Onpage Optimization - Tips

In order to make your web site easier for search engines to follow and index, Onpage optimization efforts are deemed necessary.

Onpage optimization is not difficult. It does however take time to make sure all the pieces are in place. This kind of optimization should occur not only on the main web page of a web site, but on every single content page within that site.

Check your web-design

In your web site, there can be potential design issues you should address in order to improve your web site's ranking in search engines.
* Pages that use Frames, Flash, JavaScript, URL Redirects, Image Maps, or Dynamic URLs might not be recognized by the search engine.
* It doesn't matter for which purposes you use JavaScript, e.g. drop-down menus, put it at the end of HTML Body or place into a separate file, e.g. menu.js. This will move the important content closer to the beginning of this page and improve its keyword prominence. I
* Make site with clear hierarchy and text links. Check for broken links.

Keyword Selection

Choosing the right keywords is essential to get a high ranking in search engines and directories. Before beginning, determine the keyword phrases you will use according to your business and industry and begin adding them to your page.

Points to consider when choosing keywords:
* When choosing your keywords, try to think like your target audience. What would THEY search for, when looking for the page online?
* Make a list of two or three keywords for each page on your Web site.
* Try using phrases (two or more words) that you think people might enter into a search engine when looking for your site.

For example, Instead of "painting," add the more descriptive phrase "professional interior home painter."

* Investigate your competition. Conduct sample searches using keywords that you would prefer to use, and then identify which phrases other companies are using.

Hint: To see which keywords a competitor has used for a particular Web page, follow these steps to view the HTML source code for the page:
* Open the page in Microsoft Internet Explorer.
* On the View menu, click Source or Page Source.
* Find and view the keywords within the < META > tag sections of code.

Create a descriptive Title tag

The title tag should be the first meta tag directly after the Head tag.
Points to consider when creating your title tag:
* Make sure that your title tag is 60-75 characters long, including spaces.
* Include 1-2 of your most important keyword phrases in the title tag.
* Don't just list keywords in your title tag; by doing so, you risk being viewed as spamming the engines and directories.
* Each page on your Web site should have its own title tag.

To edit your title tag:
* Open the HTML source code for your page in a text editor or Web authoring program.
* Make sure your title tag is placed correctly. It should appear between two HEAD tags within the HTML that makes up your page.

Create effective Meta tags

Meta tags are the words written in the HEAD section of the HTML code for your web page. Search engines and directories use them to flag your site, so well-selected meta tags can help improve your site listings.

Points to consider when creating description & keyword tag:
* This is how you will enter a description meta tag into your HTML code. This meta tag should not exceed 150 characters, including spaces:
* Include meta description tag, directly after the TITLE tag
* The keywords meta tag should include 3-4 of your most important keyword phrases and should not exceed 280 characters, including spaces. Here's how you create one:
* Think of common misspellings. For example, the same travel site might include "Caribean", the common misspelling for "Caribbean”.
* If your site has content of interest to a specific geographic location, be sure to include this information (city, state, country, and so on) in your keyword meta tag.
* Be careful not to repeat the same word more than five times.
* Avoid using stop words. Some common stop words are a", "of", "the", "I", "it", "you", and "and.

Optimize your web page copy

The actual text on your web site, your page copy, is very important. Search engines use the text on your page to optimize search engine results, just as they do with your title tag. Points to consider when writing your page copy:
* Make sure that each page of text you submit contains at least 300 words. Search engines like text!
* Include your most important keyword phrases within the text, but make sure that your copy remains logical and easy to read. Put your keyword where it is most appropriate so that it appears 3-5 times on this page.
* The keyword phrases should be present at the beginning of the page i.e. the first 25 words of the visible text of the page.
* It would be helpful if some keyword phrases in the page copy are bold and underlined.
* Your page will be more relevant if your keyword appears at the end of the visible text. Try to put it in the last paragraph of your copy.
* Do not use font size one (1) text as the default text size. Many search engines consider Tiny text to be spam. It's OK to use some font size one text.
* Add additional copy-filled pages to your site (for example, add how-to articles, tips, or tutorials).

Use "alt" attribute for images

The "alt" attribute allows you to add a keyword phrase that relates to an image. Search engines look at these too when trying to find a matching page. Here is an example of how to use the "alt" image attribute:
* To add the "alt" attribute to any image, make the following change to your image tag HTML code:
* Write a brief sentence or two to describe each image.
* Incorporate the keywords phrase used in your page copy, title tag, and your meta description.
* Avoid adding more than 2-3 keywords to your alt description.

Optimize text hyperlinks

Some search engines seek keywords in hyperlinks and any text that immediately surrounds the hyperlinks. If possible, include your most important keyword phrases in hyperlinks and the surrounding text.

Points to remember when optimizing text hyperlinks:
* Include your most important keyword phrases within the hyperlink.
* Include your most important keyword phrases in the text that immediately precedes or follows the hyperlink.
* After adding phrases, make sure that your links and surrounding text are still clear and concise.

Optimize the heading tags

The important HTML heading tags are h1, h2, h3, and h4.

