Before we dive into the details, it is important to recognize that almost all the structural elements assigned at a page level (with the exceptions of links) fall into the category of tags. Tags at their core are just way to describe the meaning of non text based elements (image tags, as an example, provide text descriptions of images) or putting greater emphasis on certain elements or text within the content. And for all practical purposes these tags are controlled using html. In using tags for SEO purposes, your objective should be to include as many keywords or semantically related words within the page tags. Listed below are the tags we will cover, in no particular order.
- Meta Tags
- Meta Description
- Title Tags
- Header Tags
- Emphasizing Tags (em, bold, underline, italic)
- Image Tags
Page SEO Element One : Meta Tags
The first question most people ask when it comes to meta tags, is “what are they, exactly?” The first thing I normally tell them is that they are not the be all end of all of SEO. In the past, they might have been the “magic bullet”, but as they became overused, search engines put less emphasis on them. That said, they are still important.
So down to the core question... Meta tags are essentially an element of the page, hidden in the <head> of an HTML document. They do not display on the page the visitor sees but do provide search engines context around the content found on the the page itself.
There are two parts to any meta tag. The name attribute that describes to the search engine which meta tag you are using and the content attribute that contains the actual values for the tag.
Here are the tags you can use:
- Keywords. This provides a place for you to reiterate your most important keywords. It looks as follows: <meta name=”keywords” content=”place your keywords here”>
- Description. Provides a description of what is on the page. More on this one later.
- Author. Allows you to attribute the page to an author. This helps if people search for you as an individual. It looks as follows: <meta name”author” content=”Your Name”>
- Robots. There is not much to be said here other than if you have a tag that looks like : <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”>, delete it immediately. This tag prevents search engines from indexing your page and therefore keeps you out of the results.
When using meta tags, particularly the keyword meta tag. your objective should be to include keywords in the keywords and description attribute. The keywords tag in particular helps search engines catalog the page in the correct subject directory. However, avoid stuffing keywords at all cost. More than a handful will look like SPAM to a search engine. And in either case, they will read only the first few. Also, be sure that the keywords you use match those in the content.
Note: When placing meta tags on a page, they should be found in the head section, which looks like:
<head>
<title> your title here </title>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”insert your keywords”>
<meta name=”description” content=”insert your description”>
<meta name=”author” content=” insert your name”>
And if you are stuck, here is a link to a tool that will help you generate your meta tags... although its nothing fancy.
Note: The meta “keywords” tag is also a great place to include long tail keywords, obscure keywords or misspellings of keywords found on your site but spelled correctly.
Page SEO Element Two : More on the Meta Description
The meta description, as described above is simply a meta tag used to describe what is on the page. However, there are two critical points that I would like to cover in more detail.
- This tag dictates what displays under your link on the search engine results pages. In other words, it sells the searcher on clicking through. Therefore, be sure you write a compelling meta description, not just one that contains keywords.
- Include only the most important keywords and keep it to a sentence or two - under twenty words in total length.
Page SEO Element Three : Title Tags
Correct use of title tags in SEO can often add appreciable juice to your rank. In addition, the words in the tittle tag often display in the search results page. So proper use of keywords in a title can also influence click through.
According to some SEO experts, titles and title tags are among the big three. The top game changers of rank.
The good news is that using titles and title tags in SEO is rather simple. What you want to do is place your most important keywords in the title.
Note: This can also mean your company name. And yes, your company name can precede your keywords.
Chances are, if you have a site, you already have a title. To find what search engines see as your title however requires that you locate the title tags. Title tags appear as follows : <title> Your Sites Title </title>. The words between <title> and </title> are what search engines see as your title. Therefore, it is these words you want to change to include your keywords. And if you don't have a title already in place, be sure to add one.
A few rank rules for title tags when it comes to SEO:
- Slight preference is given to title tags that display keywords in alphabetical order
- Your title tags should be less than 60 characters or 7 to 10 words
- Don't use dead weight or stop words (common words like “the” or “and”)
Note: It is also important to create a compelling SEO title. While a keyword dense title can get you ranked high in the search engine results pages, it may not get your clicks. Clicks are the second half of the equation once you achieve rank.
Page SEO Element Four : Header Tags
After your title tags, your header tags are the second most important structural element found in the html of the page when it comes to SEO. Header tags are contained within the following sets of tags:
- <h1>content here</h1>
- <h2>content here</h2>
- <h3>, <h4>, ... and so on down to infinity (although I don't recommend going past <h3>)
Each number lower in the sequence is given lower weight by search engines. Therefore <h1> is more important than <h2> and so on.
There are two key recommendations that I make to related to these tags:
- One : Be sure you are using them. They are a great place to put sub-headers or call outs on a page.
- Two : Be sure they contain your most important keywords but still read well. For example, a Chicago realtor might put “Your Source for Chicago Real Estate Listings” in header tags... <h1> Your Source for Chicago Real Estate Listings</h1>. The would be a clear delineator to search engines and visitors what the subject of the content in the following paragraphs would be.
Page SEO Element Five : Emphasizing Tags
Emphasizing tags are a great way to call search engines and visitors attention to keywords on your site, both within title tags, header tags and the content itself. Here are the tags:
- <strong>word</strong> - Strong tags are bolding a word to a greater degree.
- <b>word</b> - Bolds a word.
