Onpage Optimization For Web Directory Webmaster

So, you have just started a web directory and spent a bundle on a very eye catching design. But somehow, you don't seem to get many visitors or users and your site isn't ranking good in the Search Engines. What do you do?

How about making your directory Search Engine friendly through Search Engine Optimization(SEO)? The best way to get visitors is by Search Engines. They are the number one source which can drive traffic to your directory. What you need is patience, hardwork and some little tips to help you get started.

So here is some onpage optimization tips for a web directory owner.

1. URL mod rewrite must be on. This option creates static URLs by removing the dynamic variables or session ids and since Search Engines don't like dynamic URLs, this will help in your site being indexed faster. And, static URLs usually rank higher than dynamic URLs. Another thing, dynamic URLs can cause duplicate content problem for your directory and hurt you in the rankings.

2. Have a good keyword rich title for your directory. This is very important for Search Engine rankings as they place relevance on titles tags. Try to use the keywords first on your title tag, then your directory name.

3. Good Keywords in your categories and subcategories which will produce meaningful URLs which again helps in ranking for these terms. Remember, URLs are important and you should use them effectively to get good rankings. Ensure you do not have "and" or "or" in the category names as they are useless and Search Engine spider don't use them.

4. Avoid having your category links too deep. Search Engines don't like crawling into levels to find your listings and having subdirectories which are too deep will affect your rankings. For me, the most you should have is 5 directory levels deep unless it is really necessary.

5. No broken links. Broken links prevents Search Engine spiders from indexing your directory completely.

6. No dead end pages. Make sure every page you have is linked to your main directory page or some other page. Just like broken links, they disrupt the Search Engine spiders from finishing or doing their job, which is to index your site.

7. Good descriptions, at least 300 words or more. Make sure your visitors submit meaningful descriptions with good keywords and without any spelling mistakes, so that your directory wont look like a link farm to Search Engines. A good description makes your directory listing look professional and helps your image.

8. Uptime is very important. What's the point of having all the SEO you can do when Search Engine spiders can't even find your site because it is down. Get a good and reliable webhost with a solid uptime.

9. Sitemaps can really help spiders navigate your directory so create them and submit to the Search Engines. This is especially true if you have a lot of categories in your directory.

10. Meta Tags are less important, but if you can, make sure the meta tags are relevant to your category. Another thing, try to have different meta keywords and meta description per category instead of using the main directory's.

This onpage optimization article only covers what you can do on your own web directory, it doesn't cover offpage optimization which can be very effective in getting good rankings as well. But if you use both offpage and onpage optimization, you should get even better results.

OnPage Optimization

Onpage optimization is the process by which various elements on an individual web page are structured so that the web page can be found by the search engines for specific keyword(s) or keyword phrases.

Onpage optimization will not guarantee any top rating within a search engine, only offpage optimization can offer that guarantee. However, offpage optimization is far more effective WHEN onpage optimization is in place.

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.

The very first question to ask when seeking to optimize a web page is: What keyword(s)/keyword phrases is this page targeting? This article will not explore how to find keywords, it assumes you already have keywords chosen.

For this article, the following phrases will be used as an example: designer argyle socks, plaid socks, paisley socks. Of the three phrases, “designer argyle socks” will be the primary phrase used for optimization.

Below is a list of onpage elements in which the keywords need to be placed:

Keywords in the Title tag

Every page should have TITLE tags. TITLE tags appear on the status bar above the menu bar in a web browser.
Generally the formula should be: website name - keyword|keyword|keyword. Avoid using articles and conjunctions like a, the, and. Use the pipe(|) or dash (-) to separate keywords.

Do not “stuff” your title by repeating your keyword phrases over and over. Search engines will ban sites for such practices.

Keywords in H1 or other headline tags

Somewhere near the top of the page place your primary keyword phrase within h1 tags.
The combination of the TITLE tag and H1 tag effectively act as titling tags for your page. The search engine spider will begin to see pretty quickly what your page is about if these two tags are in place.

Keywords in the body copy

Use your keyword phrases throughout the copy of the body of the web page. Use them in natural ways. Do not overuse your keyword phrase. Avoid using hidden text. Try your best to include your primary keyword phrase at/near the beginning of your copy and at/near the end of your copy. Once, and only once, make sure your primary keyword phrase is bolded.