* Reformat your page to create more headings. Break copy into separate sections. Add a heading to each section.
* Include your most important keyword phrases in heading tags

Robots File

Several search engine spiders rely on the existence of a file in the root folder in order to continue with the crawling and indexing process for a website.
* Create a robots.txt file in the root folder
* robots.txt file will contain –
User-agent: *
Disallow

Naming Rule

It is critical to name the filenames appropriately, since these will be indexed by spiders. If a domain-name, directory, file & image are named using an important keyword, it will add more keyword weight when linked from the one page to another.
* Use keywords to name Directories
* Use keywords for Filenames and Images when possible
* Use keywords for Anchors
* Use keywords for images
* Use keywords for Link text
* Use hyphen ( -) or underscore ( _ ) as a separator while naming directories and files.

Domain Registration

Register a domain name with the exact keyword phrase you wish to target, using hyphens to separate the keywords. For example, if the keyword phrase is "search engine rankings," then register: search-engine-rankings.com
If the domain you want is unavailable, either try a different extension, such as .NET, .INFO, or .US, or add a keyword to the end (preferential) or beginning of the domain

Pages & Directory Levels

Keep your pages as close to the root domain as possible. Do not set up more than 3 directory levels. For example:
* www.yoursite.com/index.html (1st level - excellent)
* www.yoursite.com/html/index.html (2nd level - Good)
* www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/index.html (3rd level - OK)
* www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/search/index.html (Too many levels down - search engines will find it difficult to find and index pages this far down)

Site Map

Include a site map with links to all your pages. This will help search engines find and index all your pages.
* Limit the number of links on a web page to 50.
* If you have more than 50 links, limit your links to your most important pages.
* Include text on the page as some search engines, such as AltaVista, have been known to kick out links only pages

Avoid spamming

To prevent search engines from identifying your site as one that's capable of "spamming," adhere to the following tips:
* List keywords only in your meta tag. Avoid long lists of keywords in your text.
* Make sure there is no 'hidden text' (text that is the same color as the background) on your page.
* Use only one title tag.
* Submit each page only once within 24 hours.
* Use keywords in your keywords meta tag that directly relate to the content of your page.

What is 301 redirects & Why 301 redirects?

Do you understand the different between a 301 and 302 redirect?

A 301 redirect means any page has moved to a new location, permanently. A 302 redirect means, the move is temporary or in a webmaster's language, your request to the server to view any page has been completed.

Search engines need to figure out whether to keep the old page, or replace it with the one found at the new location. Use the wrong type of redirects, and the search engines' view of your website can get screwed up, badly.

Why does this matter? If you are moving a web page or an entire web site to a new location, e.g. if you change your domain name and you want visitors to be able to find your site. A redirect causes the user's browser to automatically forward from the old location to the new one.

There aren't too many situations where a 302 is appropriate. How often have you temporarily moved a page? It's much more common to move pages permanently. Nevertheless, it seems easier to create 302 redirects than 301s. You can use Javascript or a meta tag to create a 302.

Below are some of methods to implement 301 URL Redirection:

IIS Redirect

* In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
* Select the radio titled "a redirection to a URL".
* Enter the redirection page
* Check "The exact url entered above" and the "A permanent redirection for this resource"
* Click on 'Apply'

ColdFusion Redirect
<.cfheader statuscode="301" statustext="Moved permanently">
<.cfheader name="Location" value="http://www.new-url.com">

PHP Redirect
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" );
?>

ASP Redirect
<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently";
Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.new-url.com/");
%>

ASP .NET Redirect


JSP (Java) Redirect
<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( "Location", "http://www.new-url.com/" );
response.setHeader( "Connection", "close" );
%>

In order to redirect any domain, you need to do it throug .htaccess file provided you are using Apache webserver.

You can test the redirection using search engine friendly redirect checker.

You can also verify the Server header type of the redirected URLs to confirm the 301 redirects.

Yahoo directory submission - Go or No Go?

Yahoo- a search engine and a directory both.

Yahoo directory has been recommended by Google. Do you know why? Because this is human edited directory similar to DMOZ unlike millions of SEO friendly directories offering automated listing submissions.

By submitting your site to Yahoo's human-edited directory, you may have a better chance of being found by purely spider-driven engines (such as Google).

You will be surprised to know that there are eight submission options with Yahoo, i.e.:

* free site submission
* free mobile site submission
* free media content submission
* Yahoo search index submission
* sponsored search
* product submission
* travel submission
* Yahoo directory submit
* Yahoo standard submission

Yahoo Directory is not free since you have to pay $299 to have your website reviewed by the Yahoo editors. Although this fee doesn’t guarantee your website listing in Yahoo Directory. It just guarantees that your website will be reviewed by the editors within one week exclusing business holidays and if approved, it will be listed for one year.

Pre-requisites for the web sites to be listed in Yahoo directory:

* Well designed, good content professional web site
* No broken links
* No under construction pages
* Support multiple browsers
* Accessible 24X7

Benefits of being listed in Yahoo Business Directory:

* Effective link popularity
* Effective ranking in Google search

If you can afford to pay the $299, then it is highly recommended to submit your website to Yahoo Directory. The traffic and the strong back link you will get for your website would be worth paying $299 for a year.