- <u>word</u> - Underlines a word.
- <i>word</i> - Italicizes a word.
A key point is again to avoid overusing these tags to avoid the perception of SPAMMING. Focus on two or three keyword found within the content of the page.
Page SEO Element Six : Image Tags
Image tags (also known as image alt text tags) were originally designed to provide context to a website visitor if the image could not be displayed. However, search engines then began using them to derive additional information about the meaning of the content on the page. Image searches also use alt text as a way to catalog images in their search index. They look as follows represented in bold as alt=”alternate text”.
<img src="boat.gif" alt="Big Boat">
Many times these are a great place to include more obscure keywords, misspellings, etc. One obvious point is the more images you have on a page, the more keywords you can use in alt text. And while I am not sure that search engines will ding you for spamming your page using image alt text, spamming is never a good habit to get into.
On a separate note, image alt text is also a great way to assign alt text to an image link. And making images a link is another way to increase the power of images as part of your SEO strategy.
Note: Image alt text is particularly useful if you have an image dense site such as a photographer, architect, or anyone else who uses pictures to represent their work. However the maximum number of characters Google will index for an alt tag is 125 – but you should never use that many anyway.
Here's an example. Let's say you are a Realtor in Evanston, Illinois.
A bad example of an image alt tag would be: “A picture of Joe Smith sitting in his Evanston Illinois real estate office looking at his Evanston Illinois real estate website.”
or another bad example... stuffing keywords in the alt tag. “Evanston Illinois Realtor, Evanston IL Real Estate Agent, IL Realtor, Evanston Home, Evanston Home Listings.”
Instead, a good example would be... “Evanston Illinois Real Estate Listing Agent Joe Smith” or “Evanston IL Real Estate Website of Joe Smith”
Note: The photo file name should also include the keywords that will be used separated by hyphens. For example: your-keywords-included.jpg
Page SEO Element Seven : Page URL's
Among the various page level elements, page url's are amongst the most important. And while we did discuss them in the site SEO macro level elements section, that discussion mainly focused on the main domain or global url for your site. When it comes to a page level, each page level url should be used as a means to describe the content on that page and include keywords (only the most important).
Let's look at an example.
Let's say you are optimizing a page describing one of your services. Let's again look at the used car business. If you were optimizing a page to talk about your financing services for those with bad credit, here's how you might approach it.
Its that simple, you want to include your most important keywords found in the content on the page in the url.
Note: What is important to consider when optimizing the content on a page is to avoid including more than one subject / topic / product or service. In other words, don't include two things on a page that don't share common keywords. Doing so will make it difficult for search engines to discern what the page is about.
Page SEO Element Eight : Internal Links and Menus
A perfect lead in to our next topic for discussion, links. Internal links and menus are no doubt important to your SEO strategy. However, lets first look at each one separately...
- Menus : Also known as primary navigation or navigation bars. These are the site wide, static links that appear on every page and help visitors get around your site at a superficial level. Typically, these are fairly generic, such as home, about us, etc. Sometime they may go a step deeper and include a blog roll, quick links to articles, etc. What ties them together is the fact that they appear on all pages or most pages.
- Internal links : These are in content links that are more specific in nature and link to a particular page. These links would typically be found within articles, blog posts, on specific pages, in forums, etc. These help search engines get context about the linked to and linked from page. They also are a great place to include additional keywords in the anchor text – which we will discuss more below.
So which one should you use? Its not an either or question. Menus play an important role in helping visitors get around the site. I don't think there is an opportunity to eliminate them. And there is little opportunity to add keywords to them as they are typically generic links such as home, about us, contact us, etc. In some cases you can use a secondary menu, which would include high level categories. If you were a user car dealer this might include brand name listings : Chevy Cars, Ford Cars, Honda Cars, etc.
So when it comes to page SEO, look toward internal, in content links. SEO experiments reveal that they have higher SEO value anyway. And when using them, the most important thing to keep in mind is the use of strong anchor text that includes keywords relevant to both the linked to and linked from page. Here are a few additional ideas on how you can use internal, in content linking:
- Breadcrumbs
- Related categories or related content links
- Page or section specific navigation (a list of article or blog topics on your article or blog pages)
Bottom line... don't overlook the power of your own internal links. Unfortunately too often internal, in content links are overlooked. They are a great way to get additional keyword dense links and build your link juice.
Note: When creating internal links, here are a few things to avoid.
- Too many links on one page. The more links, the less link juice imparted. Stay between ten and one hundred on any given page including menu links, secondary navigation, etc.
- Cramming too many keywords into a link. A one hundred word long sentence with tons of keywords that makes no sense will do you no good. Five to ten words, including keywords would be best. Here's an example. Instead of used carsyou might consider chicago's cheapest used Honda's. Be specific. Help the search engine figure out what you are linking to... Include keywords that match the topic and keywords of the linked to and linked from page.
- For unimportant links, use the no follow attribute. This will cause search engines to ignore these links and prevent them from zapping link juice from your other, more important links. Here's an example showing where to put the “rel=no follow” attribute (the no follow attribute) with the command highlighted in yellow. <a href="http://www.example.com/" rel="nofollow">Link anchor text here</a> site. Note : If you see this on a site you are placing a link, don't bother finishing the placement – it will bring you no value.
