Search Engine Optimization Chart Contd…
In continuation to the SEO Chart post, here’s very briefly explained the steps in search engine optimization. SEO is broadly classified into two parts: on page optimization and off page optimization.
On Page optimization refers to all the strategies and techniques employed to make a website more search engine friendly. These strategies are:
Competition Analysis:
To gain top search engine rankings, you need to rise above the ranks of your competitors. This can only be done with careful study of your rival websites, testing their strengths and success strategies against your own. This process is known as competition analysis.
Keyword Research:
Keyword research is the search undertaken to find the keywords that will be most profitable for a website. Keyword research includes creating lists of possible keywords using the several tools available online for the same purpose and settling on a target few that will most likely tale the website to the top of the search engine rankings.
Develop Site Strategies:
This is a very broad area of on page optimization. It involves planning and designing a site, its structure and layout in such a way that it is both search engine friendly as well as user friendly.
URL Structure:
A proper URL structure should be developed for all the pages of the website. It is advisable not to have too many levels or folders so that the URLs do not get excessively long. Shorter URLs are user-friendlier and easily remembered. Words in the URL should preferably be separated by hyphens, as these are said to be search engine friendly.
Tags:
These formatting codes used in HTML language are used to provide basic information about the site. The title tag and the H1 tag or the header tag can be used to include important keywords in the title or the main page header, for which the site wants to rank.
Meta tags are only visible to search engines and can be used to deliver specific information to the search engine spiders.
Alt tags refer to the text that appears when you hover over an image. Search engines cannot detect images. Hence, alt tags are used to describe the image to the search engines
Content Optimization:
Content optimization involves making your web page as content-rich, meaningful and informative as possible with the right use of keywords. It is important to maintain a keyword density of not more than 5-20%, as the content should appeal not only to the search engines but also to the visitors of the site.
Internal Linking:
Having a good navigation system within a website is important not only for search engines to crawl and index every page of the site but also for visitors to be able to move easily from one page to another. For this all the major sections of a site should be connected to each other. If the internal linking system were poor or broken, the site would not be of any use to the visitors or to the search engines.
Image optimization:
The time that a web page takes to load depends on how the images on the page have been optimized. Image optimization for a website involves creating light images that do not take up too much bandwidth and that load in a reasonable amount of time. If a website contains many heavy images the site will not load fast, possibly causing the search engines and visitors to move on to other sites.
Off Page optimization is all about building links to your site. This can be done in two ways:
Links from Quality Directories:
Building links to a site through online directories is one of the oldest and most convenient methods of link building. Directory links that are obtained with relevant anchor text or link text and that come from relevant category pages in quality directories will enhance the chances of a site’s ranking high on the search engines. Since directories use the titles submitted for a site as the anchor text with which to provide links.
Links from Relevant Websites:
Besides directory links it is also very important to build links from relevant websites. These links will automatically be received when a site establishes its authority in a particular industry. This will only be possible if a site is constantly updated with relevant and unique content. Other ways of building links with quality sites could include special offers such as free software or a service in exchange for a link.
After each of these individual factors is looked into, it is important that each is constantly reviewed and updated. Only then would a site be able to rise to the top of the search engine rankings and maintain its position there.
