Ranking in Google can be a hassle. As more and more pages become optimized, reaching the Top 10 of the search results page is getting harder. However, there are a few factors everyone can do to their website. Although these factors work great for SEO purpose, they also give your user a way better experience on your website. With an improved look and feel, you will not only increase the number of visitors- more important, they will return. And in the end, Google rewards well structured and user-friendly designed sites!
Content
Is it all about great content? Yes! Updating your website with fresh, unique, and keyword-rich content is one of the most important on-page factors. Don’t stuff your content with keywords though, build them in naturally. SEO Experts like Jerry West suggest a minimum of 450 words per page (counting the content area, not the nav bar, header, or footer).
Content Structure
Structure your content with H1, H2, and H3 tags and use your keywords once in each of them. While it is highly recommended to use only one H1 and one H2 tag, the H3 tag can appear several times. You can also use the strong tag for some keywords in moderation. One of the reasons why Wikipedia dominates search is because of their very search-engine friendly page structure.
Breadcrumbs
Visible (back) links on your page not only accounts to your internal linking structure, they make it easier for the user to navigate through the site. If you have a strong home and want to boost your down-level pages, consider creating an anchor text that links back to the home.
Title Tag
Don’t stuff your title tag with keywords. While few ‘big’ sites rank with pages that have no omptimized title tags, they are the exception. Don’t use your keywords more than twice in the title, and make sure the title tag is unique within your page. Google recently published a video on how they handle duplicate content, and duplicate title tags definitely fall into that category. To not have Google cut off your title in the search results with (…), limit it to 64 characters or 8 words. You don’t have to write a sentence- enumeration separated by comma or straight characters “|” works well, too.
Meta Description Tag
This tag is less for the search engines than for the user. Create some appealing copy that makes the user want to visit your page. Google will only display a maximum of 165 characters on the results page. If you don’t create a meta description, the search engines will grab part of copy from the page to describe the search result to the user. In most of the cases, the result will look weird and highly unprofessional.
Meta Keyword Tag
Back in the day, most of the search engines indexed this tag. Since delivering raw keywords to describe the page to search engine has quickly become a tactic of spammers or fiercy competitors, Google never used this tag and Yahoo stopped using the meta keywords tag as of today. Basically, this tag has become obsolete.
Alt-Tag for Images
If you use images on your page, it’s great to add some description to it via the alt-tag. Google indexes the alt tag and uses its content for display in search results in case meta description or other content is missing.
URL name
Using your keywords in the URL (domain, directory, or page name) is not the most important thing when it comes to search engine results. However, it helps to navigate through the page and identify relevant articles. Just make sure you have incorparated a permanent link structure to make sure your links will work in the future.
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