How Do I Build the Perfectly Optimized Page?
If you’re in SEO, you probably hear this question a lot. Sadly,
there’s no cut and dry answer, but there are sets of best practices we
can draw from and sharpen to help get close. In this blog post, I’m
going to share our top recommendations for achieving on-page,
keyword-targeting “perfection,” or, at least, close to it. Some of these
are backed by data points, correlation studies and extensive testing
while others are simply gut-feelings based on experience. As with all
things SEO, we recommend constant testing and refinement, though this
knowledge can help you kick-start the process.
HTML Head Tags
-
Title – the most important of
on-page keyword elements, the page title should preferably employ the
keyword term/phrase as the first word(s). In our correlation data
studies, the following graph emerged:
Clearly, using the keyword term/phrase as the very first words in
the page title has the highest correlation with high rankings, and
subsequent positions correlate nearly flawlessly to lower rankings. - Meta Description – although not used for
“rankings” by any of the major engines, the meta description is an
important place to use the target term/phrase due to the “bolding” that
occurs in the visual snippet of the search results. Usage has also been
shown to help boost click-through rate, thus increasing the traffic
derived from any ranking position. - Meta Keywords – Yahoo! is unique among the
search engines in recording and utilizing the meta keyword tag for
discovery, though not technically for rankings. However, with
Microsoft’s Bing set to take over Yahoo! Search, the last remaining
reason to employ the tag is now gone. That, combined with the danger of
using keywords there for competitive research means that at SEOmoz, we
never recommend employing the tag. - Meta Robots – although not necessary, this tag
should be sure NOT to contain any directives that could potentially
disallow access by the engines. - Rel=”Canonical” – the larger and more complex a
site (and the larger/more complex the organization working on it), the
more we advise employing the canonical URL tag
to prevent any potential duplicates or unintentional, appended URL
strings from creating a problem for the engines and splitting up
potential link juice. - Other Meta Tags – meta tags like those offered by the DCMI or FGDC
seem compelling, but currently provide no benefit for SEO with the
major engines and thus, add unnecessary complexity and download time.
URL
- Length – Shorter URLs appear to perform better
in the search results and are more likely to be copied/pasted by other
sites, shared and linked-to. - Keyword Location – The closer the targeted
keyword(s) are to the domain name, the better. Thus, site.com/keyword
outperforms site.com/folder/subfolder/keyword and is the most
recommended method of optimization (though this is certainly not a
massive rankings benefit) - Subdomains vs. Pages – As we’ve talked about previously on the blog,
despite the slight URL benefit that subdomains keyword usage has over
subfolders or pages, the engines’ link popularity assignment algorithms
tilt the balance in favor of subfolders/pages rather than subdomains. - Word Separators – Hyphens are still the king of
keyword separators in URLs, and despite promises that underscores will
be given equal credit, the inconsistency with other methods make the
hyphen a clear choice. NOTE: This should not apply to root domain names,
where separating words with hyphens is almost never recommended (e.g.
pinkgrapefruit.com is a far better choice than pink-grapefruit.com).
Body Tags
- Number of Keyword Repetitions – It’s impossible
to pinpoint the exact, optimal number of times to employ a keyword
term/phrase on the page, but this simple rule has served us well for a
long time – “2-3X on short pages, 4-6X on longer ones and never more
than makes sense in the context of the copy.” The added benefit of
another instance of a term is so miniscule that it seems unwise to ever
be aggressive with this metric. - Keyword Density – A complete myth as an algorithmic component, keyword density
nonetheless pervades even very sharp SEO minds. While it’s true that
more usage of a keyword term/phrase can potentially improve
targeting/ranking, there’s no doubt that keyword density has never been
the formula by which this relevance was measured. - Keyword Usage Variations – Long suspected to
influence search engine rankings (though never studied in a depth of
detail that’s convincing to me), the theory that varied keyword usage
throughout a page can help with content optimization and optimization
nevertheless is worth a small amount of effort. We recommend employing
at least one or two variations of a term and potentially splitting up
keyword phrases and using them in body copy as well or instead. - H1 Headline – The H1 tag has long been thought
to have great importance in on-page optimization. Recent correlation
data from our studies, however, has shown that it has a very low
correlation with high rankings (close to zero, in fact). While this is
compelling evidence, correlation is not causation and for semantic and
SEO reasons, we still advise proper use of the H1 tag as the headline of
the page and, preferrably, employment of the targeted keyword
term/phrase. - H2/H3/H4/Hx – Even lower in importance than the
H1, our recommendation is to apply only if required. These tags appears
to carry little to no SEO value. - Alt Attribute – Surprisingly, the alt
attribute, long thought to carry little SEO weight, was shown to have
quite a robust correlation with high rankings in our studies. Thus, we
strongly advise the use of a graphic image/photo/illustration on
important keyword-targeted pages with the term/phrase employed in the
alt attribute of the img tag. - Image Filename – Since image traffic can be a
substantive source of visits and image filenames appear to be valuable
for this as well as natural web search, we suggest using the keyword
term/phrase as the name of the image file employed on the page. - Bold/Strong – Using a keyword in bold/strong
appears to carry a very, very tiny amount of SEO weight, and thus it’s
suggested as a best practice to use the targeted term/phrase at least
once in bold, though a very minor one. - Italtic/Emphasized – Surprisingly,
italic/emphasized text appears to have a similar to slightly higher
correlation with high rankings than bold/strong and thus, we suggest its
use on the targeted keyword term/phrase in the text. - Internal Link Anchors – No testing has yet found that internal anchors are picked up/counted by the engines.
