Starting any search engine optimization campaign with anything other than keyword research is a waste of time. To be truly successful with SEO you must begin with a well researched keyword strategy. Once you’ve identified the most important keywords for your campaign, the next step is to optimize web pages for top rankings. I’ve discovered a number of techniques that work especially well for on page optimization.

There are a number of areas to focus on when thinking about on page optimization. The most important factors include meta tags, load speed, and URLs. Although some of these may seem obvious to those of you who have spent just a little time learning about search engine optimization, individuals often address these important areas incorrectly.

Meta tags provide large search engines a quick way to identify what a web page is all about. When tags are formatted correctly, search engine spiders have an easy way of evaluating content and properly ranking web pages. Although meta tags by themselves can’t significantly improve a web site’s ranking, they can definitely hurt if not properly formatted. You need to integrate additional on page optimization best practices but properly formatted meta tags are essential.

Meta tags should have a title tag which has your most important keywords and contains no more than 60 characters. This is the number of characters that can be shown on Google search results. Your description tag which is also displayed after a user does a search engine query, should be no more than 150 characters. This tag is most effective when mentioning your keywords two times.

The last meta tag worthy of description is the keyword tag. This tag is misused all too often and it may actually be hurting your search engine rankings. When using a keyword tag, focus on only a dozen of your most important and highly trafficked keywords. Search engines should know that you are an authority site and worthy of top rankings. Do your research and only include the keywords that truly matter. You can also evaluate the sites in the top positions and model their keywords as long as they are included on your web site or blog.

In addition to having your meta tags in place, the speed at which your site loads is very important. Slow loading websites are penalized by Google. What’s the big deal with a slow web site or web page you might ask? Major search engines are all about giving the browser a good user experience. If you site has a lot of broken links or loads slowly, Google considers this a bad experience and will penalize you with lower rankings. Make sure that your page loads in less than six seconds on a standard connection. There are a number of tools that can help you measure load speed.

The third and certainly one of the most important factors is URL structure. It is true that having your keyword in the URL helps but it is not the only or the most heavily weighed optimization factor by Google. There are plenty of examples of sites that include the keyword in the URL being outranked by other web sites. If you can purchase a URL that has your keyword in it though, consider it advantageous. If you are unable to do so, consider adding a folder to your main directory or page to your site that includes the keyword you want to optimize your site for. A good example would be www.sample.com/keyword. By doing so you are placing your keyword close to the root and giving it more value. Also consider a sub domain strategy.

When thinking about search engine optimization and embarking on your first optimization campaign, start with on page optimization. Focus your efforts on developing a web site that is easily searched and ranked with the help of the on page optimization factors we discussed. The topics we discussed including Meta tags, website load times and URL are among the most important on page optimization factors you can apply to improve your rankings.

Need help with your SEO? Learn more about our SEO training program. Also, if you’re looking to improve search engine rankings Learn more about our Webmaster Training Guide.

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