On-Page Search Engine Optimisation
From RKJOnline Web Design, Cheshire
To Achieve Top Rankings In Search Engines Like Google, On-Page SEO is essential
On page SEO is a key element in your overall SEO strategy of getting your website as high as possible in Google, Yahoo! and Bing etc.
The foundation of good On-page SEO is using the right keywords in the right place and in the right way. Keywords help bring “Relevance” to the search carried out by the website visitors i.e. Google will not show YOUR website in response to a search unless you are using relevant keywords to that search in your website “copy” (words on page).
It’s not all about keywords of course, which is why we have listed below the on-page actions we take first and foremost regarding On-Page SEO. Combine authoritative content, the right keywords, the trust elements, the willingness and ability to share the info about your business, your products and services and what your customers think of you, with the rest of online world, and your website will also gain “importance” in the search engine’s eyes.
Relevance and Importance = Google “brownie points” and will assist in raising your ranking above your competitors. This is something RKJOnline Web Design in Cheshire will always focus on and work hard to achieve for our clients.
RKJOnline: On-Page SEO Services
(Click to go to specific topic)
- Domain name advice i.e. use of keywords in your new website name
- Optimised Web page urls
- Keyword Research, LSI, Long Tail etc.
- Professional SEO Copywriting
- Content updates and refresh
- Titles & Tags: Meta; canonical; H1, H2 etc.
- Image optimisation
- Internal Links and 404 errors
- Social bookmarks
- Trust Gain – accreditations, approved links, Google Plus 1 button etc.
Domain Name Advice
i.e. use of keywords in your new website name:
Just as we mention in the Domain Name section of our web design information, RKJOnline will always provide help and advice if you have not yet chosen your new domain name (website name).
Your domain name is important – it is going to say to the world “this is my business and this is what we sell”. You’ll probably display it on letter-heads and business cards and many business owners think of cute, clever names or a name that play on words; as far as we are concerned, the client’s decision is final.
However a domain name can play a large part in SEO, helping the search engines find your website. What will someone who wants your services search for in Google if they don’t know YOUR company exists? They will search for the type of product or service they want.
If they want purple widgets, that’s what they will search for. If you sell purple widgets, how much easier is it going to be to find YOUR business if your domain name is www.purplewidgets.co.uk rather than www.myfirstnamemylastname.co.uk?
RKJOnline will carry out keyword research for your particular business niche to help you make an informed decision about your domain name (together with actually registering the domain name and looking after the “admin” associated with it). If you still want to choose that clever-play-on-names domain name, that’s fine by us!
To hyphenate or not: Hyphenated domain names work well when we are trying to optimise for certain keywords as they help the search engines recognise those individual words – the hyphen is seen as a space. Hence ranking a little higher on Relevance is possible.
They also are sometimes used as an alternate for popular domain names that have already been taken.
Plus they can help clarify 2 or 3 words strung together, e.g. www.thisperfectdomainname.com versus www.this-perfect-domain-name.com
However, If your marketing intention is to create a domain name and brand that will be remembered, then domain names without hyphens work best, especially if you envisage having to say your domain name out loud perhaps to a group of prospective clients.
Underscores – we would never encourage their use if only for the fact that visually they can be lost. But also, as Matt Cutts of Google states “So if you have a url like word1_word2, Google will only return that page if the user searches for word1_word2 (which almost never happens). If you have a url like word1-word2, that page can be returned for the searches word1, word2, and even “word1 word2″.
Hire us just for Domain Name help?
Yes, that’s possible – just get in touch to discuss.
Optimised Web page URLs:
If you can increase search engine rankings with properly optimised urls (the names of the web-pages you have on your website), you’ll attract new traffic to the website (and therefore potential new customers); plus by making the url structure one that human beings find easy to read, you’ll increase your click-through rate because those visitors will better understand what the webpage is all about.
RKJOnline understands the tricks of the trade with regard to optimising web page urls.
We take care to set the URL structure up carefully and to best advantage when the website is designed, thus helping to keep it stable over the years. Having to change the structure once a webpage is established, indexed and perhaps has a good page rank would be foolish and no doubt harm that web page’s ranking.
Keyword Research, LSI, Long Tail etc.:
When people search for your product or service in Google, Yahoo!, Bing etc., they use words to describe what they want. For example, these can be:
- Type of product / service required e.g. “Wedding Dress”
- Location of where they would preferably want to buy it e.g. “London”
- More specific info such as colour, material, designer name so let’s say “White”
- Action they want to take e.g. “hire” or “buy”
If you didn’t have the words “buy”, “white”, “wedding”, “dress”, “London” in your website somewhere (not necessarily in that order but it helps!), let’s face it, your website will not be shown high in the search results. If you had “wedding” and “dress” as keywords on your website, the search engines would probably list your website in the results but it would be very low down compared to websites that contained ALL those search words.
If you DID have all those keywords then your website will rank in the listings, but exactly where depends on the competition for those keywords from other websites and how your website makes use of SEO overall compared to that competition.
