Generally speaking, Web workers can be classified in one of three categories: merchants, service providers or information publishers. And although these are each distinctly different jobs, all of them are equally concerned about how their website optimization campaigns will impact the results of their search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns.
Fortunately, it is easy to make changes to a website that will not only improve the user experience, but also help improve search rankings. Below are 10 great SEO-friendly, on-site optimization techniques that can help fix up your website and move it up the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Title Tags
The best place to start is with your page title(s). Title tags are the titles that search engines use to identify individual pages in the SERPs. To gain higher rankings, these titles must be specific to the page, be no more than 70 characters (with spaces) and include your most important keywords.
Heading Tags
Like title tags, heading tags, which define the content hierarchy on a Web page, can be used to highlight keywords. Heading tags can range from the largest <h2> to <h6>, but all of your most competitive keywords should be represented in the <h2> tag.
Title Attribution
Adding title attributions to your Web pages is very beneficial to users from a usability standpoint (specifically when used with navigational tabs), but they can also give your SEO a little boost, as well. Just make sure your text clearly indicates what is on the upcoming page, is no more than 10 words and, if possible, implements keywords.
To add title attributions, implement this code with your unique information:
<a href="https://www.Example.com/html/services.html" title="Learn more about our SEO services">
Image Alt Attribution
Image alt attributes are a great way to add descriptions to images so that search engines can figure out what they are and optimize those pictures for the SERPs. This can bring in a significant increase in traffic. The text you add to images should describe what it is, utilize keywords (when they're appropriate) and range from just 5-10 words. They can be added to a variety of image types, including .jpg, .gif, .png and clickable buttons.
Insert image alt attributes by inserting your image information into the following code:
Meta Descriptions
By inserting meta descriptions into your page's source code, you'll make it easier for searchers to determine whether or not your link is worth clicking, while moving your page up the SERPs at the same time. These descriptions are included in the code in the header section of your page, but feel free to also add the same description to your page's footer area, so that it will also be visible. Make sure your descriptions remain somewhere between 25-40 words and, as usual, that they include all of the page's most important target keywords.
URLs
Having a solid, descriptive and easy-to-remember URL is a great way to boost your presence on the SERPs, and it can help increase the chances that users will make repeat visits to your site. And while this is absolutely crucial that you have a domain name that is indicative of your brand, the subdirectory and each individual page of content should also be optimized for SEO purposes, utilizing keywords or descriptions that will register for relevant searches. The best way to do this is just to insert each page's title into the URL, since it should already include that information and makes the URL easier to find.
Sitemap
A simple way to ensure the crawl-ability of your Web page, and ultimately improve its standing on the SERPs with little additional effort, is to make sure that you have a sitemap.xml at the root of your website. Sitemaps list the pages of a site that are accessible to crawlers or users (usually in a hierarchy). You can easily do this by using the free online sitemap generator at XML-Sitemaps.com.
404 Errors
Having a bunch of pages with 404 errors can not only totally ruin the user experience, but also the experience for the search engines that need to explore your site in order to properly index it. Plus, a big site with a lot of pages means you have even more chances to find 404s. Because of this, you must regularly check up and identify any errors on your site to maintain a good user experience and improve the crawlability of your site, which you can easily do with Google's Webmaster Tools. Just go to Diagnostics and then Crawl Errors and you'll see a whole lists of 404 errors on your site that the search engine recently crawled, as well as how many links (internal AND external) are pointing to those pages.
Content: Keyword Density
Keyword density is all about how well you can incorporate your keywords and keyword phrases into the content on your Web pages. But, of course, the most important thing is that your writing is good and strikes a natural, authentic tone; this should always take precedence over trying to appeal to search engines. Your best bet would be to try to include your keyword phrase once in the introductory paragraph of your content, once in the main body and once more in the final paragraph.
Content: Keyword Proximity
Also, if you're targeting a three-word phrase, make sure they're all included together in order, either right next to each other or with just a few words separating them. This is all about keyword proximity, which is how closely the individual words in your targeted keyword phrase are found together. Whenever it's possible, keep your keywords next to each other while still sounding natural, but if you cannot, you'll still want to keep them as close as you can (in order). Again, just remember not to sacrifice the quality of your writing just to fit keywords or keyword phrases in there.
