On-Page Optimisation performed to a web page will help it rank higher for your keyword phrases. The top of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) is where you want your web page to appear, and on-page optimisation will take you towards this goal.

Main Navigation

The main navigation is typically placed either to the top of a web page or to the left, which is where visitors expect to see it. Anywhere other than this, and you’re just going to confuse people straight off the bat, which isn’t a good thing. Also, it is there for one purpose only and that is to help visitors find the content they are searching for as quickly and as easy as possible. If it doesn’t do this, then your menu navigation isn’t doing its job right.

Tag Clouds SEO

There is nothing mysterious about tag clouds. They are simply a collection of different keywords that when clicked display a list of pages that are all related to that particular keyword. If you click on the tag ‘keywords’, you will be presented with all my articles to do with keywords. Tag Clouds SEO offer an easy way for visitors to find the content they are looking for on your website, and another great way to optimise your website with the keywords you wish to be found for.

Footer Links SEO

Including footer links on your website is a great idea and every successful website will have them. The links here are no different from any other link, except that they appear at the bottom of the page and will typically point to all the main pages on your website. This is a great place to again promote your main keywords and more importantly keyword phrases by linking to the pages you wish to promote most on your website. Footer Links SEO is more than just repeating the menus at the top of the page.

Sitemap

The sitemap is a page that is created for one purpose – to link to every page in your website. This has several advantages if done correctly for both Search Engine Optimisation and also visitors to your website. If you have a large website with many pages of great content, you need to make it as easy as possible for visitors to find what they’re looking for. Sitemap SEO provides one more great way to help them find their way around your website, both for visitors and search engines.

Search Engine Friendly URLs

With careful consideration of your site architecture and page hierarchy, it is possible to create Search Engine Friendly URLs for every one of your pages that are optimised with all of your Keywords. Placing keywords that are directly related to that particular page in the URL helps to define its content and reinforces the theme that flows throughout the whole page.

Images

Images used well can make a website look great, but as with everything, there is a price to pay. Every image has to be downloaded by your browser before that page can be displayed properly. This takes time and depending on your visitor’s Internet connection speed, can seriously reduce the speed that your website appears. If it takes too long, they are just going to go elsewhere. For this reason, images should be used sparingly, and then only after they have been optimised to their smallest possible file size.

Header Tags SEO

These tags are defined as H1 …. H6 in your HTML code with H1 carrying the most importance and H6 the least. Including Header tags in your content is extremely important as they help search engines prioritise the content of your page. By using these tags properly, you help to reinforce what your content is saying by highlighting exactly the phrases you want to be indexed for.

The Keywords Tag

This tag is contained in the Head section of your HTML page and so does not get viewed by visitors to your website. Many years ago search engines regarded the contents of the Keywords tag to help determine the page contents and resulting page rankings, but with most good things, spammers came along and utterly abused this tag. These days, it is not taken too seriously by optimisers and so is generally ignored. However, some search engines do take a look here and so it does no harm to take a look here yourself.

Meta Description Tag

Just like the Title Tag, the Meta Description tag is also found in the Head portion of a web page and is also invisible to visitors to your website. Search engines however do like to use the contents here when displaying their results pages. If you can write a compelling tag that allows people to scan what your website is, what it does and what you offer, all in a glance, then you will get more visitors to your website. This tag offers a fantastic opportunity to really sell and promote your website exactly where it counts, on Search Engine Results Pages.

The Title Tag

This Tag is part of the HEAD section on every one of your web pages. Visitors won’t see this tag as part of your web page, but they will see it displayed at the very top of their web browser. More importantly, your Title tag becomes the clickable link that is displayed on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). If you can write a compelling, keyword-optimised Title tag that is different for all of your web pages, this will go a long way to improving your rankings.

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