Factors Involved In On Page Optimization

Search engine optimization covers the subject of both on page and off page optimization.

For the purpose of this article I shall be concentrating on factors surrounding the subject of on page optimization.

So what are on page factors? on page optimization to a large degree surrounds the correct use of keywords, not only within the content of your pages, but also within tags on your website.

Your first point of call should be looking at your business and deciding what keywords you would like to rank well for. Why do we do this? quite simply we need to analyse our top competitors and find out why they are ranking so well.

Having conducted your research you may find that the number of searches returned for your top Keyword search term appears to provide too much competition and provide us with a mountain to climb initially.

In these cases it would be sensible to look at your Keyword research and choose an appropriate keyword or phrase which whilst still providing a reasonable number of searches, provides for less competing websites.

Consider carefully the choosing of your Domain name, ideally you will want to have your prime keyword in this. This will assist in your goal of ranking well,alongside other factors to be discussed next.

So what factors can we look at to determine how well both our site and competing sites are optimized. The first thing is to make a note of lets say the top 5 to 10 competing sites. We then need to right click on our competitors website, and view the source code.

By doing this we will be able to establish how well they are optimized for on page factors.

1. Are they using h1 header tags and placing their primary keyword within them?

2. Are they using their main Keyword within the Title tags?

3. Are any of their keywords bolded, underlined or italicized

4. Are they using alt image tags and placing their main keyword within these?

All the above factors can assist you in improving your own optimization and subsequent position against your competitors sites.

Other consideration should be the use of your Keyword within the content of your pages, too much and you are Keyword spamming, hence it is important to get the correct density. Dependant on the size of your page and the content within, mentioning a Keyword every one to two paragraph's should be acceptable.

With regards to your main keyword be sure to mention it at the very top left and at the very bottom of your page on the right hand side. A possible seamless way for this to be achieved is through your copyright details.

One last thing on the subject of on page optimization is if you have two strong keywords, consider using h2 tags as well as h1 tags on your web page, remembering to always use your main keyword within your h1 tags.

This is just a basic broad outline of some of the factors that you must consider for your on page optimization.