A straightforward guide to on-site search engine optimisation with advice on how to format your site’s pages so that search engines can understand what they are about.
On site SEO or search engine optimisation describes the methods you employ to make your site search friendly. In other words, helping the search engines understand what your site is about and what keywords and terms are most relevant.
This is a subject which can become complex but the basic rules are fairly simple. Adopting good on-site SEO principles isn’t difficult and will soon become second-nature after you understand that much of it is based on common sense.
In the previous article about Search Engine Optimisation we established that a search engine views your site differently to the way your users do. They are not really impressed by pretty colours and nice pictures because this isn’t what they see. You need to help them out a little and it’s quite straightforward if you follow some basic rules of good practice.
Your Targeted Keywords or Key Phrases
The choice of main keywords can be crucial to the success or failure of your site and should be considered carefully. The subject of keyword research covers a wide area of discussion and we’ll examine this further in another article. However, in simple terms, think what people will be searching for and do as much research as possible. Ask friends and family what words they would use when searching for your products; see what results you get when searching these terms and look for opportunities on terms where there is less competition.
The Google keyword tool is a great resource and you should always check to see what are the most popular and relevant keywords before starting to create a new page. Quite often the most popular phrase will be different to what you first thought and you’ll see other alternative terms which will be useful to include in the text of your page.
URL’s and File Names
Look at your site’s URL, or web address for any given page; does this give you any clues to the subject of the page? For instance we’ll assume the site is a baby products retailer and the page in question is about disposable nappies:
mybabysite.co.uk/page_23_18.html
doesn’t give much away does it, yet you’ll be surprised how often you see URL’s which look like this. Most website editing software allows you to define the file name of each page you create so why not take advantage of this? Now how about:
mybabysite.co.uk/disposable-nappies.html
Does this not make more sense? Adopting this common sense approach to your web addresses is a simple step and a great habit to get in to.
Page Titles
The page title is the first thing that visitors and search engines will see and needs to describe what the page is about. This should be the search term you are targeting so using our disposable nappy example the title could be:
Disposable Baby Nappies
or, if you have several pages about baby nappies you could optimise further, for example:
Disposable Baby Nappies – Ages 6 – 12 Months
Another way to optimise the title, especially useful if your site has an overall generic theme is to include this term at the end of each title. For example:
‘Disposable Baby Nappies – Ages 6 – 12 Months – MyBabySite’
Once again, this is another simple habit to adopt every time you create a new page. Always use the main subject as the first piece of text and the generic site name as the last. Always aim to have a unique title for each page and make sure it matches the actual content.
Descriptions or Meta Descriptions
This is the section where you enter a description of the page and is what’s shown in the search results, underneath the page title. Often referred to as ‘meta tag descriptions’ there are various ways these are added depending on what software you use. The description should sum-up the content of the page in less than 3 sentences and should include the keywords you are targeting.
So, as per our example, a good description would be:
A selection of disposable baby nappies in a range of colours to fit babies aged from 6 to 12 months
Keywords or Meta Keywords
Again, depending on what software you use, there may be an entry for a selection of keywords. It’s debatable whether search engines pay any heed to these any more given that people generally just stuff as many keywords as they can think of in this section. However, it can’t do any harm and can be a good way of concentrating your mind on the main words you are targeting. Only use words which actually appear on the page and don’t over do it – 6 or so words or short phrases is ample.
So, as per our example, good keywords would be:
nappy,nappies,disposable nappies,disposable nappy,nappies 6 months,nappies 12 months
Separate the words with a comma and don’t use spaces. Try also to use singular and plural variations of your keywords.
Images
Good images can make or break the visual appeal of any website and can be a great way to get your message across. However, search engines can’t see pictures so have difficulty working out their relevance.
In order to get maximum benefit from images it’s good practice to adopt some search friendly techniques. Again you can use file names to your advantage: Why save a picture as:
image_187937.jpg
when it could be:
baby-in-nappy.jpg
Imagine looking through a file of images to find this exact picture – you’ll appreciate how the second option makes this a lot easier?
You can also add descriptions to the image known as ‘alt tags’. These were originally designed to help people with poor vision read images on web sites but are also used by search engines to figure out what the images are and what is there relevance to the page. So, in this example, a picture of a baby wearing a nappy with a descriptive file name and alt text:
6 month old baby wearing a disposable nappy
will enforce the relevance of the image and this can only be a benefit.
Body Text
This is the main content of your page and should include all your keywords and key phrases. Don’t over do it with keywords by repeating the same word over and over. Try to include your main keywords in the body of text which is natural and readable. Try also to use a mix of plural and singular phrases with a few alternatives for good measure. It’s also a good idea to bold the text of important keywords and phrases now and again so they stand out.
Writing good body text can often be a challenge, particularly when promoting a single product. Try to write naturally, as if you were speaking to someone face to face and don’t repeat the same text on different pages.
Headings
Each page should have one main heading, referred to as h1 followed by a couple of sub-headings known as h2; h3 and so on. Obviously it will depend upon the content of the page but always include a h1 heading and try to use at least one h2 and an h3 if possible?
In this instance your main heading would be:
Disposable Baby Nappies
and sub-headings could be:
Disposable Nappies for Babies Aged 6 Months
and:
Disposable Nappies for Babies Aged 12 Months
The h3 heading could follow with something like:
Nappy Delivery Options
Anchor Text
The importance of good anchor text is often overlooked and is well worth adopting. When you link to another page in your site or an external site the ‘anchor text’ is the actual wording of the link. Not only does this help your users by telling them where the link will go but also shows search engines the relevance of that link, in relation to your page and, also, in relation to the page it goes to.
Terms such as click here or more info don’t help anyone and can be easily changed to useful terms such as nappy delivery options or organic disposable nappies for instance.
Links
Links to other pages within your site and to external sites offering more information can be not only useful to your visitors but can also reinforce the relevance of the page. Linking to other pages about disposable nappies would be useful, for instance: if you had a page for nappies for ages 12 months to 18 months that would be an obvious link. You might also have a page which offers advice about sizing or a general nappy information page which could be useful?
Links to external sites can also affirm the pages usefulness – for example: this page gives our advice about On-Page SEO but we also link to pages on Google’s site for further information. We accept that you may want more detailed or authoritative advice and, for this subject, obviously Google will be the best source.
However, this isn’t always practical and you shouldn’t do it just for its own sake, but if there is some useful information elsewhere that can benefit your visitors then consider linking to it, by all means.
In all cases, remember what we said about anchor text – use it and be clear where each link goes.
Navigation
Clear and straightforward navigation throughout your site not only helps users find what they are looking for but also helps search engines crawl your site. Every page should be able to be found within a couple of clicks of your homepage. Also consider adding a site map which lists every single page in a clear and easily understood manner. Linking to this from your homepage will also help search engines find every page on the site.
So, hopefully, you now have a better understanding of how search engines see your site and what signals they read in order to determine your relevance. Good SEO is about getting into good habits and adopting the above practice every time you create a new page will pay dividends in the long-term.
The next article in this series will look at Off Site SEO which is how external sites can help you rank highly for your chosen search phrases.
