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If you're trying to get more traffic to your website then one thing that you must do first is optimize your on-page content. If you don’t have a lot of experience with this type of optimization it can be difficult to know where to start. In fact, I would go so far as saying that it's easy to forget how important this part of the process actually is.
That being said, there are some things that you should keep
in mind when optimizing your pages. For example, if you want to rank well in
Google you will need to make sure that you include relevant keywords in your
on-page content and use them appropriately. You also want to make sure that all
of the links that point back to your site use proper anchor text. Finally, you
will want to take care not to overstuff any given page.
There are many other aspects of on-page optimization that
you may or may not consider but these three items mentioned above are key to
getting good rankings from Google. The following tips provide additional
information on how to best optimize your webpages for maximum search engine
exposure.
Crawl Your Website
The very first step in optimizing your on-site content is to
ensure that you crawl your own website. Crawling means that you check out every
single page on your website using a tool like Site Explorer, Screaming Frog, or
another similar program. While doing this exercise you might find that certain
pages aren't indexed by search engines yet, or they are indexed incorrectly.
Fixing problems such as these before they become a problem will help your
website perform much better than it otherwise could.
Also, while crawling your entire site you'll want to pay
particular attention to your homepage and landing pages. These two areas
account for most of the visits that people make to your site. Therefore, it's
crucial that these pages are optimized properly. That way visitors won't bounce
off after seeing your home page once and never return again. It's also vital
that you track which keywords lead people to your homepage, because knowing which
words drive traffic is essential to ensuring that your site ranks high for
those terms.
Once you've crawled your entire site you can begin to
analyze its structure. This analysis will tell you whether or not your site has
the right architecture and design for optimal performance. One area that you
will definitely want to look at is the number of pages that link to each other.
Ideally, you want your site to have only five or six main pages. After that,
you can add up to 50 sub-pages. However, it depends on how long your site takes
to load how many pages per section you should allow. Also, remember that having
too many pages on your site can cause it to slow down loading time overall.
A quick way to determine how many pages you should have on
your site is to break down your total number of pages into percentages. Let's
say that you currently have 150 pages on your site. Divide that figure by 100,
and you will see that you have 15% of your total content broken up into pages.
Next, divide that percentage by 10, and you'll discover that you have 1.5% of
your content broken up into sections. Now, multiply the answer to that equation
by 5 and you'll end up with 7.5%. That tells us that we should probably have
between 6 and 8 pages per section. Of course, this isn't set in stone; you can
always adjust your numbers based on your needs and goals.
Define Your Site Architecture
Now that you've determined exactly how many pages you should
have on your site, the next step involves defining the layout of your site.
When creating your website you'll want to decide ahead of time exactly how you
want it laid out. There are several ways that you can lay out your site,
including left-to-right, top-down, and bottom-up approaches. Each approach has
benefits and drawbacks depending on the situation.
For example, a left-to-right approach works great when you
have a large amount of content that flows easily from page to page. On the
other hand, a top-down approach works well for sites that contain articles that
stand alone without any surrounding context. A bottom-up approach can work well
for sites that feature lots of products or services. Whichever method seems
most appropriate for your site, you'll want to stick with it until you run
across trouble. Then you can switch to something else.
Update Your URLs, Page Titles & Meta Descriptions
When designing your site you'll likely want to give each
page a unique address. For instance, let's say that your website features
products ranging from $20 to $50. Instead of calling each product page
"product page X" (where X equals 20 through 49), you'd rather call
each page "product page XX". Not only does this improve your user
experience, but it makes it easier for users who bookmarked the old page names
to come back later and still access their favorite pages.
You'll also want to update your page titles and meta
description tags whenever possible. Make sure that you write accurate title
tags that clearly explain what each page is about. Include your primary keyword
in the title tag wherever possible. Similarly, make sure that the meta
description for your page accurately describes what the page contains. Use the
same technique to create custom snippets of text that appear on the SERPs when
someone searches for related queries.
Finally, be aware that Google doesn't necessarily display
all of your page titles in SERPs. Because of this, it's important to focus on
writing meta descriptions that are concise and compelling enough to grab
searchers' attention.
Keyword Stuffing Is Bad News
This tip comes directly from my colleague, Danny Sullivan.
He says that keyword stuffing is bad news for both your brand reputation and
your organic ranking position. To illustrate his point he uses the term
"douchebag." Here are some examples of common instances of keyword
stuffing.
Example #1: A company sells a new line of clothing. They
want to promote the item and get more sales. So the CEO decides to place a
sentence containing the word "douchebags" somewhere near the
beginning of the product description for the item.
Example #2: A company wants to sell a car. Their ad reads:
"We sell cars! We have duchesses!"
Example #3: A company sells a new line of shoes. Its ads
read: "Buy our shoes today! Our customers love our shoes! Try our shoes
now!"
All of these sentences are guilty of keyword stuffing. But
why? Well, here's what happens when keyword stuffing occurs.
First, the phrase "buy our shoes," appears twice
in Example 3. As a result, the phrase gets repeated multiple times within the
ad, thus diluting the value of the message.
Second, the phrase "our customers love our shoes",
which is used in Examples 2 and 3, sounds like spam. People tend to ignore
messages that sound like advertising pitches and move quickly past them.
Third, the presence of the word "duchess" in the
last example suggests that the advertiser is targeting women. Women are
typically less responsive to advertisements aimed at men.
Fourth, the use of the word "today" in Example 2
implies urgency. Urgency appeals to consumers and increases sales.
Fifth, the repetition of the phrase "try our shoes
now" in Example 3 indicates that the company is desperate to sell as many
pairs of shoes as possible.
Sixth, the inclusion of the word "now" in Example
2 suggests that the company is offering a limited time discount. Again, this
tactic tends to appeal to consumers.
As you can see, keyword stuffing often leads to poor
results. Fortunately, you can avoid falling victim to this trap by keeping your
ads simple and clean.
Keep Images Small And Simple
One big mistake that people make when building websites is
to cram tons of distracting imagery onto their pages. For instance, imagine
that you're visiting a site that sells shirts. Imagine that the shirt you're
looking at has a picture of a woman wearing a bikini on it. Wouldn't you think
twice about buying the shirt if you saw that picture? Yes, you would. This is
precisely why you shouldn't overload your website with pictures unless
absolutely necessary.
Instead, you should choose a few clear, crisp photos
instead. Remember that search engines view images differently than they do
textual content. That's why it's so important to use images that complement
your written content.
Optimize Image Sizes
Next, you'll want to make sure that all of your images are
optimized correctly. By that I mean that you'll want to make sure that the file
sizes of your images are small enough to fit comfortably in a browser window.
If you exceed this limit, you risk losing valuable bandwidth.
Additionally, you'll want to make sure that the dimensions
of your images match the widths of your columns on your webpage. Otherwise, you
risk making your website look messy or distorted.
Lastly, you'll want to make sure that your images are
labeled properly. That is, you'll want to label your images with meaningful
descriptors like "shirt_1.jpg" or "shirt_4.jpg."
Conclusion
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