Search Engine Optimization Back to Basics

OK I admit it,

I do spend a good amount of time surfing various webmaster related forums like most of you. The question I most often see how do I get my website to rank higher in the search engines.

I feel that most people over complicate it. If you cover the search engine optimization basics you should have no problem reaching the first two pages of Google. Hell I am living proof of that with every website I own.

The first step to ranking high is to STAY OF THE DAMN FORUMS! That's right you are spending to much time "learning" how to rank well when you need to roll up your sleeves and just do it.

Search Engine Optimization Basics - On Page Search Engine Optimization

1. Meta Tags

First thing I do is research my keywords. There are several tools you can use to do this such as Aaron Wall’s or Overture.

You want to target keywords that have a high search rate on your keyword tool and have low Google results for that specific keyword. I am not going to go into this aspect right now but this is how you find a niche.

So you have your keywords and keyword phrases. I like to have around 10 keywords or so total for my index page.

Let's work on your title tag now. Only use you MAIN keywords in your Title tag. Don't use words like (and, or, the, if, to) only use your keywords. If you need to separate the Title use the | symbol which is located directly above your Enter key.

Your Description tag should include your keywords in it but make this readable for human eyes as Google may use it. One or two short sentences will suffice.

2. Your H1 and H2 Tags

These tags should be as close to the top left hand corner of the page as you can get them and contain your main keywords. Search engines read your website just like you read a book, from left to right.

3. Insert Main Keywords

Generally speaking your main keyword phrase should be inserted into each paragraph. If you have short paragraphs you can go every other.

4. Bold and Italic Tags

Now that you have your keywords sprinkled through your web page you can use your Bold and Italic tags.

Locate your keywords and use the Bold or Italic tag on three or four of you main keywords evenly spaced across the page.

5. Image Alt Tags

If you have images they need to have an Alt tag. The very first image that appears on your page insert main keyword in it use the Alt tag.

If you have more pictures you can use your main keyword one or two more times but DON'T over do it. Use some of your other keywords in the images so it does not look like you are keyword stuffing your page.

6. Bold Tag Bottom Of Page

That very last piece of information that the search engine bots read is very important. Grab your main keyword phrase use the Bold tag and add it to the very bottom of your page. See bottom of this page for an example.

7. Saving Your Page

If the page you are creating is NOT your index page upload the page to your server in the format below.

www.YOURPAGE.com/key-word-phrase-here.html

Use your keywords as the page path name. Most people will say that this does not make much difference but I can tell you for a fact that Google pays a LOT of attention to this.

I have ran several different test and the pages with keywords in the path rank much higher.

The above covers the basics and the foundation of On Page search engine optimization. In my next article I will cover Off Page search engine optimization.

search engine optimization