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Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can be broken down into two broad areas. Off Page and On Page. Off page optimisation basically concerns itself with links back to your site, where they came from and how they are established. On Page optimisation covers the things you can do to the pages in your web site to make them easier for search engines to read them and evaluate them as being a credible and important resource.

On page optimisation will not, of its self, bump your site to a number one ranking within Google but it will help - a lot. In some ways it is more important than off page strategies because it lays the foundation from which you can build.

The following guide will help you understand the requirements for On Page Optimisation and help you prepare your pages better.

The first and most essential step is to select your keywords for each page. Look at the content of each page and research what keywords will be most appropriate for that topic. You can use on line tools to give you suggestions and help you define your list of terms.

Choose carefully and try to select keywords and terms that are used by your target market but are not too competitive. A search term that appears prominently on 1 million competing sites is not going to make it easy to get you a page one position in Google.

Include your keywords in the meta tags of your page. These are special areas of your pages source code that tell the search engines about the content of the page. They are not intended to be seen by people visiting your page. Look at the source code of your page and they will appear close to top something like:

<meta name=’description’ content=’Showpage is the best web design company on the Central Coast’/>
<meta name=’keywords’ content=’web site design, seo, central coast’/>

The keywords should appear in the title tag of your page. This is the text in the title bar of Internet Explorer or whatever browser you are using. While not strictly part of the pages content, this will be the title shown in any results returned in a Google search.

When you write the content of your page be sure to use a structured format. Try and use the heading levels and nest them correctly. This will go in your favour by the search engines as they will see that your pages are structured logically and correctly. Where possible include your keywords and phrases in these headings.

Through the body of your text italicised and bolded key phrases will help give them weight in the search engines evaluation. Try not to go overboard though as this will have the opposite effect. Once or twice on a page is usually sufficient.

Keywords that appear earlier in the pages content usually attract a bigger weighting score than those lower down the page.

Images require special attention and it is an area where a lot of web pages fall down. At the very least every image on the page should have alternative text such as:

<img src='logo.jpg' alt='Showpage web design'/>

Better still if the alternative text is a keyword or phrase. Another tag commonly missed is the Title tag. While not exclusively used images it can be defined as an invisible caption and another place to include keyword information such as:

<img src='logo.jpg' alt='Showpage web design' title=’Web design’/>

Any links you have on other pages on your site which link back to the page you are optimising should also be changed to include the keywords for the target page. For instance if you have a page listing your services avoid links such as “click here” re-write them to say something like “web design services at Showpage”. You can also use the Title attribute with links. This will give you another place to drop key phrases into the code of your page.

The file name of your page can also be used to improve your on page optimisation. By including keywords in the pages file name you, by default, include them in the pages URL. So instead of naming the file “page1.htm” call it “web_design_services.htm

The page URL changes from www.showpage.com.au/page1.htm to www.showpage.com.au/web_design_services.htm giving it more relevance and adding to the pages credibility for the search engines.

It goes without saying to avoid the dubious ‘Black hat’ optimising techniques. Filling your pages with hundreds of repetitive keywords along the bottom of your page. Colouring them the same colour as the page background or trying to hide them by making the type too small to read will quickly get you penalised by the search engines. Likewise don’t bother with key terms which are not relevant to your page, there is little point attracting visitors who don’t want to be there. They will simply leave immediately and more importantly the search engines won’t be impressed.

One last point before I finish. Review existing content regularly. As you add new content to your site, look back at existing pages and see if you can create internal links between the pages. The search engines will be impressed and your site visitors will stay longer.

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