Oct

9

A “Duh!” Moment Leads To Four Core Principles Of On-Page SEO

Filed Under General Advice |

I was on the phone with someone recently who was wanting some broad, general advice about how they could make their pages more attractive to search. I started rattling off tip after tip without actually thinking: title tags, making your copy keyword-friendly yet readable, using headers, and then I realized something. The core of search engine optimization is making it as readable as possible for people.

When you make the effort to arrange the data on any given page to be as pleasing and accessible to the average reader as possible, Google and other search engines pay attention. These four tips can be implemented on almost every website to improve their rankings and increase the amount of time visitors spend engaging your site and your message.

On-Page SEO Core Principle #1: Use Proper Headers

When you’re writing a lot of copy, it’s tempting to be cute. While “We’re Number One!” states how you feel about your product, your customers are likely scanning the page, looking for keywords. “Red Widgets Are Our Specialty” includes the keyword (at the beginning, natch) and makes a statement about the company in the same line. I’m also fond of using the Question/Answer format: “Why buy red widgets from WidgetCo?” with a beefy answer that includes keywords, links to relevant pages, etc.

On-Page SEO Core Principle #2: Real People Read Your Site

Unless you’re working in a highly competitive field, keyword stuffing will only hurt your ranking and drive readers from your page. Focus on using one or two keywords per page wisely. To get an idea of what I’m talking about, take a look at these two examples:

Red Widget Specials At Your Red Widgets Source


Get red widget information from WidgetCo, the source for red widgets and red widget accessories today! We’ve helped thousands of businesses looking for red widgets find the red widgets they need with low red widget prices and special red widget deals. Buy red widgets from us and get the best red widgets in the industry today!

versus this:

WidgetCo: Your Source For Red Widgets


Red Widgets have been a core part of WidgetCo’s business for the last three decades and with over two million happy customers, it’s easy to see why. While other widget manufacturers have moved into other fields, red widgets are our specialty and we work hard to ensure that each product we deliver meets our clients’ exacting standards. Still not convinced about our red widgets? Take a look at the red widget reviews we’ve received over the years. We offer special pricing on volume orders and our red widget accessories are the best in the business.

The first may have a high keyword density that meets the old-guard ideas of what SEO looks like, but it’s the second one that makes a better on both the search engines and the people who visit your site.

On-Page SEO Core Principle #3: Link Wisely

The second example above shows how linking should be used on any website: make it keyword-relevant whenever possible. Not only does it tell the search engines that “red widget accessories” are located at www.widgetco.com/accessories/red-widget/, but it gives readers a visual clue of what to expect when they click on a link, much more than using “Click Here.” You should also look at the NOFOLLOW tag and how you can ensure that an individual page’s rank is used properly. For example, if you’re required to have a Terms and Conditions of Site Usage document linked on every page, the NOFOLLOW tag could be used to make sure that your high-value page’s “link juice” is being passed to the proper pages on your site. In addition to this sort of link-sculpting, many high-profile websites automatically add NOFOLLOW to any links that are added by users in areas such as blog comments, which prevents spammers from getting using your site to further their agendas.

On-Page SEO Core Principle #4: Meet A Minimum Word Count

If you can’t generate at least four hundred words of good, readable copy on some aspect of your business and its attendant keywords, then it doesn’t deserve its own page and can be folded into another. Search engines (and visitors) love content and if it’s properly formatted (see the above comments about headers), it’s easy for both to scan and identify the relevant content on the page for their needs. One of the reasons that Wikipedia pages so frequently appear on the top of search results for any given keyword is that they are very text heavy.

Using Wikipedia as an further example, if one sets aside there’s also the huge amount of trust given to the domain by the search engines, and the sheer volume of inbound links, most Wikipedia pages provide a good example of how to format your material for visitors. The next time you’re looking at that Gossip Girl entry, take note of the page structure and how easy it is to understand and follow.




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1 Comment so far

  1. Nick Stamoulis on November 10, 2008 7:12 am

    This is a very helpful list…I think the part about writing content for humans is a very important conponent to have a long term ranking strategy…