Image Source: Flickr/ogimogi
There are no sure-fire ways of creating a perfectly optimized page. However, there are techniques and methods you can try out to improve your chances and get it as close to perfect as possible. As with using any technique, it is important to constantly test, monitor and improve your strategy to optimize your web pages. The information on this article is here to provide you the basic tools that you need to start.
Page Optimization Best Practices
Make it accessible
Search engines send spiders to crawl each web page on your website. These work in a similar fashion as human visitors to a site. The search engines do not index content that cannot be accessed or seen by human eyes. As such, it is important to make sure that the spiders can access and crawl each web page, if they are to show up on search results.
Produce killer content
Publish content that will grab the attention of visitors and get them excited enough to share it to other people. Creating viral content is key to a website’s link building efforts.
Optimize page elements
Search engines look at several parts of the website. To improve visibility and ranking on search engine results, include the targeted keywords on the title, URL name, headings, content and anchor text among others.
Make it easy to navigate
A website that users can easily navigate through will encourage them to come back. Combined with generating useful content, this creates a good overall experience for users, increasing the possibility of gaining additional links, traffic, mentions on other websites and even sales.
Develop a marketing strategy
Publishers need to know how to market their content effectively in order to generate enough attention from the community or industry. A website that simply exists does not get a lot of traffic. Know how and where to share the content to make people aware that the website exists. Spread the word or allow other people to do it for you.
Additional Tips to Consider
Choose the right keywords to target
The content on your web page must be optimized for both human eyes and search engines alike. This means it is readable whether you are a robot or a live person. Research on keywords you want to target and look for synonyms, variations and longtails for those keywords. One technique to consider is to use only one set of keywords per post. This may not make the website rank well for that particular set of keywords but it will widen the range of keywords that the website will rank for.
Check the content’s cache
It is important to check how the major search engines are indexing the page. This can be done by looking for the cached text version of the page on major search engines. On Google or Bing, you can perform a search using the search term site: plus the keyword phrase. Hover over the result and click Cache. Once the cached page has loaded completely, click the “Text-only version” link. Compare this with the original to see if the important content has been indexed.
Evaluate the content
Check whether the uploaded content is unique. Search for duplicate content by copying a part of the article and enclosing it in between quotation marks. Check to see if there are websites that have similar content to yours and determine the level of likeness between your website and the website in question. There are several possibilities why there could be duplicate content including content taken from the manufacturer’s site and content farms. Your next action is dependent on how you view the similarities.
Use headlines
Including keywords on headlines and headings is one way of helping the web page rank for the chosen keywords on search engine results. From a human perspective, use of catchy headlines is way to lure them into reading the rest of the article or content. The headings help break down the content into shorter, more manageable pieces of information.
Use internal and external links
Link building is another way to optimize pages. Search engines see links as a vote for the site. Interesting or useful content will encourage more people and websites to link to it. Publishers and bloggers can also use links within the content to direct people to other relevant pages.
About the Author:
Bethany Wesch writes about blogging, branding and online marketing. She writes for QuantumLinx.com.au – an SEO Sydney company which specializes in providing search engine optimisation services and online marketing solutions for local businesses and sales people.
