The following post is just a few thoughts about On-the-Page Optimization …

… and an attempt at a checklist.

Links vs On Page SEO

When optimizing a page for competitive terms, the bulk of the ranking algorithm will be based upon link analysis and site authority. Effective link building has no limit to how much it can help your rankings for competitive keywords you are targeting. Good on page optimization helps you rank for a wide array of less competitive keywords.

Keyword Density (KD) is Overrated

Some people think that more is better, and more is better, and more is better. This is not true with on-the-page keyword density. The algorithms for grading page copy are based on a bell curve. Some pages will have near-perfect term weights. But after some point, added placement of certain words does not make a page any more relevant; in fact, it can make a page become less relevant and appear more likely to be spam.

Why Focusing on Keyword Density is a Waste of Time

About half of all search queries are unique. Many of the searches that bring visitors to your site are for keyword phrases you never would have guessed. If a site is not well-established, most search traffic will be for long, multiword search phrases.

When webmasters start thinking about keyword density, many of them tend to remove descriptive modifiers and other semantically-related terms. Since some of those terms will no longer appear on the page, the “optimized” page no longer ranks well for many queries it once ranked for.

People write, search, and use language in similar ways. Thus, if you write naturally, you are going to be far better optimized for long-tail searches than some person who wastes time on keyword density will be.

If the content sounds like it was designed for engines instead of people, then less people are going to want to read it or link to it. Time spent tweaking keyword density would usually be better spent creating additional useful original content.

Over-optimizing a Page Makes a Page Likely to be Flagged as Spam

Some places try to optimize content so aggressively that the copy reads like rubbish. Traffic means nothing if people do not talk about your business or convert on your offers. Obviously, that is no good. But it gets even worse than that…some pages that are over-optimized don’t even get traffic.

Imagine a page that starts its page title, meta description, first header, first paragraph, and second paragraph all with the same word or phrase. Does that sound like natural quality information? Or perhaps more like someone trying to game the relevancy algorithms? If it looks and smells like spam then it is likely to get filtered out of the search results.

Natural On Page SEO

You have to mix it up. Sure, make the page title relevant, but don’t forget to

• mix up your phrase order
• use a few subheaders that are not keyword rich
• use modifiers and related terms in some of your subheaders and throughout the page copy

The more your writing sounds like it was crafted for humans instead of bots, generally the better it will rank. Search engines want to rank high-quality information. Think news articles more than optimized pages. If your content looks more like a newspaper article than a piece of obviously SEOed text, you are on the right track.

Each search engine has its own algorithms, and they do not all align with one another. Thus, the most effective way to improve your rankings on all search engines will be via link building, but proper page structure and on-the-page optimization play important roles in gaining targeted traffic, especially for non-competitive keyword phrases or in search engines that rely heavily on page content.

Page Specific Relevant Content

Almost every page is going to have navigation and design elements. For search engines, the portions of the page that matter most, and that you have the most control over, are the textual content parts. Make sure that every page that you want to rank has enough page specific content on it that a search engine can tell that the page is focused on that topic. If a page consists mostly of repetitive sitewide navigation or illegible images it is hard for search engines to trust it or know what it is about.

You can create this kind of content by adding manufacturer details, editorial reviews, customer product feedback, product comparisons, and lists of recommended similar or compatible parts.

Use Keywords in Headings

Use keywords in headings and subheadings throughout the page—this heading should capture the person’s attention and tell them they are in the right place. Think of these headings like you would a heading in a newspaper; a classic, straight SEO approach might be

<h1>Optimize Web Pages – Learn SEO Copywriting</h1>

You may wish to use something with a call to action as well. That would appear more like

<h1>Learn SEO Copywriting Techniques that Drive Killer Converting Search Engine Traffic </h1>.

Heading tags go from H1 to H6, with the biggest tags being the smallest number (i.e., h1 renders the biggest font). You can change how the text appears with CSS. I usually try to get some of my primary and secondary keyword phrases and similar phrases in my page heading as well as in many subheadings.

I recommend using a single H1 tag on each page. I also try to use many H2 or H3 tags to break up the page copy and help structure the data.

Break the Page Into Pieces

h1 (consisting of primary keywords and a modifier or call to action) Only use one h1 tag per page and do not bold or emphasize it. It probably works best if it is different than your page title – different phrase order, singular vs plural, and substitute synonyms where it makes sense.

Examples of subheadings can be as follows:

h2 (similar subtopic idea with some related keyword phrases in it)

paragraph blah blah blah

h2 (another subtopic with some semantically related words)

paragraph blah blah

paragraph blah blah blah

h2 (Many subtopics do not have the same keywords as the page title and main heading. If you are writing for conversion, not all of them will, which is also good for SEO. If your page title and your headings contain the exact same keyword phrase it may look like an attempt to manipulate search relevancy. Mix it up. Keep it natural looking.)

h2 (Don’t forget to change word order and use plural and singular versions)

unordered list

paragraph blah blah

h2 (another subtopic focused on another niche)

paragraph blah blah blah

paragraph blah blah blah

Usually the subheadings will focus on a keyword phrase that is slightly more specific than the main heading.

