that topic.

    P.S. you still want to fill out your metetags it is more keywords in your page.
    and I know I only talked about google in this post and that is because google is the engine you want to optimize with. If you have a top 10 google ranking you will probably have a top 10 ranking in all the other search engines. However the opposite is not true.
    Also you can change the way the <h1> and <h2> tag look with CSS. DO NOT leave them out 'cause they look bad without styling.
     
    mr_banks, Nov 22, 2008 IP
  2. gerdywerdy

    gerdywerdy Member

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    #2
    This is great advice

    I have one question for you

    would you be penalised if you set up a CSS file so that <h1> and <h2> look the same as regular text. This means you could put your keywords in H1 or H2 without taking the look of your text on your site
     
    gerdywerdy, Nov 22, 2008 IP