KEYWORD RESEARCH is a very important part of SEO; you may think you know what words people will use to search for your product or service but Keyword research can throw up some pretty interesting results. Don’t forget, you won’t necessarily think in the same way as a potential customer and they don’t know all the “in-your-niche-industry” words or in-house-jargon that you would use to search but that they would never think of.
When it comes to Keywords, RKJOnline Web Design in Cheshire:
- Aims for Long Tail keyword phrases that have a high search volume but a low competition factor – when someone uses a long-tail keyword phrase to search for a product; they are usually pretty focussed on what they want rather than just browsing.
- Aims for Targeted key phrases since by their nature they imply subject matter expertise to the search engines, strengthening the general theme of the webpage. So if the long tail phrase ”buy traditional Dutch clogs” gets a visitor onto the page, the phrase ”buy traditional wooden Dutch clogs for dancing” should convert into a customer – these people know what they want and know these types of clogs are made differently from the rest.
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Uses Latent Symantec Keywords: Latent Symantec Indexing is used by Search
Engines as part of their search analysis, when trying to decide what websites will show up in
their search results. Put simply, it’s a mathematical equation designed to find related terms
and phrases. The context in which any given word is used is a key factor. For example, if the
term “new house” is used in a web page, some semantically related terms would be:
“estate agent”, “local amenities”, “house prices”, “property type” “train stations”.
When writing content for a new website – one that we want the search engines to find quickly – we need to use words and terms like this, that are basically what the likes of Google expect to find, close to the keywords we have chosen to optimise for. Hence research for Latent Symantec Keywords is paramount to RKJOnline copywriting techniques.
Keyword Research is a starting point for SEO but it doesn’t stop there; we will test those keywords, look at the analytics for how they perform and “rinse” them i.e. refresh them, according to their success rate and how appropriate they remain. That means more research – the cycle starts again. It’s time-consuming and long-winded and the results are not instant – but it’s 100% necessary and can make all the difference to the success of your website.
Professional SEO Copywriting:
“Copywriting” is the term given to writing the words for the webpage; Search Engine Optimisation copywriting is about writing for those pages with the aim of pleasing the search engines like Google, yet still making the content attractive to the website visitor (who we want to convert into our next customer). To do this, targeted search terms (containing keywords) should be agreed with the client first, so that these can be suitably included in the right way, at the right places, within the “copy” (words on page) – for example at the start, middle and end of the web page.
In many ways, “SEO copywriting” is a term that describes and incorporates many of the other elements mentioned below: Title and Meta Tags, H1, H2 (heading) tags, image optimisation.
It also entails knowing the “tricks of the trade” that help make a webpage look attractive to the visitor – people do not read websites in the same way they read books or newspapers. Visitors quickly scan a page so as well as having lots of useful information, the page must flow and the important information should stand out.
Use of sub headings
- > bullet points
- bold
- italic
Ultimately a copywriter wants to write good, unique and authentic copy – unique in topic and in the words used – and this pleases Google very much!
RKJOnline are professional SEO copywriters in our own right.
SEO copywriting is a technique which – in our opinion – gets better with practice; one reason that we can offer 1st class SEO copywriting services is that we have had lots of practice. We take the time and trouble to talk to you about the passion you have for your business and we portray that onto the pages of your website.
Hire us just for SEO copywriting for your new website?
Yes, that’s possible –
just get in touch to discuss.
Content Updates and Refresh – Unique Copy:
Web page content is very important, going hand in hand with professional copywriting. Remember, Google likes to see content as Relevant to that which the visitor has searched for.
The aim is to create relevant and genuinely interesting content which is authoritative in nature and that people will want to read and digest. This is what the search engines are looking for too, especially in response to the specific searches that internet visitors have made. This also helps encourage links back to your site – very important for ranking higher in the search engines.
But content can easily become outdated, perhaps irrelevant. Fresh content – especially new, additional content if the original IS still relevant – is something Google rewards, especially if we keep it unique in terms of words and topic.
RKJOnline regularly review client website copy with various aspects in mind:
- Is it up to date with any changes to your business or the industry it represents?
- Should you consider a Blog for up-to-date news?
- Is it time for a testimonials page, now that your new business if off the ground?
- How about some FAQs, which new visitors would find informative and helpful?
- Are there any articles you have written or can write that would suit a webpage as well as "ezine" submission e.g. a “101” article?
At the same time we keep a check on your competitors and encourage you to do the same; we’ll look at the top ranking competitors to see how they are updating and incorporating fresh content and how often they are doing it. Are there new trends that have been missed?.
Another benefit of fresh content is that it can lead to better SITE SIZE; this does make a difference providing the web pages of the larger site are relevant and legitimate in the own right.
Plus as the site grows over time it claims the benefit of old age; longer established sites are deemed more trustworthy and “here to stay” as opposed to newer sites that could be “here today yet gone tomorrow”.
