SEO is far less complicated than it seems

Clouded in secrecy and obsfucation, SEO experts have made it as difficult as they can for people to understand why some website feature well on search engines and why others don't.

At 2Stroke, we prefer to cut to the chase. Search engine optimization isn't an art. It's a science. And as such, it's relatively easy to share the basic aspects of it.

It's about adhering to some straightforward guidelines and putting in some serious grunt work. The following tips address one aspect of search engine optimization - namely performing on page technical optimization so a search engine can locate content on a website.

We'll issue another blog with tips for off page activity shortly.

Title Tag
The title of the webpage is confirmed by the title tag. Search engines will recognize the title tag as the title of the page. Each page should have a unique title tag.

The Title will be displayed within the browser at the top of the browser window or tab. When someone searches for a specific word or phrase, the search engine will return a link to the website, and the Title tag will show the page's anchor text. The text in the Title tag is one of the most important relevancy factors influencing search engine ranking algorithms.

Using your most important keywords or keyphrases in the Title tag will have a dramatic effect upon your page's ranking for those keywords.

As the search engines generally truncate (cut off) excess copy, try to keep the title tag short - a max of 60 characters including spaces is generally recommended.

Use of irrelevant words (not found on the page) in your Title will dilute the impact on your preferred keywords. irrelevant phrases might also set off the search engine spam filters. Try to use your favourite words as early as possible in the Title. Try to minimize the use of filler words such as: a, an, of, on, etc., as they add to your character count and offer no value.

Description Meta Tag
Used to provide a brief description of a Web page, the Description meta tag should clearly describe the purpose of the page, for both the user and the search engines.

The importance of the Description tag as an element of the ranking algorithm has decreased significantly over recent years, but some search engines may still support this tag.

The search engines will often display the Description along with the Title in the SERPS (search engine results pages), so it can provide the user with more information on your site .

The maximum length of a displayed description varies between search engines, so wherever possible, try to place your most important phrases early in your Description tag. Try not to use more than 150 and 200 characters, including spaces, whenever possible. Google will display 154 characters, but other search engines display less. Longer descriptions are pointless, as most search engines place little to no importance on this tag.

Description meta tags are not intended for the search engines, they exist for human users. Therefore, the text should be designed with the user in mind and convert them to a buyer, achieving the best ROI for your search engine optimization work.

Keywords Meta Tag
This tag displays phrases that are descriptive of, and are found within the contents of the page. It provides some extra text for crawler-based search engines. but because so many people have abused meta tags, most search engines now ignore this tag.

We understand that only Inktomi still uses keyword meta tags.

Similar to the Meta Description tag, you shouldn't exceed the number of captured characters within the Keywords Meta tag. limit the tag to a max of 20 keyphrases, separated by commas.

All keywords listed in the Keywords Meta Tag should appear at least once in your content, or they may be considered to be irrelevant. Try to avoid repetitions, to prevent penalization by the search engines for keyword "stuffing". The most important keywords should be listed first, to increase their visibility for the search engines that still consider this tag when establishing your pages' rankings.

Heading Tags (H1-H6)
The Header tag is nothing more than a headline of the page, so it should be kept to a minimum. A maximum of characters, including spaces, is a good target.

All pages should have a clearly defined header tag, displaying the principal subject of the page to both the user and the search engine. Be sure to use the primary search phrase you are targeting within this tag.

It is critical that the primary keyword is located in the first heading tag on the page, regardless of its type. Placing the keyword early in the header tag will increase its prominence.

Standard rules apply for the structure of HTML pages. Written in a document-like fashion, they should include:

The title; the primary heading which describes the main purpose of the section; Subheadings each of which is used to highlights for the primary points of each subsection.

Many search engines rank the words found in headings higher than the words found in the body text of the document. Some search engines will also incorporate keywords by checking out all the heading tags on a page.

Don't try to stuff your heading tag with too many phrases, or words that are not relevant to the content in the body. Having multiple h1 tags on the same page may cause you to be subjected to a penalty by the search engines, as it may be seen in the same light as "keyword stuffing".

It is sensible to have many headlines appearing on a page, like h2, h3, etc., provided they follow a hierarchical order. The h1 should be the first heading tag, followed by the h2, then the h3, and so on.

Phrase Elements
Use the semantical tags STRONG and EM tags for targeted keywords within the visible content of your pages, but sparingly. Those tags are alternatives to the B and I tags, which can also be used, but are for visual presentation purposes only.

Alt Attributes
Resist the temptation to stuff your alt. attributes with keywords. Keyword density is of less relevance than it once was, and doing so could subject you to penalties.

Good luck with completing your on page SEO. It's the starting point for all search engine optimization programs.


The author is a seo consultant.