The next example set is going to contain a bit of self-promotion, but that is not really the intent. It is hard for me to think of structuring content without thinking about a topic, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to tell people to copy any of my pages or client sites.

Example of a Liberal Use of Subheadings

Descriptive, reader-focused subheadings improve the usability of your website, both for search engines and people. If I wrote a page about applying for a job, the page title and headers might look something like this:

<title>Search Engine Optimization Guru Looks to Help 1 Lucky Client</title>

<h1>Online Search Engine Optimization Expert for Hire</h1>

<h2>Aaron Wall: Your SEO Expert</h2>

<h3>Author of SEO Book: A Well-Known Search Blog</h3>

content

<h3>Top Selling Marketing Book Author</h3>

content

<h2>History in the Search Community</h2>

<h3>Speaker at Search Engine Strategies & WebmasterWorld</h3>

content

<h3>Directory Editor at Major Directories</h3>

content

<h3>Moderator at Many Professional Webmaster Discussion Forums</h3>

content

<h2>Search Engine Ranking Achievements</h2>

<h3>Search Marketing ROI Results</h3>

content

<h3>Client Testimonials</h3>

content

Don’t Go Crazy

Headings help structure the information, but you shouldn’t overdo it. If you start doing things like placing all your content in an H1 tag, bolding the H1 tags, or bolding all occurrences of your keywords, then you are doing things that would give search engines a reason to discount your page. Thus, the combined effect will be more likely to hurt your rankings on multiple fronts, since your content may look less appealing to search engines and site visitors will be less likely to buy from it or link to it.

Place Your Keywords Where it Makes Sense

After the headings, the rest of the page copy is usually written with sales conversion in mind, and I do not pay too much attention to optimizing it for search engines other than adding in a modifier here or there and making sure that I have mixed up the phrase order of core keywords in some spots. Natural writing should cause you to use your keywords throughout the text.

If you are struggling to get your keywords into the page here are some ideas:

• Place keywords in normal body content.
• Place keywords in heading tags.
• Place keywords in img alt tags.
• When the word is part of a small statement making a specific point, you may bold it or italicize it.
• You may also want to include your keywords a few times in bulleted lists.
• When possible, place the keywords in links, and don’t forget navigation.
• Don’t focus on just one core keyword over and over again. Mix in many variations.
• The key focus of the page should be on readability. If the page does not make sense to human eyes, then it is no good for a search engine and it will not make sales. You want to use keywords, but not to the point where it sounds like you are writing for the search engine and not the user.
• When in doubt, ignore the keywords, write your article for people, and then come back to it and make sure you covered all the important topics you wanted to cover.

Use Variation

Since latent semantic indexing-type algorithms may be able to detect unnatural copy that lacks related terms and will score hyper-focused repetitive unnatural text as being less relevant, it is important to use some mixture of terms and phrases (i.e., in some spots you want to use terms related to your keywords and not just your keywords).

If you took your core keyword out of the page copy and replaced it with blanks, would humans to be able to understand what the document was about? If they could, you are in great shape.

Be Creative

There are so many creative ways to mix in your keywords. Assuming we wanted to target eat cheddar, we could write the following:

Spread Your Keywords Throughout the Page

Some of the more recent algorithms may have the ability to look for natural language patterns. In natural language, the different words in a keyword phrase will appear spread apart from one another in some occurances. To boost your rankings in these algorithms, you will want to use the word eat in some spots and cheddar in other spots.

Often your keywords will appear next to each other naturally. Some words like peanut and butter often occur together, but in general, all of your occurrences of the keywords should not be together unless that is how they would appear in a newspaper article about your topic.

Keywords Near the Beginning of the Source Code

Keywords near the top of the page, and before your navigation, may be weighted more heavily and enhance your search engine rankings. Search engines care about the order the content appears in the page code more than on the screen.

Reorganizing the text can easily be accomplished by writing a sentence above your branding images or through using a floating DIV or another CSS technique. When using tables, some people use a blank cell technique to make the search engines see the body content before navigation. If search engines weight where the keywords are on the page, then they most likely use the order of the words in the actual page source code and not the visual display of the pages.

Microsoft did research into visual page segmentation, and Google hired some lead Firefox programmers away from Mozilla. As computer clock cycles get more efficient, if they can improve relevancy by looking closer at how words appear on displayed pages, they will factor that into their algorithms. But likely they have easier relevancy wins elsewhere.

Page Copy Length

Clarity and formatting are more important than shear length of copy. Rather than aiming for an arbitrary word limit or cut off, you should write pages of varying length based on the goals of the page. For example, if you want to make a page look comprehensive and use that idea as part of your marketing strategy it makes sense to make that page longer than it needs to be. If you are trying to quickly communicate an important idea it does not hurt to publish that page with less text on it.

No matter how long you make it, ensure you use sub-headers, short paragraphs, bulleted lists, graphics, and other goodies that help break up the text. Most people scan before they read.