The Best Way to Optimize a Page for a Keyword

While it may seem like a common sense practice, content structure is one item that we find businesses failing in quite often. In this blog post, we will not cover content structure from an Information Architecture perspective; instead, we want to get a bit more up close and personal, so we’ll be covering content structure from an on-the-page perspective.

There are a number of items you can see from the graphic above that can, and should, be optimized to improve the relevancy of your web page for your site visitors and search engines.

The following are the different on-page elements that should be optimized, in approximate weight of importance:

1. Title Tag (Page Title)
   The title tag (or page title) is what shows up as the title of a web page within your browser. Additionally, this is the element that Google and other search engines use as the link that their searchers (your site visitors) will click on to enter your website from their search results.

   *Please note, recently, Google has started rewriting page titles on the fly (yep, they are potentially overriding all of our hard work!) based on their determination of “appropriateness” of the page title. This means, if your title tag is too long (approximately 60-65 characters is what you should be entering), then Google may end up changing it to a title tag they deem to be more “appropriate”. Talk about a CTR nightmare! (for more info on the findings of this, see SEOmofo’s post).

   Here is an example of how the title tag looks in a browser:

   Here is an example of how the title tag looks in the search results:

2. Page URL
   The page URL (referred to as a permalink in WordPress, or as an alias in Joomla!) is basically the address that allows an internet user (including search engines) to locate and access a page. This can, and should be optimized, based on what makes sense in terms of your content, what makes sense for users in terms of topical identification, and what is relatively easy to remember (if possible and applicable).

   Here is an example of how the URL looks unoptimized:

   Here is an example of how the URL looks optimized:

3. Meta Description
   The meta description is not a search ranking factor (with Google anyway); however, it is an important factor for click through rates (CTR) from the search engine results pages (SERP’s). You can think of the meta description as the text you use to “pitch” the page to your potential visitors. It should be a concise, direct, and appealing description of the page, that uses keywords that are relevant to the pages content.

   Here is an example of how a meta description that is optimized looks:

4. Page Headings
   Page headers are important for both your site visitors and search engines in that they provide relevancy for what the page is about. Since an “H1″ or “Heading 1″ tag is a top level header, the importance of each header (H2, H3, H4, H5) decreases.

   Page headers should be optimized to tell the user what the page is about, and capture your desired keywords (relevant to the page).

   Here is an example of how a page header that is optimized looks:

5. Images
   Images are an important part of the optimization process, and are often an element forgotten. The way you optimize an image is by optimizing 3 elements of the image:

   1. Image file name
   2. Image title
   3. Image alternate text

   Optimizing these three elements for the keywords that the image fits with can help you with vertical search (such as image search results) as well as on-page.

   Here is an example of how an image that is optimized looks:

6. Content
   As many have heard, and it is so very true, content is king. However, just because you have content, does not mean that it’s the king; in fact, there is so much content on the web that is beyond sub-par, it’s sickening.

   So, what you need to focus on is developing QUALITY, BENEFICIAL, content for your users that is unique. It all starts with a topic - so make sure to do some research before / during your drafting to find topically relevant keywords that can be used throughout the page. Variations of keywords is required (not just recommended) and will help you pull in additional traffic in the long term.

   Here is an example of how an image that is optimized looks:

So, there you have it - a well crafted, highly unique and quality driven piece of content. We work with clients ongoing to determine the best keyword choices for SEO, as well as the development and implementation of content that supports the keywords. Always remember, make it relevant, make it unique, and always strive for delivering the best value you are able to. Your visitors will appreciate. The search engines will appreciate it. And you’ll feel better about yourself at the end of the day becuase you didn’t waste your time or your buck.