How to Optimize Web Pages

There are two steps to optimizing a web page.

The first is to optimise the visible page i.e. what the visitor actually sees and the second is to optimize the invisible parts of the web page .. the meta tags, which the visitor doesn't see but the search engines do.

Web Page Optimization Basics

The first text that visitors see on a page should be the opening headline. This headline has two primary purposes:

To tell the search engines what the page is about
To get the reader to continue reading

Headlines are created using the HTML headline tag. There are 6 headline tags available H1-H6. Headline tags are given extra weighting by search engines and therefore it is important to use them, and not simply use a larger font size.

The opening headline uses either a H1 or H2 tag.The H2 tag is commonly used because most people find the H1 tag too large. I use the H1 tag for short headlines and the H2 for all others.

The opening headline is the most important part of the page -- don't waste it

The opening headline tag is followed by some body text which should contain your keywords/keyword phrases. Your keyword should be in the opening sentence and once more in the first 500 characters (roughly 6 lines) or opening paragraph.

Other headline Tags H3-H6

These tags are used for emphasis and again should contain your keywords or some variation of it. These are ideally used for secondary keywords. Again the body text following the headline should contain your keyword at least once.

The general structure is:

headline H1or H2-- contains keyword/keyword phrase
Body text ----contains keyword/keyword phrase at least max twice
headline H3-H6 -- contains keyword/keyword phrase
Body text ----contains keyword/keyword phrase at least max twice

I tend to use H1 or H2 and H4 tags only on my pages.

So with these simply rules in mind lets create an Headline and opening paragraph for our fictitious computer consultant.

Now other things to include on the page are:

Keywords in bold, italics, underlined-- not necessary all at once
keywords in a link
keyword synonyms
plurals and singular were appropriate/applicable

Do Not

Use a keyword phrase more than 3 times- e.g. "computer consultant services" is the phrase and should not appear more than 3 times. However the keyword computer may appear much more often and will.
Hide keywords by using a font colour that make them invisible to the reader.- Old black hat technique.
Write the page for the search engines but for the reader. It must make sense.

Over Optimizing a Page

Before proceeding it is important to point out that some search engines seem to penalize for over optimization. Therefore always err on the side of caution. You can check your pages position after a few months and adjust accordingly.

The Invisible Page Parts

Not all parts of the web page are visible to the visitor in normal circumstances. Web pages contain what are called meta tags which are designed to be used by search engines and other software tools but not displayed in a browser.

Because they are normally invisible they can easily be overlooked. However they are essential for creating an optimized web page.

So the next step in the optimisation process is to optimize the web Page Meta Tags.

Mini Course Links

Related Articles and Resources:

Here is a before and after on a web page that I found on the internet. I have changed the company name only.

Apart from the bad design which is not our concern here the page was missing the basics. My optimisation isn't complete but I'm sure you can see the difference already and it should give you an idea of what to do.

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