I want to share this little SEO secret to everyone who wants their website get the top results of SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages). Of course this is not the only thing to do in optimizing your website because there are a lot, like fresh content, link-building, etc. But for those who have just started in SEO below are the basic things to do on your website codes to make it Search Engine friendly.
The very first thing to consider in website optimization is having three GOOD keywords for your website. It may be a keyword that has two to four words and avoid having a one-word-keyword because it is VERY competitive and has less chance for beginners to get top results. And when I say good keyword it means the keyword is competitive or many people search for it and with lesser competition. Now let’s start with the basic of On-site Optimization
1. Use the Title-Tag correctly. (<title></title>)
a. Use this tag ONLY ONE TIME. The main reason for this is we don’t want multiple pages to have the same title tag to avoid DRAGGING the score of the other pages or both page.
b. Title should include all keywords so that the targeted keywords will be seen by SE (Search Engines) FASTER.
c. The title length should not be greater than 65 characters, this is because most search engines gives lesser relevance to words after the 65th character of the title tag and only the first 65 characters will show in most browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, IE and a lot more.
d. The title should not contain more than 15 words. Too much words on the title make the Search Engine Robots confused on what the website is all about and they might ban your site for possible “keyword stuffing”.
2. Use Meta-Description correctly. (<meta name=”Description” content=”" />)
a. Use this tag only one time. Double Meta-Description makes confusion to robots and spiders.
b. Meta-Description should include all keywords. Even though Search Engines provide less points to Meta-Description nowadays but it can still add to your points and make your site both human and robot friendly.
c. Length should not be greater than 150 characters. Most search engines limit the number of characters to 150 to avoid having a long list of result pages. The most important keywords should come first in the Meta-Description, and the less important at the last.
d. Meta-Description should not contain more than 30 words. This is because robots and spiders might think that you are just “keyword stuffing”.
3. Use Meta-Keywords correctly. (<meta name=”Keywords” content=”" />)
a. Use this tag only one time. Same with Meta-Description. Multiple Meta-Keywords tag adds confusion to robots and spiders.
b. Meta-Keywords should include all keywords. Each keyword should be separated by comma. (Example: free online downloads, cell phone ringtones, fun flash games)
c. Use only relevant keywords which can be found in the content. The related keywords you put in the Meta keywords should also be seen in the content. Having keywords in the meta-keywords tag without having it in the content makes it suspicious.
d. Tag should not contain more than 10 keywords. More than 10 keywords in the meta-keyword tag is like “keyword stuffing”. Keywords and words are different so don’t be confused.
e. Write keywords in lowercase text.
4. Use Meta-Robots correctly. (<meta name=”robots” content=”index, follow” />)
a. Use Meta-Robots to control Search-Engine access.
For more information about Meta-Robots please check How to add a Meta Robots in your HTML code
5. Headline-Tags (<h1><h2><h3>)
a. Use headlines to structure your content.
b. Use H1 only one time. There should be just 1 instance of H1 in every page so that weight of the page will not be divided.
c. H1 content should be similar to title. Not really 100 percent similar but it should contain the main keywords so as to give weights on the main keywords.
d. Use H2 and H3 tags. Header tags are important as mention in the earlier part. This will help in structuring the content. H2 and H3 tags can appears more than one instance.
6. Page-Content
a. Offer unique content on your page. Search engines are very strict when it comes to content. Always make sure that contents are written uniquely so it will not create duplicate content. Usually search engines penalizes a particular website because of duplicate content.
b. Images should always have alternative texts. A lot of search engines consider alt text in determining page relevancy.
c. Keyword density for visible content should be 5%-7%. Some SEO experts say that a targeted keyword with a density of 2%-3% of the total content is already OK. Just be careful in using the words again and again because robots might think you are keyword spamming. Always think of how good your content to be read by humans.
d. Keep the links to a reasonable number (fewer than 100). This links is composed of Internal and External links. A good ratio for internal over external links is 90/10. Too many links can have an effect in your rankings. Don’t be paranoid thinking that robots might miss your pages.
7. Domain (ex: www.w3downloads.com)
a. Domain should include all keywords. This is not always the case for targeted keywords. Of course you can’t buy a very long domain name. Just buy a good and simple domain which humans can remember easily and some of your keywords are there. Nothing beats “keywords equals to domain name”, but of course your site should have good content and white hat SEO practices.
b. Don’t use IDN domains (domains with special characters). The simple reason for this is that some browsers may not be able to recognize your site and robots might think you are a hacker.
c. Use hyphens instead of underscores to separate words. This may not be concern nowadays but SOME spiders and robots may still have different views on hyphens and underscores.
d. Your domain should be older than 2 years. Domain older than two years can make the impression of stability and security. Older domains are already trusted and can have higher impact compared to new domains of the same niche.
8. Path (ex: /free-downloads/)
a. Try to keep the path short. Short paths are easier to remember and is easily understood what the page is all about.
b. Don’t use dynamic parameters. For those who are using PHP, ASP, etc, you might want to consider having a Permalink to a specific page. Avoid having dynamic paramaters such that it changed everytime a new user is going on that page. This is very annoying to both humans and robots.
c. Use hyphens instead of underscores to seperate words. (Please see domain name about this.)
d. Words in the path should be lowercase. This is just to have a standard case in the text case. Both domain name and paths should be in lower case.
e. Path should not go deeper than 3 levels. More than 3 levels makes the domain-name+path very very very long. 2 levels is best.
9. Make sure your code is semantic and valid
You might want to see the validity of the HTML and CSS codes of W3downloads in the following links below. Please try it also on your own site.
10. Optimize page load time of your site
I’ll explain this further in the coming blogs.
Tags: content, heading, keyword spamming, keywords, meta tags, robots, search engine, seo, spiders, title