- HTML Comments – As above, it appears the engines ignore text in comments.
Internal Links & Location in Site Architecture
- Click-Depth – Our general recommendation is
that the more competitive and challenging a keyword term/phrase is to
rank for, the higher it should be in a site’s internal architecture (and
thus, the fewer clicks from the home page it should take to reach that
URL). - Number/Percentage of Internal Links – More
linked-to pages tend to higher rankings and thus, for competitive terms,
it may help to link to these pages from a greater number/percentage of
pages on a site. - Links in Content vs. Permanent Navigation – It
appears that Google and the other engines are doing more to recognize
location on the page as an element of link consideration. Thus,
employing links to pages in the Wikipedia-style (in the body content of a
piece) rather than in permanent navigation may potentially provide some
benefit. Don’t forget, however, that Google only counts the first link to a page that they see in the HTML - Link Location in Sidebars & Footers –
Recent patent applications, search papers and experience from inside
SEOmoz and many practitioners externally suggests that Google may be
strongly discounting links placed in the footer, and, to a lesser
degree, in the sidebar(s) of pages. Thus, if you’re employing a link in
permanent navigation, it may pay to use the top navigation (above the
content) for SEO purposes.
Page Architecture
- Keyword Location – We advise that important
keywords should, preferably, be featured in the first few words (50-100,
but hopefully even sooner) of a page’s text content. The engines do
appear to have some preference for pages that employ keywords sooner,
rather than later, in the text. - Content Structure – Some practitioners swear by
the use of particular content formats (introduction, body, examples,
conclusion OR the journalistic style of narrative, data, conclusion,
parable) for SEO, but we haven’t seen any formal data suggesting these
are valuable for higher rankings and thus feel that whatever works best
for the content and the visitors is likely ideal.
Why Don’t We Always Obey These Rules?
That answer is relatively easy. The truth is that in the process of
producing great web content, we sometimes forget, sometimes ignore and
sometimes intentionally disobey the best practices laid out above.
On-page optimization, while certainly important, is only one piece of a
larger rankings puzzle:
(FYI – The new ranking factors survey data is set to release very, very soon)
It most certainly pays to get the on-page, keyword-targeting pieces
right, but on-page SEO, in my opinion, follows the 80/20 rule very
closely. If you get the top 20% of the most important pieces (titles,
URLs, internal links) from the list above right, you’ll get 80% (maybe
more) of the value possible in the on-page equation.
Best Practices for Ranking #1
Curiously, though perhaps not entirely surprisingly to experienced
SEOs, the truth is that on-page optimization doesn’t necessarily rank
first in the quest for top rankings. In fact, a list that walks through
the process of actually getting that first position would look something
more like:
- Accessibility – content engines can’t see or access cannot even be indexed; thus crawl-ability is foremost on this list.
- Content – you need to have compelling, high
quality material that not only attracts interest, but compels visitors
to share the information. Virality of content is possibly the most
important/valuable factor in the ranking equation because it will
produce the highest link conversion rate (the ratio of those who visit
to those who link after viewing). - Basic On-Page Elements – getting the keyword
targeting right in the most important elements (titles, URLs, internal
links) provides a big boost in the potential ability of a page to
perform well. - User Experience – the usability, user interface
and overall experience provided by a website strongly influences the
links and citations it earns as well as the conversion rate and browse
rate of the traffic that visits. - Marketing – I like to say that “great content
is no substitute for great marketing.” A terrific marketing machine or
powerful campaign has the power to attract far more links than content
may “deserve,” and though this might seem unfair, it’s a principle on
which all of capitalism has functioned for the last few hundred years.
Spreading the word is often just as important (or more so) than being
right, being honest or being valuable (just look at the political
spectrum). - Advanced/Thorough On-Page Optimization –
applying all of the above with careful attention to detail certainly
isn’t useless, but it is, for better or worse, at the bottom of this
list for a reason; in our experience, it doesn’t add as much value as
the other techniques described.
As always, I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts and
experiences about the specific recommendations above and the general
concept of the “perfectly” optimized page.
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