Over the past few posts I’ve discussed some more creative ways to build and bait links, so I thought it was time to go back and cover a basic, yet essential topic - On-Site SEO.

Before I go too much further, I should point-out that there are 200+ factors to be considered when doing a full optimisation campaign. Every industry and website is different, so one technique that might work well for one business may not have the same results for another.

On top of that, it’s also important to understand that whilst applying the steps in this article will help make the search engines crawl and index your site more effectively, you’ll still need to incorporate off-site techniques (such as having a solid network of relevant inbound links), utilise social media and other forms of online and off-line marketing etc. to achieve the best possible results.

1. Content, Content, Content (oh, and… Content)

The most important part of any website is it’s content. Without interesting, compelling and relevant content you won’t be able to gain inbound links and more importantly you won’t be able to make many (if any) sales.

The more content you have the more authoritive you’ll appear to your clients and the more information the search engines will have to index. This is especially important for attracting long-tail searches.

It may seem daunting trying to come-up with new things to write about and add to your site on a regular basis, but it can be easier than you think. Try starting a blog or a regular newsletter. If you’re really struggling, you can always delegate the task to a staff member or hire a professional copy writer. It will be well worth it in the end.

2. Navigation Structure

Keep your navigation structure as simple and text-based as possible. Whilst shiny animated navigation buttons might look nice, they can make it hard for the search engines to effectively crawl your site. What’s the point in having a flashy looking website if it never gets indexed and no one can find it.

If it’s important in your industry to have a site that has all the ‘bells and whistles’ then at least use a text-based navigation menu in the footer of your pages, try and use bread-crumbs throughout the site and be sure to have a sitemap.

It’s also a great idea (if possible without making it look spammy) to incorporate some of your keywords into the anchor text in your footer navigation menu. For instance, if your site is about blue widgets, instead of making the link back to your index page say ‘home’ you could change it to say ‘blue widgets homepage’.

One final side-note on navigation - when linking back to your index page make it link back to the full URL of your site instead of index.htm as this can help prevent canonicalization.

3. Don’t Flash

As mentioned above, having a Flash website might look very impressive - but what’s the point if no one will ever find it when they do a search.

I try to avoid flash at all possible costs, but if you have to use it, make sure you read - How to get Google’s attention if you’re a Flasher

4. Title Tags

Title tags are (and have been for the past few years) one of the most important on-site SEO tools a webmaster has at their disposal.

Here are some Do’s and Dont’s for structuring your title tags:

• Don’t use the same tags on every page
• Don’t put your company name (unless you’re main purpose is branding) at the start of your title tag
• Do put one or two keywords in your title tag, but don’t overdo it otherwise your site will look spammy to both humans and search bots - just make sure the tag is both readable and relevant to your site

Aaron Wall has a great video on Google & SEO Friendly Page Titles

5. Meta Description Tag

Strictly speaking, this tag has no SEO benefit - but it is still important. Why? Because a good description can be the difference between someone clicking on your site instead of your competitors that may appear above or below you in the SERPs.

Since it technically doesn’t relate to SEO, I won’t go on about it, but Aaron Wall does yet another good video on how to Optimize Meta Descriptions

Also, whilst on the topic of tags, Matt Cutts also gives some helpful advice in his video - Anatomy of a search snippet.

6. Heading Tags

Well optimised heading (H1, H2, H3) tags not only help the search engines determine what a page is about, but it can also help make your page more readable by breaking-up the topics into appropriately titled sections.

Try and mix mix things up so that you don’t have the same keywords mentioned in your Title Tag and Heading Tags.

7. Keyword Density

There have been many statistics thrown around over the years about what is ideal number of times to mention your keywords throughout the body of your text. I personally don’t aim for a certain percentage and instead encourage my clients to come-up with great content that focuses on their business’ core products and services. By doing this, you’ll naturally incorporate your keywords throughout the text without it looking overdone.

If you want to go one step further, you can also highlight your keywords by making them bold or in italics, but once again, it’s important not to overdo this as it can make great content start to look spammy.

8. Image Tags

Use the ALT attribute to apply meaningful descriptors to your images. This can help your site rank for image searches and makes the site more usable if people are viewing your page via a mobile browser and have images disabled.

9. Keywords in Domain and URL

Having your keywords mention in your domain name or in the names of your pages can be a great way to ensure people use your keyword in the anchor text when they link to you, plus they will appear in bold in the SERPs when someone searches for those terms.

With saying that, it’s far more important having a memorable, concise domain than a name consisting of 20 keywords held together with hyphens with a .net at the end (eg. www.this-is-not-an-ideal-looking-domain-name.net).

10. Be sensible about everything

All the points above can help, but you can also easily go overboard by using the same keywords over and over again in your page names, titles, headers, meta tags, in bold throughout your content etc. etc.

Just use your common sense - try and read through your page objectively and if it flows well and looks good you really shouldn’t have anything to worry about. If you have trouble being objective about your own site, get a friend or family member to have a read and give you feedback.

A couple of other useful resources that cover on-site (and off-site) SEO in great detail are:

• Aaron Wall’s SEOBook - a brilliant resource if you are interested in SEO
• SEOmoz’s Search Engine Raking Factors

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