san diego onpage seo: search engine optimization

on page website optimization | webpage ranking factors

1. Content!

The importance and impact of unique, quality, informative content semantically relevant to the keywords and keyword phrases you would like your website to rank for cannot be overstated. Rich, engaging, well-written and non-duplicitous content is Number One!

2. Page Title

Page Title tag refers to the text that is shown at the top of a site visitor's browser window, beginning at the left top hand corner of the page when using Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or some other browser.

Most search engines, including Google, will place heavy emphasis on the title tag, relying on the keywords and phrases used as a summarized indication of the topic or subject of the page.

Each page of the website should be headed by a unique keyword rich and logical title tag of not more than 12 words.

3. Internal Link Text

The words and keywords phrases your website uses to refer to internal links such as page names, subjects, and references within the paragraphical content of your webpage.

Anchor text is the text a site visitor clicks on to navigate to the referenced page. Anchor text is usually underlined depicting a live link to visit another section or webpage.

Internal linking strategy should be augmented to reinforce the pertinence of desired keyword phrases and words.

4. Keyword Rich Content

Quality, relevant content that utilizes targeted keyword phrases semantically in a manner that reads and flows smoothly with site visitors while serving as an indicator of targeted market search queries to the engines and bots.

Search engines use word stemming when factoring in relevancy, so the word "market" would be the "stem" associated with the word "marketing", and may be treated by some engines as synonymous.

Google handles singular and plural versions of a word independently, and also delivers varying results depending on the syntax used in a query phrase, ie; search engine query results would be different for "san diego web design" vs. "web design san diego".

5. Webpage Accessibility

Search engines often have a difficult time crawling and indexing javascript links and scripts, flash websites, webpages with heavy scripting and code in the header or body of page.

Websites that use CSS and keep style sheets and script commands off-page in a separate file are more search engine friendly, and therefore more likely to be completely indexed.

Rules of search engine friendly web design and structure include:

• Make the page easy to read and crawl
• Make the webpage easy to navigate
• Make content and features easy to find
• Use consistent design and layout across the website
• Make the website quick to download and render gracefully

6. Age & History

Google places heavy emphasis on the age and history of a website when factoring in ranking algorithms. Old, established websites are deemed trustworthy, and therefore have a ranking advantage when properly optimized and maintained.

7. External Links

The quality and relevancy of external links pointing to other webpages factors in to ranking, as well as the anchor text used to describe the offpage web resources. The websites referenced, or linked to from a webpage document should be congruent with the subject of the referring site.

Avoid reciprocal link scams with low quality sites and refrain from linking to casinos and adult webpages.

8. Organization & Hierarchy

Google derives value and relevancy for keyword phrase query results by a website's internal hierarchy structure, placing more emphasis on topical pages closest to the home page. It is suggested that no webpage be further than three clicks from any other page. In other words, don't have "orphan" pages or webpages that are deeply buried and difficult to access.

In addition to website architecture and hierarchy, Google also factors in the order and positioning of page, paragraph, and section headers. It is advisable that content be written in a "pyramid" manner.

9. Alt Tags

An "Alt" tag is an image description tag that was originally implemented in webpages to assist site visitors perusing a page with an accessibility apparatus, such as specialized website readers used by blind and visually impaired users.

The alt shows in most browsers when a webpage visitor mouses over the image. Alt tags should be descriptive and on topic. Refrain from keyword "stuffing" alt tags or using excessively lengthy descriptions.

10. Link Title Tags

Link title tags are similar to alt tags, in that they are intended to be descriptive of where and what a link points to. To increase accessibility and user friendliness, it is useful if the link title tags informs the end user of whether a link points to an internal or external source.

Site visitors should be able to anticipate if clicking a link will result in opening a new browser window or leaving the current website.

11. Meta Description Tag

The meta description tag, stored in the header section of the webpage, is important because search engines often use the description tag in the search engine query results.

The description tag follows the title tag in the search engine's results, so it is important that it accurately describes what an end user will access by clicking on the choice of their search engine results page.

applying onpage optimization

The above onpage optimization factors name just a few of the hundreds, or even thousands of aspects that contribute to a search engine's algorithm.

Whether you have a current web presence, or are planning a new website launch, we can consult with you and help you make the best choices in onpage website optimization. Give us a call at 619.504.0450 or eMail San Diego Web Design Studio today!

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