Keywords in ALT tags

Many suggest that the alt tags on your images should contain your keywords. Be careful. Some search engines see that as spamming. If you do it, don’t over do it.
Keywords contained in the URL or site address, e.g., http://www.keyword.com/keyword.htm
If the primary phrase of our web page is “Designer Argyle Socks”, then the name of the actual HTML file would be designerargylesocks.html, designer_argyle_socks.html or designer-argyle-socks.html

Keywords in the META NAME=”DESCRIPTION”

Meta tags are getting used less and less by the search engines. However, it is still good practice to use the Description and Keyword meta tags if only for your own reference.
meta name=”description”Supersocks.com is pleased to offer designer argyle socks at low discount prices. In addition see our selection of plaid socks and paisley socks.

Keywords in the META NAME=”KEYWORD”

Search engines like Google no longer look at the Keywords meta tag. However, still include your keywords here. They can serve as a point of reference for you in the future.
meta name=”keyword”>keyword, keyword, keyword
Do not “stuff” this meta tag by repeating your keyword phrases over and over. Search engines will ban sites for such practices.

I would encourage beginning web developers to use a tool such as SEODoctor. SEODoctor is an online onpage optimization tool that will help you with your onpage optimization efforts. Unfortunately, the cost of this tool just went up in April 2006. It is now based on a membership to Instant Position. The cost is $50 for 6 months, $80 for one year. The tool has been greatly improved. While the price may be steep for beginners, it has helped me create well formed and optimized pages.

Essential Onpage Optimization Tips

When the majority of people think of search engine optimization they often only consider things like meta tags, keyword density and doorway pages.

However, as with many things when it comes to SEO, what worked a few years ago no longer applies in todays search engine algorithms.

Take meta-tags for example. Way back when the internet was still in it's infancy, meta tags were introduced to help search engines (at the time the big search engine was AltaVista, Google hadn't even been invented) work out what the theme or topic of the site was. Naturally it wasn't too long before spammers started abusing the Meta Tags and after the next generation of search engines arrived the importance and value of the meta tags has declined.

There are still a few self styled gurus out there that will tell you that you need the optimum keyword density to rank well in the search engines; "get a keyword density of 2.48% and achieve higher rankings!". The truth of the matter is if there were an optimum density then it would be very easy for people to rank their sites in the search engines. The best advice I can give you is to keep your writing natural and focus on providing great content to the reader first and treating the search engine second.

Now onpage optimization doesn't count for too much nowadays. The way a search engine (at least the most up to date ones like Google, Yahoo and Live) ranks your site is to record how many inbound links your site has and assign a certain weight to each of these links. A search engine is focusing on making sure that your site is relevant to what the user searched for and if there are plenty of inbound links, chances are your site is providing good content that the user is searching for.

The classic example that is used by SEO experts to prove to people that on site optimization now has a lower relevancy to the search engine optimization process is the "click here" result in Google. If you perform a search on Google for the phrase click here you will find that the number one result is for Adobe's Acrobat Reader.

If you check out Adobe's site you will find that the phrase "click here" does not appear anywhere in the title or the text. What can this mean? The site is getting it's high ranking not because of it's on page optimization (because there is noe), but because of it's off page optimization. In other words, there are thousands of inbound links to the Adobe page with the words "click here" in the link. Based on Googles current algorithm, it naturally assumes that this page is the most relevant for the phrase "click here".

Unfortunately, unlike Adobe, most of us don't have millions of inbound links to our site - and despite our best efforts, never will, so we have to use every resource available to us to make our site as search engine friendly as possible - and this does include onpage optimization to a certain extent.

But what are the most important factors to consider when optimizing your website? Let's take a look...

5. Keep the content tightly focused

Far too often webmasters will try and optimize their home page for every relevant keyword that they can think of. Ultimately this over-optimization works against you as you are diluting the relevancy of your main keywords. Try to keep the content of the page focused on a single keyword. If you are targeting multiple keywords then it is best to create individual pages for those keywords with the content tightly focused around them.

4. Use more than 500 words on your site

Way back in the 90's a technique called doorway pages were ultra fashionable. Webmasters would create doorway pages for each keyword they were targeting. All these doorway pages did was provide a short amount of text focused on a particular keyword and invited the user to enter the site. The search engines eventually got wise to this and as the algorithms were refined doorway pages were relegated to a thing of the past. When you are creating your laser focused page use more than 500 words to show the search engine that this page contains valuable and useful content to the user. Don't repeat words too often and certainly don't simply list keywords - search engines know that game too!

Try no to worry too much about keyword density, as long as you follow the rest of the instructions your page will rank well. No one can accurately tell you what the optimum keyword density is because quite frankly nobody knows!

3. Create a good internal linking structure

The power of good inbound links to your site cannot be underestimated in SEO, nor can the power of using keyword rich anchor texts. Well guess what? Your internal link structure counts towards your SEO rankings too! So why try using your main keyword instead of using the text "Home" in a link to take people back to the home page. This way Google (and other search engines) know that it is going to a page that is all about your keyword.