Titles & Tags: Meta; Canonical; H1, H2 etc.:
Meta Tags:
Put very simply, the code used to write web pages is called “HTML”. Within that code there are various attributes that can be used. Meta Tags are very important attributes or pieces of information within the HTML which make use of keywords to providing information about the web page and help the search engines find and rank your website.
RKJOnline use the following meta tags:
- Title: The most visible piece of information searchers will see when they look at search engine results plus search engine spiders give weight to title tags for indexing purposes. Title tags are short in length hence the skills of professional copywriters like RKJOnline are very useful here in incorporating the right keywords in the right way.
- Meta Description: Meta Descriptions provide information as to the contents of a web page. Shown directly under the Title tag on a search results page it provides a snippet of info using keywords cleverly, that should be both enticing and a “call to action”, to encourage the visitor to click on the link. Its length is more than the Title Tag but still not significantly long – presenting a challenge. Yahoo! and Bing still use this for ranking, Google does not.
- Meta Keywords: Meta keywords tags are not a major factor in ranking your website these days, but the search engines do scan them and every little bit helps. Meta keyword tags should be relevant to the specific web page, describing the main subject of the page.
Canonical Tag: used to stop punishment for duplicate content, RKJOnline use canonical tags together with 301 re-directs and Google’s webmaster tools for “www versus non www” issues.
H1, H2 etc.: These are “heading tags”. Good headings and sub headings on a web page, combined with good use of keywords, can be compelling to the website visitor as well as the search engines. We see many websites’ home pages start with a heading of “Welcome to My Website” which is a lovely gesture but a complete waste of a great opportunity to use appropriate and relevant keywords to advise the reader exactly what your website is all about! RKJOnline use heading tags within the HTML to identify important keywords to the search engines in a way which sums up the topic of the page and is a compelling headline to the website visitor.
Image Optimisation:
Search Engines can’t “read” an image so whilst images are great to show off your products or services and make your website more interesting, they are not in their own right going to help your search engine ranking.
That is unless your webmaster makes full use of the attributes images have that can help advise the search engines what the image is about – using of course the keywords you want to optimise for.
To optimise images, RKJOnline use:
- Keywords in the file name
- Keywords in the Alt Tex i.e. alternative text describing what the image is about
- Keywords in the Title i.e. the caption you seen that some webmasters employ when you hover over an image
- Keywords in anchor text that link to Images
Internal Linking and 404 errors:
Linking from one page of a website to another can be done in such a way as to help the visitor navigate through the website which can be advantageous especially if you want them to naturally land at an e-commerce page where they will buy your goods.
Linking also helps the spiders that crawl websites (in order to Index them) find their way to all the pages and naturally establish the hierarchy of the site.
Also it helps spread “link juice” i.e. the ranking power of a particular page, around the site to other pages.
RKJOnline makes full use of internal linking and uses keywords in the “Anchor text” that are relevant to the keywords the source page is trying to target. We also consider the text immediately before and after the anchor text and try to ensure relevant synonyms or keywords here - because they further indicate the relevance of the link.
404 errors can occur when links are broken for whatever reason; as part of RKJOnline’s Maintenance package, we regularly check for and fix any broken links - whether they are internal links or informative links that take the visitor to another website for whatever reason. This falls under “Site Accessibility” and an issue that is often overlooked.
We also check the status of sites that are linked to “off-page” to ensure high quality sites have not dropped in quality of status.
Social Bookmarks:
Social bookmarking involves saving bookmarks (web addresses) to a website such as facebook; you can then access these bookmarks from any computer connected to the internet.
Have a look at our footer below to see how we have included Social Bookmarks for the website as a whole.
RKJOnline provide the facility to bookmark your own website and if many people view your site and bookmark it too, the sites popularity will grow. In turn this will bring more traffic and hopefully more customers – so bookmarks are a valuable marketing tool. For more information o the value of social bookmarks, just get in touch!
Trust Gain – Accreditations, Approved Links, Google "+1" button etc.:
Trust is an important issue to a website visitor and is more likely to lead to sales. It is often an overlooked area in terms of website design and SEO but if incorporated correctly, can pay dividends.
So yes, whilst there are “tricks of the trade” that can help with gaining their trust, RKJOnline have a holistic approach to gaining trust. Everything we do is geared towards authenticity, integrity, openness and honesty.
When you come to us for a new website they’ll be things we’ll encourage that will enhance the website and go a long way to helping gain the trust of website visitors. Ask us for a full list of recommendations when we meet up to discuss your website requirement, but just a couple of example are:
- Have an open and honest “About” page, like ours, so that the visitor starts to get to know you as a person as well as more about the company’s profile
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Don’t be afraid to have “Google +1” and facebook “like” buttons on the website,
indicating the trust others place in you. If you are a new website or business it’s
OK not to have hundreds of “likes”. Quality is better than quantity and if someone has
taken the time and trouble to “like” you, that says a lot about your business.
