Search Marketing Blog
SEO Best Practices - How To Assess On-Page Optimization
In a perfect world every Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign would involve a site redesign. Unfortunately, the reality is, the majority of SEO campaigns are conducted on existing sites. For Web site owners it can be worthwhile to conduct a periodic SEO site assessment. Here are 10 things you can do to help assess the SEO status of your site.
1. Title Tags
Title Tags are arguably the most important component of effective on-page SEO. In addition to keyword ranking performance, properly optimized title tags improve click-through rates (CTRs) from the search engine results pages (SERPs). Review each Title Tag on your site for optimal length (up to 70 characters), targeted keywords and uniqueness.
2. Meta Description Tags
Meta Description Tags may not be a significant component of search engine rankings, however they do impact CTRs. Often search engines display the Meta Description Tag directly below the Title Tags on SERPs. Make sure your meta description tags are unique, accurately describe the page content, and have an enticing call to action if appropriate.
3. Information Architecture
Proper information architecture (IA) is essential to building a successful search engine optimization campaign. IA is essentially the structural organization of a site. A site must be logically organized in such a way that the content is easily accessible to visitors. Refining a site’s IA can help organize future content additions which in-turn help with link building. Assess your site’s IA by making sure your site structure flows broad to detailed.
4. Optimized Content
Keyword rich, unique content is paramount to a successful SEO campaign. It improves search engine rankings and attracts inbound links. Don’t concern yourself with keyword count and density, instead consider the following: Does your site have content supporting your targeted keywords? Do you utilize semantically related keywords in your copy?
5. Internal Linking
Internal links within your Web site can help describe the content of a page to the search engines. By adding internal links to your content you can potentially improve your rankings and get new content quickly indexed. If you have a blog, there will be a plethora of opportunities for internal linking both on new posts and older posts. Assess your internal linking by looking at the number of links as well as the anchor text you use. Make sure you mix up your anchor text and do not use the same keywords over and over.
6. Canonical Issues
Canonical issues are the result of having duplicate content displaying on multiple URLs within the same Web site. For example, engineworks.com and www.engineworks.com and www.engineworks.com/index.php all host the exact same content. Canonical issues can affect search engine rank, specifically because the search engines do not know which URL to associate content and inbound links with. Make sure that all non-preferred URLs redirect at the server level to the preferred URL.
7. Duplicate Content
Duplicate content issues generally involve substantial blocks of content within or across domains that are exactly the same or are very similar. This is especially common in blogs. Duplicate content issues can lead to lowered rankings and penalties. Take a look at every page that is indexed by the search engines for pages that are exactly the same but served up at different URLs.
8. Directory & File Naming
Using targeted keywords within directory and file names is a commonly overlooked on-page optimization tactic. When assessing your site’s file and directory naming conventions look at your URLs. Do you use targeted keywords or are the they a jumbled mess of server variables? Does the current naming conventions utilize hyphens (-) to break-up keyword phrases?
9. Accessibility & HTML Structure
Make sure all of your content is accessible to the search engines and that you utilize semantically correct HTML. Does your HTML incorporate H1, H2, etc. tags? Are you using targeted keywords in those tags?
10. HTML Site Map
In addition to providing useful navigation, HTML site maps enable deep content to be indexed by search engines through relevant internal links. Does your site have a HTML sitemap? If so, does the HTML sitemap links incorporate targeted keywords? Does the HTML sitemap link to all of your pages?
Please let us know if you have any additional criteria for assessing on-page SEO.
10 tips para mejorar la optimizacion de una web | Posicionamiento en buscadores 02.09.2008 at 12:47 pm
[...] engineworks nos recomiendas 10 cosas que nos pueden ayudar a la creación de un sitio web, con trucos SEO [...]
ArticlesGarage.com 02.10.2008 at 4:58 am
Hi
I have 2 small questions maybe you are kind enough to consider answering:
1. Have you ever had a problem with not redirecting the domain,com to the http://www.domain.com or vice-versa? I believe this is more than a myth and has no impact- of course I refer to the duplicate content issue you mentioned, not building links different versions which makes sense.
2.Also have you tested the impact of Heading tags on rankings? I also believe it won’t make a difference.
Thanks and hope you can answer my questions. :)
Kent Schnepp 02.11.2008 at 8:36 am
ArticlesGarage -
1. Take a look at #6 “Canonical Issues.” To answer your question, yes, we have experienced problems with not redirecting the non-www version to the www version. Specifically, on a larger sites with a significant amount of content. For additional information on canonical issues, take a look at this post on URL Canonicalization by Matt Cutts.
2. We have tested the impact of using targeted keywords within header tags and have seen improvement in rankings. We don’t believe that this tactic alone will help you achieve prominent rankings, but instead is one component of a comprehensive SEO campaign. For additional information please take a look at this post on Google Search Engine Ranking Factors.
Thanks for the comments!
ArticlesGarage.com 02.11.2008 at 9:32 am
Hi
Thanks for answers. I wanted to know if you experienced in the real life anything related to these 2 questions. Thanks for the links - but they don’t answer my questions . There are lots of myths and “do that, don’t do that” in seo today but so few case studies
Cheers
Kent Schnepp 02.11.2008 at 9:40 am
ArticlesGarage -
Unfortunately, we do not have any case studies specifically on either subject, instead they concentrate on the overall performance of our SEO campaigns.
Kent Van Vleet 02.25.2008 at 12:31 pm
Kent,
Do you see the placement of an html sitemap you mention in #10 critical? Is placing the link at the top of every page vs. having a single link on the bottom of every page better? Should the link be placed both top and bottom of every page?
Also per duplicated content: Is providing a PermaLink for each blog entry a fix for duplicate content?
Thanks
Kent Schnepp 02.25.2008 at 7:49 pm
Kent -
The location of the HTML sitemap link will not have any impact on search engine rankings. Just make sure that humans are able to find it!
Permalinks can actually cause duplicate content issues on a default WordPress installation (I am asssuming you are using WordPress). There are several WordPress plugins that solve this problem. Take a look at the Permalink Redirect WordPress Plugin.
Betty 02.26.2008 at 2:09 pm
I use the all in seo plugin on my blogs and I have no problems whatsoever with duplicate content like I used to have before. Now Wordpress is very likely the best CMS on the market and is free.
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IPO Services 05.07.2008 at 5:32 pm
These are all good basic SEO tips. Internal linking, titles, URL’s, quality backlinks, and quality content are all what I focus on to achieve high rankings in the SERPS.
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