Follow this internal linking structure throughout your site - but always remember to keep your links readable and understandable to humans too! Using the correct internal link structure is a little known and underused SEO method that really pays off in the SEO game.

2. H1 tags

I have a feeling that as the word gets out about the power of H1 tags then the impact that they have with search engines will diminish. The main reason a lot of webmasters don't use H1 tags is because it creates very large text and creates a big gap underneath the text. However, using simple CSS we can change the style of a H1 tag to anything we want.

For example this code shows you how to make your H1 tag really small:

Try and get your main keywords within the h1 tag but remember to keep it readable! Don't simply list your keywords.

1. Your Page Title

Finally, your page title is possibly the most important factor of onpage SEO. Whenever you do a search on Google or any of the big search engines the results always highlights the keyword in the title. Far too often webmasters and online businesses misuse their title tag by writing something like:

Welcome To XYZ Company Ltd!

Now if this company sold widgets, there would be no highlighting in the search engine results page if someone searched for widgets. The truth is no one really cares about the company name. When a user clicks on a link in the search engine results page they do so because they think the site might solve their problem (in this case a severe widget problem!).

Therefore, don't use the company name in the title, but include your primary keywords. Don't over do it either, the more keywords you use the less effective they become. If you are targeting a dozen keywords then consider creating 12 individual pages targeted around each keyword.

Conclusion

There are dozens of other factors involved in onpage optimization such as file naming, alt tags, title tags and your domain name, but the factors above are amongst the most important that you need to consider when optimizing your website

How To Do On-Page Optimization For Your Web Site

On-Page Optimization / On Page SEOOn-page optimization, the original form of search engine optimization, is one of the main requirements necessary to improve website ranking in leading search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, and Askjeeves. On-page Optimization is the process by which elements of a website are so designed such the website qualifies for a high ranking when specific keyword(s) or keyword phrases are typed. On-page optimization is often overlooked by many webmasters, who tend to spend most of their time trying to get links to their site. It’s true, off-page has more importance when it comes to SEO, but it’s a lot harder than on-page optimization. Seo keywords tags is a critical element of seo on-page optimization. Some people say that off-page optimization is more important than on-page optimization. You should consider two factors before choosing On-page Optimization or off- page Optimization.

Optimization

Those results are there simply by a combination of several mathematical formulas including On Page Optimization. If you want to maintain a successful web presence you need our on page optimization services. Many website owners need just a bit of On Page Optimization, some need more such as directory submissions and links. You can have a rich site and rank great, it's all about the methods you use to achieve the best possible On page Optimization you can.

Of course, you should still be paying a great deal of attention to link-building, but the key is this – link-building is a long-term process, whereas on-page optimization a short, one-time thing. True is that for on-page optimization you just need have keyword in title tag and a few times on page (best in links too). Here is my opinion on the most important elements in on-page optimization and some brief information about them.

OnPage Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Email Marketing is the king of advertising in online marketing but the effect of spam filters and volume emailers has certainly put a damper on the reach it once had. This has forced online marketers to reach deep and learn new methods of online marketing. Search Engine Optimization has moved to the forefront of many online marketers advertising plans.

Search Engine Optimization is the art of designing your web pages to be ranked high by search engines for keywords that you target. There are several methods and they vary from Search Engine to Search Engine. One aspect of Search Engine Optimization relays heavily on the Onpage Optimization.

Onpage Optimization deals with the placement of keywords on the page, the header tags, the appearance of the keywords and the use of keywords in the meta and alt tags on the page. Below are some tips on OnPage optimization that I have picked up and used in my own web sites.

Step1: Select a page title that only includes your keywords.

Step 2: Use Header Tags to emphasize the keywords you have selected. Use your number 1 keyword in the {H1} tag and secondary keywords in your {H2} header tags.

Step 3: Write solid content that naturally includes your main and your secondary keywords throughout the text. If possible use your first keyword as near the top of the content and as close to the bottom of the content as possible.

Step 4: Once the content is complete go through and randomly bold, italicize and underline the main and secondary keywords.

Step 5: Be sure to use your keywords in the alt tags of your images.

As a guide you might do a search for you main keyword in Google. View the page and the source code of the page to see what OnPage Optimization that webmaster did to get a top rank.

While OnPage Optimization can be a significant reason why your web site ranks well in the search engine there are several other key factors like, page content, link popularity, site indexing and competition.

Search Engine Optimization is an equal opportunity marketing practice. If you are diligent you can create a flood of prime targeted.