On page optimisation is one of the first steps in seo and looks at all the elements on the web page that can be used to improve a website’s rankings in the Search engine result pages (SERPs).
On page optimisation looks at the following elements of a page
Title tag
Meta description tag
Meta keywords
alt tags
H1, H2, H3 tags
Internal links
URL structure
Keywords within the content of the page
Before any of this, you have to choose the keywords or keyword phrases for the website. These keywords will be in the URL, the title, meta tags, H1,2,3 tags and alt tags as well as in the body text. You need to be aware of keyword stuffing which is the over use of key terms. To avoid this, you should aim to have a keyword density of 2 – 4% ( or 2 to 4 times per 100 words). This is the number of times the keyterm appears on a webpage (in the code and on the page).
1. Title tag
This is one of the most important elements of on page optimisation and should contain the keywords for that webpage. The keywords should be at the front part of the title tag with branding at the end.
For example on this page the title is:
On page optimisation | seo tips | seojoblogs
The key term I am optimising for is “on page optimisation”
2. Meta description
This is the information that appears in SERPs. It needs to be compelling to encourage those people to click on and visit your site.
3. Meta keywords
These are not as important due to the fact that black hat seo gurus took part in “keyword stuffing” and are not seen as important by Google.
4. Alt tags
Images need to be optimised so that they can be ready by search engines. Spiders only read text. The alt tag should contain text that describes the image and should be short but concise. eg “Nokia 6700 mobile phone.jpg” instead of “DSC344550.jpg”
The image title appears as a tool tip when a user moves the mouse over the image.
5. H1, H2, H3 tags
The H1 tag is the most important of all the H tags on the page. It should contain the keywords for the webpage as it is the headline for that page.
The H2 and H3 tags are the subsections and less important. The Htags are not as important in SEO as once thought according to seomoz but it is still good practice to implment.
6. Internal links
Linking between the different pages of the website with footer links on all pages will improve the visibility of the website for the search engine spiders and the visitors.
7. URL structure
It is important to keep the URL short and optimised with keywords.
Once you have optimised your webpage, you will then need to begin off page optimisation – which includes getting links to your site, optimising press releases and submitting your site to directories. It takes time, but I would strongly suggest looking at the on page optimistion elements first.