On-Page SEO

On-page search engine optimization is another major contributor to higher search rankings. On-page SEO is the act of optimizing specific keywords on the most noticeable places of a website and making it search-engine friendly. An optimized website makes it easy for search
engines to find and revisit it, crawl links, and read keyword phrases. Four elements, in turn, contribute to on-page SEO.

1.     crawl ability

2.     visibility

3.     Keyword optimization 

4.     Internal Linking

The first element is a site's “crawl ability.” The term refers to how easily a search engine can extract new content from a website.

To make the website crawl able, a company should use text links—hyper links that contain texts— in navigation.

Ajax, JavaScript, and Flash are difficult to crawl, which means that search engines will display no results for a web page containing content only in these formats. 

Yet eliminating content in these formats simply because of their  low crawl ability is unnecessary. Multi-media content can provide useful information that is search able as long as a company uses relevant text elsewhere on the site.

URLs also determine the crawl ability of a site. A straightforward, concise URL  containing keywords makes it easy for search engines to decipher what that page is about. In contrast, a URL filled with question marks, numbers, and phrases irrelevant to the page content  is less capable of providing useful information and thus less favored by search engines when people search for content related to that page.

It is also important to have a consistent URL to accrue SEO credit for a specific domain—search engines may not recognize that two slightly different URLs lead to the same web page.

The second element is search visibility, which refers to whether search engines recognize  the existence of a website. Changes in website design, content management system, or just one character in URL can destroy search visibility. When undertaking content migration or URL update, a company can take several precautions to avoid a drop in search visibility.

It can map old URLs onto new ones, identify top inbound link sources and ask them to change links if necessary, and build new inbound links to the new URLs. A business can also employ permanent  301 redirects.

A 301 redirect is the most efficient and search engine friendly method for web page  redirection. It enables a website to preserve its search engine ranking and thus visibility.

A business should also monitor site analytics including 404 not found errors and possible fluctuations in search engine rankings. With careful management and design, a site can both maintain and increase search visibility.

Keyword optimization is the third contributing factor to on-page SEO. Once a company decides which keywords to use, it needs to use them in the right places to help search engines identify them as keywords. According to a survey of over 50 CEOs who have extensive
knowledge of online marketing, keywords placed in the following locations have strong positive correlations with search rankings:

• Page Title: Defines the title of a page. Keywords preferably should be used up front.
• Name of a Root Domain (e.g. keyword.com)
• Anchor Text in Links (e.g. www.abc.com/keyword 1+keyword 2)
• Meta Description: often appears in Google search results to describe a link
• Alt Text: text that describes an image
• Headings
• Paragraph titles
• URL

Of course, keywords also need to appear in the body content on a company's website to reflect that these keywords authentically summarize information on a company website.

A side incentive for optimizing keywords is that they not only help with ranking but also may increase the click-through rate on search engines. The more keywords in a link description match with search queries, the more relevant that link appears to searchers and the higher the click-through rate. Businesses should be wary of using all keywords on one page, however,.

Using all keywords in the meta keyword tag (a place that allows a business to provide additional text for crawler-based search engines) reveals to competitors what keywords a company is trying to rank for and might lead them to compete for the same words. It is generally a good practice to focus on one keyword phrase or two per page and ensure that each page has a unique title tag, which reinforces the use of different keywords on different pages.