On Page SEO tips

Search Engine Optimization – On Page Items

What are on page SEO items?   The content on your webpages which you or your web designer controls which includes the text that shows up as well as the text that makes the page that you only see when you view source.  Text you see includes the title of the page as well as the ‘alt’ tags you see (in some browsers) when you place your mouse over an image.  How do you think google knows how to show you images of barns or apples?  Probably from the meta tags on those images.

Not discussed here are links to your site.  Quality links are helpful beware of buying ‘junk’ links to your site.  As of early in 2012 the search engines no longer count those links and may punish you for them.

See more below

Overview

Search engines read text, so focusing your text on each page to the keywords or phrases you care about is key. Search engines do not read text on pictures/images so make as much of your text on your site actual text.
How to view the competition and your own site

How to View the Source Code of a web page

  • Firefox: Right Click on text on the webpage and select “View Page Source”
  •  Internet Explorer: Right Click on text on the webpage and select “View Source”

Now that you are looking at the source code look for search for the following items.

  • How to view the metatags – Look for <meta….
  • View Meta Keywords – Look for <meta name=”keywords” ….  Your site should have this
  • View Meta Description – Look for <meta name=”description” …   Your site should have this
  • View indexed pages – for Google.com enter site:RiptideHosting.com

Another handy plugin for Firefox is: Quirk SearchStatus Thanks JackSpirko.com for the tip to install the Quirk SearchStatus. Visit Jack’s site for great podcasts on business.
The items I mention below should be on all of your pages.
Each of your pages should be focused on a group of keywords/key phrases.
Metatags

  1.  Keywords
  2.  Description

Page Content

Page Title (The text that shows at the top of your site)
<H1>, <H2> or <H3> Tags for your main sections
Image “alt” tags example <img src=”/img/one.jpg” alt=”Description of image”
You want to add relevant content on your site that visitors will like or find helpful. Search engines like content so the more content you can add the better. Adding content on a regular basis will keep the search engines coming back to look for the new content. The better the content the more likely other sites will link to your site.