Search Engine Optimisation #Part 3

Posted on 09. Mar, 2006 by Andrew Watson in SEO & Search Engines

As discussed in the article ‘search engine optimisation #1‘, following a successful keyword investigation, the next phase is to undertake onsite optimisation of your content. The following is a short description of the list of elements that are required to change, in order to improve your search engine results listing position.

Page URL:

The URL is the address of a web page, for example “www.domain.com/index.htm”. This section describes how to use the search term in the URL. When you create web pages with search terms in the URL, separate them with dashes.
Example: http://www.your-keyword.com/your-keyword/your-keyword.htm

Document (Page) Title:

The document title is the text within the <title>…</title> tags in the HTML code of your web page. This section describes how to use the search term in the document title.
Example: <title>Your web page title</title>

Meta Keywords:

The Meta Keywords tag allows you to define which search terms are important to your web page according to your opinion. It should be placed between the <head>…</head> tags in the HTML code of your web page. This section describes how to use the search term in the Meta Keywords tag.
Example: <meta name=”keywords” content=”keyword, another keyword”

Meta Description:

The Meta description tag allows you to describe your web page. This section describes how to use the search term in the Meta Description tag. Some search engines display the text to the user in the search results.
Example: <meta name=”description” content=”This sentence describes the contents of your web site.”>

H1 Headline Texts

H1 headline texts are the texts that are written between the <h1>…</h1> tags in the HTML code of a web page. Some search engines give extra relevance to search terms that appear in the headline texts.
Example: <h1>your very big headline text</h1>

H2-H6 Headline Texts

H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 headline texts are the texts that are written between the <h2>…</h2>, <h3>…</h3>, etc. tags in the HTML code of your web page. Some search engines give extra relevance to search terms that appear in the headline texts.
Example: <h3>your big headline text</h3>

Body Text

The body text is the text on your web page that can be seen by people in their web browsers. It does not include HTML commands, comments, etc. The more visible text there is on a web page, the more a search engine can index. The statistics include spaces and punctuation marks.

Body Text In Bold Type Face

The body text is the text on your web page that can be seen by people in their web browsers. The bold body text uses a darker and heavier face than the regular type face. It appears between <b>…</b> or <strong>…</strong> tags in the HTML source of your web page. CSS is not recognized. The statistics include spaces and punctuation marks.

Body Text In First Sentence

The first sentence of the body text is the first sentence after the <body> tag in the HTML code of your web page. Some search engines give more relevance to search terms when they appear in the first sentence. Some will use your first sentence as the description of your page on the search result page.
Example: <body>Here goes the first sentence. This text is not the first sentence.

IMG ALT Attributes

The <img alt> attribute defines an alternative text for an image when the user uses a text browser or when the user has turned off the display of images in the web browser application. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer displays the alternative text if the user puts the cursor over the graphic. This section describes how to use the search term in the <img alt> attributes to improve your rankings.
Example: <img src=”logo.gif” width=”200″ height=”75″ alt=”picture description with keyword”>

Same Site Link Texts

Link texts are words and sentences that are used as links. Same site link texts are the link texts of the links that point to a web page on the same domain.
Example: The HTML tag <a href=”contact.htm”>Contact information</a> contains the same site link text “Contact information”.

Same Site Link URL’s

Links connect one web page to another. Same site links are the links in attributes that point to other pages on the same domain.
Example: The HTML tag <a href=”contact.htm”>Contact information</a> contains the same site link URL “contact.htm”.

HTML Comment Tags

HTML comment tags are “hidden comments” in the HTML code of your web page. They are not visible to the user. This section describes how to use the search terms in the HTML comment tags for a good ranking.
Example: <!– comments with keywords –>

Number of trailing slashes in URL

The number of trailing slashes (/) in the URL indicates where a web page falls in a site’s overall hierarchy. If the URL contains many trailing slashes, meaning it is placed in a sub-sub-directory, then the webmaster does not seem to think that the page is important in relation to the other pages.

HTML validation of web page to W3C standards

Web pages are written in special languages called HTML and CSS. Like any language, HTML and CSS change constantly. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the governing body that establishes what is valid HTML/CSS and what is not. Search engines obey the HTML/CSS standard. If there are errors in the HTML/CSS code of your web page, then search engines might not be able to read everything of your web page.

Readbility level of web page

The Flesch Reading Ease test is a United States governmental standard to determine how easy a text is to read. It measures the approximate level of education necessary to understand the web page content. Higher scores indicate the text that is easier to read, and lower numbers mark harder-to-read texts. Scores among different languages are not comparable.

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Andrew Watson