Optimizing web pages is often referred to as On-page SEO (SEO stands for search engine optimization). And certainly, the time invested in web page optimization will pay off very well.
Keywords
First of all, finding and using the best keywords is crucial when it comes to getting traffic to your website. Keywords are words or phrases people use when searching for information on the internet. So you have to figure out what keywords people might use when searching for information about the product or service you are promoting.
Keywords are the one most important thing when it comes to optimizing web sites. For a thorough explanation on how to find and use keywords, refer to Finding Keywords For Your Web Pages.
Internal Linking
Linking between the pages within your website is important for your on page SEO. A good internal linking structure helps the search engine spiders go through your entire site easily. Implement an HTML sitemap on your website to make it easy for the robots to crawl your site (and for human beings to find relevant content).
Also, you should submit an XML sitemap to the search engines to get your pages indexed faster and better. This free Online Sitemap Creator creates both an HTML sitemap to put on your site and an XML sitemap to submit to Google and other search engines. Visit Google Webmaster Central for details.
Make your URLs logical and easy to read, and make them describe the content of your website or web page. For example, the URL (web address) of this very page is www.start-online-business-guide.com/web-page-optimization.html; it clearly tells what the page is about.
Like the page title and description (see below), words in the URL on the search result are displayed in bold if they appear in the user's query, making it more likely that searchers will click on it.
The anchor text in your links is also important. (Anchor text is the word(s) the link is attached to; it's usually blue and underlined and clickable.) For example, when linking to this very page, I use the anchor text 'Web Page Optimization' instead of the generic "click here". Try to have the links flow naturally into the text.
Use this strategy on all your internal linking, also when linking to images and other graphics. And make sure that you label all of your images with descriptive alt attributes.
More details on internal linking on this page: Plan Your Website Structure.
Page Title
The title of a web page (not to be confused with 'Heading' - see below) is most important as regards optimizing your web pages, because it tells both visitors and search engines what the page is all about. It's the one "thing" on your web page that carries the most weight with the search engines.
Always use your main (specific) keyword (for that page) in the title, and add another highly related keyword, if possible.
For example, the title of this very page is 'Web Page Optimization - On-Page SEO'.
The title of a page will usually appear in the first line of the search results - underlined. Words in the title are bolded if they appear in the user's search query, thus making the title stand out and more likely get clicked by the searcher.
The title is to be placed within title tags (in the 'Head' section of the HTML code of your page) like this:
.
Meta Tags
are HTML codes that are inserted into the header part of a web page, after the title tag. When people refer to meta tags, they are usually referring to the meta description tag and the meta keywords tag, but there can be (and often are) other meta tags.
These tags are not visible to humans. Instead, their main purpose is providing meta document data to search engines. Meta tags used to be important to SEO some years back, but only the description meta tag is considered to be of any significance these days. However, pay some attention to the keywords meta tag as well.
Meta tags on this page look like this (in the HTML code):
Always start your meta keywords with your main (specific) keyword, then a few related keywords (maximum five), separated with comma and a space.
The description meta tag of a page is still important concerning web page optimization, because search engines often display a snippet of the description in search results. It should be a sentence or two or a short paragraph, giving the search engines a brief summary of what the page is about.
Include your main keyword also in the description, and add a couple of other related keywords to the description paragraph. When search engines display it in their search results, words in a search query are bolded if they appear in the page's description.
NOTE: Both the title tag and the meta tags must be placed within the and tags in the HTML code of a web page. To view the code of any website, right click your mouse button on a web page and click "Display Source Code" (or similar). Then the code will be displayed to you, and you will find the title and meta tags on the upper part of the page.
Headings
Appropriate use of headings and subheadings (not to be confused with 'Page Title' - see above) in the body text will enhance visitors' reading experience and make it easier to navigate through the content of a page. The use of headings might also be noticed by the search engines. There are six sizes of heading tags, starting with
(biggest) and ending with (smallest).
The HTML code for your top heading of a page might look like this:
Top Page Heading
Validate Your Code
In some instances bad HTML code on one or more of your web pages can cause search engines not being able to properly read those pages. You may use the free W3C validator to check your HTML code to ensure the best web page optimization.
Last But Not Least
Make sure that you have unique, quality content on every single page. That's what both visitors and search engines go after. So, without good content, all your web page optimisation efforts will be fruitless, no less. (See our Writing Web Site Content page.)
However, provided you have useful content on your pages, the time and effort you spend on optimizing your web pages, will certainly pay off as regards increasing website traffic, the number of visitors, and eventually also your earnings!
For more information and details on web page optimization, please read Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (free to download pdf-document).
The HTML code for your top heading of a page might look like this:
Top Page Heading
Validate Your CodeIn some instances bad HTML code on one or more of your web pages can cause search engines not being able to properly read those pages. You may use the free W3C validator to check your HTML code to ensure the best web page optimization.
Last But Not Least
Make sure that you have unique, quality content on every single page. That's what both visitors and search engines go after. So, without good content, all your web page optimisation efforts will be fruitless, no less. (See our Writing Web Site Content page.)
However, provided you have useful content on your pages, the time and effort you spend on optimizing your web pages, will certainly pay off as regards increasing website traffic, the number of visitors, and eventually also your earnings!
For more information and details on web page optimization, please read Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (free to download pdf-document).