You may have the most aesthetically pleasing site around, but that won’t matter much because search engines rule the Internet. In order to rank high on the search engine results page, your site must give the search engines the right clues to help them know what your website is about so the right people can find your site. Since search engines can’t read your mind, you must know what factors they are using to rank your site.

 

Here’s a list of the top 56 on-page search engine optimization techniques Internet marketing experts feel affects a sites Google (and other search engines) Ranking:

 

POSITIVE FACTORS (You want to try to make sure you can adhere to as many of these as possible)

 

1.      Choose the right keywords. Everything is built upon keywords and keyword phrases. You need to know what people are searching for, how often, amount of competition, and trends. Here is a great tool Google provides to find your keywords https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal  

2.      Put your keywords in the URL or website address. The first word is the best, second is second best, ex. www.marketingtips.com/sales/coldcalling

3.      Use your keyword in the domain name. This is the same as in page name with hyphens, which are a good way to separate keywords.

4.      Write keywords in the title tag. There should be 10 - 60 characters, every page needs to have a title tag and every tag needs to be different, it should begin with the name of your business or site, then add keywords. Don’t use special characters. ex. Billionaire By Thirty> Investments> Online Businesses

5.      Add keyword in the description meta tag. Give a brief summary of your page content; try to keep it less than 200 characters.

6.      Put keyword in keyword meta tag. Provide information to the search engine about the contents of your pages. Every word should show up in the body text. Do not use a single word more than twice.

7.      Check the keyword density in body text. It’s recommended to use 5 - 20% of all keywords divided by the total words in the post. Don’t include more than 450-600 words in total on each page. Use more pages and categories if you have more to say. Divide into neat paragraphs, each paragraph should be about 3 or 4 sentences. Here is a great free tool to check keyword density http://www.rankquest.com/tools/Keyword-Density-Analyzer.php

8.      Test individual keyword density.  It’s recommended to use 1 - 6% of each keyword divided by the total words.

9.      Add keyword in H1, H2 and H3 tags. These are seen by search engines and very important. H-tags are given greater weight than regular page content. Include unique keywords with the H1 tag with a short sentence including your relevant keyword. Here is a great free tool to check H1, H2 and H3 tags http://www.rankquest.com/tools/Keyword-Density-Analyzer.php

10.  Keep keyword font size in mind. There is evidence bigger is better than smaller, not too big though.

11.  Be mindful of keyword proximity (for 2 or more keywords). A general rule is the closer the better. Here is a free tool to measure keyword proximity http://www.ranks.nl/tools/proximity.html 

12.  Understand your keyword prominence. Use your keyword at the top of the page, in a bold, large font.

13.  Try to use the exact keyword phrase order as people use in queries. You want to use the keyword phrase in the exact order you want it to show up in the search engine result pages.

14.  Put into practice keyword stemming. Use the stem of your keyword and create additional keywords by adding a prefix, suffix and pluralization, ex. market, marketing, marketer, marketers, e-marketers, e-marketing. Use throughout your site.

15.  Add keyword to alt text to describe all your graphics. Don’t use too many images.

16.  Apply keywords in links to site pages (anchor text). Don’t use too much anchor text.  Here is a great site to check anchor text http://www.backlinkwatch.com/index.php 

17.  Write outgoing link anchor text with relevant keywords.

18.  Insert internal links to internal pages. Links should contain keywords.

19.  Make sure all internal links are valid.

20.  Create you site with an efficient tree like structure. Aim for two clicks to any page, never more than four clicks.

21.  Use intra-site linking. Have efficient links between lower level pages.

22.  Have outgoing links only going to good sites.

23.  Strive for a high link stability. Avoid “link churn” (rate at which these links appear and disappear)

24.  Keep all external links valid. Validate all links as often to make sure the link isn’t dead.

25.  Maintain less than 100 total links out. Too many links out can make your site appear to be a “link farm.”

26.  Be aware of domain name extensions.  .Gov is awarded the highest status, .edu and .org sites are given a high status, .com sites are examined the most due to the number of spam sites with .com.

27.  Make an effort to keep your page size under 100k file size. Less than 40k is recommended. It’s better to have more smaller pages then a few larger pages.

28.  Use hyphens in the URL rather than “and,”  “or.” One or two are great for separating keywords; too many can be bad.

29.  Keep the URL length small, the smaller the better. It’s recommended to never go over 100 characters.

30.  Recognize the freshness of your site. We want old pages and new pages, not an imbalance of one or the other.

31.  Maintain fresh pages, with new updated content.

32.  Understand the frequency of updates. The more you update the more love you will get from Google.

33.  Look at your page theming. Try to keep your posts consistent with your overall site theme.

34.  Aim for a large site. The more original, useful content, the better.

35.  The older a site is, the more weight that it is given.

36.  A newer page on an older site will get faster recognition than older pages on old sites.

 

NEGATIVE FACTORS (You want to try to make sure your site doesn’t have any of these factors)

 

37.  The text is only in graphic form, there is no text in the body of the page. If there is no text, then you will have no keywords, thus making you invisible to search engines.

38.  You have an affiliate site with no unique content.

39.  The website is overly optimized. There is a high keyword or H1 tag repetition.

40.  Linking to bad neighborhood sites. Here is a great free tool to check this http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/text-link-tool.htm 

41.  A site automatically redirects visitors to another page using meta tags refresh.

42.  Your site has bad language or racial terms.

43.  Poison words or words that are deemed as spammy.

44.  Too much cross linking all under one host will tell the search engines that you are one unit.

45.  Stealing images and text from other sites.

46.  Keyword stuffing or adding too many keywords to your site. Here is a great free tool to check this  http://tool.motoricerca.info/spam-detector/

47.  Keyword dilution or targeting too many unrelated keywords on a page.

48.  Editing your content too often can reduce consistency. Don’t change your content too frequently.

49.  Don’t use frames because the search engines have trouble differentiating one page from another.

50.  Don’t change your anchor text too frequently.

51.  Too much Javascript. Don’t use redirects or hiding links.

52.  Don’t use single pixel links. If your links appear to be hidden you will be penalized.

53.  Too many flash pages will hurt you because flash is hard to read by search engines.

54.  Not using an index tag with harm you become your competition will be.

55.  Don’t use an invisible text, which is text in the same color as the background and not easily seen by the viewer.

56.  Don’t have too much duplicate content.

 

Having a basic understanding of how does Google works is extremely important. While it is very difficult to adhere to every factor, keep them in mind while creating and optimizing your site.

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