If On-Page Factors tend to be a little discouraging at first, wait until you’ve gone throught to whole content. In the end, you’ll realise that it doesn’t take more than applying some proven approaches with this SEO elements in order to optimize your site’s Google ranking.
Title Tag
Google doesn’t require the keyword phrase to be used in the webpage’s title in order to get a top ranking. Still, you’ll want to use the keyword phrase with the Title. Too many SEOs base their entire title tag optimization tactic simply on throwing a keyword phrase in it and squeeze a couple of links with that keyword phrase as anchor text.
Total Words in Title
You should want to keep this number to a maximum 8, or 65 characters long. The reason why I’m suggesting this is because of ”Click-thru” rate. It doesn’t you any good if you rank on
the top 3 with the SERPs and title isn’t clicked on. By the way, when working on your SEO strategy your action should always be guided by this trio: ranking, click-thru, conversion. A top ranking is worthless without a good click-thru rate and a good click-thru rate is also wasted without a satisfying conversion rate.
Remember to write a focused title and limit it’s lenght to eight words or 65 characters. Long titles are scanned with dificulty by your prospects and those generic titles don’t apply properly to the searchers needs; consecvently neither of these two will get you click-thrus.
The Title in itself is not as effective at getting you well ranked, it is VERY effective at gaining the click-thru to your site. So making your title more READABLE and COMPELLING is your primary concern.
Meta Description Tag
Although Google shows the text found in the Meta Description, this tag isn’t used within Google so-called “secret formula”. This text is used only if it contains the targeted keyword phrase which was searched for in the search engine. If it’s not found, Google attemps to use text that contains those terms from within the page in order to give a better description of the site. When there is not enought text, Google pulls from another sources, such as:
1. ODP Description
2. Meta Description Tag
3. ALT Text (usually the first ALT Tag encountered)
4. First text found on page (usually the heading)
5. Body text
6. Navigation bar on left portion of the page
7. Copyright information
8. Text from the area around where the keyword phrase is used
This could get kind of messy if Google composes a hazardous, illogical text for your site description.
Total Words in Meta Description Tag
Keep it to a maximum of 25 words or 165 characters long, extremely compelling and focused. Your goal with the Meta Description Tag is to get your prospect to click the link. It really doesn’t matter how near to the front is your targeted keyword phrase. Only make sure it is there.
Meta Keyword
Sorry but, Google does NOT index this tag for ranking purposes.
Total Words in Meta Keyword
Like a recommendation, I should say continue using this tag because Yahoo! and MSN still index it. Be careful not to include “money phrases” in this tag unless you want your competition to steal your hard earned keyword research.
Important note: Any phrase you use in this tag must also be included in the body text, or it may be perceived as Spam.
Keyword density in content
The counting results don’t include The Title, Description, Keyword, Comment Tags, Alt Tags, the left and right gutters or the top and bottom navigation. Also understand that Google is pretty skilled at reading page design. The actual content area is graded at a higher level than the content in the gutters. This can come in handy when optimizing, and building/designing your pages. You should use the highlighter tool with the Google Toolbar as a great way to see the on-page factors at work.
There are available tools which can measure keyword density in a contentt. In general, you rarely find two results from two different keyword density tools to give the same result. Best way is go manual check.
One thing is certain, good content remains the king of SEO.
ALT Tags
These days, ALT Tags can only be used with effectiveness in terms of aesthetics to help the user navigate your site better. More than half of top ranking pages do not use their keyword in any ALT Tag on the page. Days when ALT Tag where used to boost rankings are long gone… for over three years now.
Comment Tags
Are still overlooked by Google and thus the best way to use them is how they were intended to be used – leave yourself or the webmaster notes on the construction of the site.
Domain Name
Composing a domain name with the targeted keyword in it isn’t as affective as many SEOs advertise it is. The alternative to this is branding with a Good Domain Name
PageRank
Although a patern seems to be distinguished – as top ranking pages generally tend to have a good PageRank, usually 4 or better, it’s not uncommon to find top ten pages with a PageRank of 0.
Their importance in Google ranking is faltering.
From the Google webmaster central help page:
Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images. If you must use images for textual content, consider using the “ALT” attribute to include a few words of descriptive text.
Make sure that your elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.