Web Site Optimization

One of the tightest held secrets among internet marketers is web site optimization. If you browse the forums you will notice that many marketers talk about what you need to do to optimize your web site but they are often times reluctant to share their web site url with you so you can take a look.


I have prepared an optimized web site for you to take a look at. It has been designed according to “The Plan”. The home page is designed around the broad keyword “golf”. Within the article on the home page there are keyword anchor text links to the other 5 pages in the site. Each of those pages targets the keyword that it was linked from. At the bottom of each page I have my navigation menu including the sitemap.


The site design is very simple for instructional purposes. The first thing I want you to notice is the design of the index page.

The < H 1 > Tag

This is probably the most important keyword element for web site optimization on your page besides the Title tag and should be the first text that the search engine robot sees. Here is a nice tool that allows you to see what a search engine spider sees (Search Engine Simulator).


Go ahead and enter the URL of the index page example: http://www.seo2020.com/web-samples/golf-sample1/


Look under the “Spider View” window and you will notice that the first word the spider sees is “golf”. This is the target keyword for the index page and I have placed special relevance to it by surrounding it with the < H 1 > tag. This tells the spider that I am being relevant to the keyword “golf” on this page. This is a crucial element of web site optimization.

Meta Tags

Take a look at the index page for golf again (website sample). Do a view source on this page and take a look at the meta tags. More specifically look at the following tags:

You want to target your primary keywords here and you must do keyword research to create these tags… Don’t guess! Guessing will always yield poor results. I use Keyword Discovery to get the most up to date and accurate keyword terms. They are more accurate because they use your Google API to generate real time search engine KEI Analysis and they generate search volume for keywords in real time. I have found this resource to be much more reliable and accurate than the popular Wordtracker keyword system.


For the index page focusing on the keyword “golf”, I simply went to Keyword Discovery, entered the word golf and pulled the top results for my meta keywords tag. You, of course may not want to go directly for the most competitive keywords from the start. I did this for simplicity of example. It is best to get indexed under less competitive keywords first and as your pagerank and backlinks increase you begin adding pages for more competitive keywords as described in “The Plan”.


The Meta Description tag repeats a few of the key words and phrases that I am targeting in the Mata Keywords tag. To have proper web site optimization, you must ensure that you have these meta tags in your pages. Most search engines will use your Title Tag and your Meta Description for your listing in their index. The listing for the golf index page would appear like this on a search engine.


Golf
Your one stop for all your golf needs. Find golf clubs, golf instruction, golf swing tips, golf courses, golf shoes and much more.

Title Tag

Your title tag should be less than 80 characters long and I suggest that you use more than one of your target keywords in the title tag to take full advantage of your title tag while focusing on your keywords.


The other function of your title tag is to entice clicks. Why go through all the trouble of web site optimization if your title tag isn’t going to draw clicks?


A better title tag for the example home page would be:


Golf , golf clubs, golf instruction and golf equipment


The listing in the search engines would look like this:


Golf , golf clubs, golf instruction and golf equipment
Your one stop for all your golf needs. Find golf clubs, golf instruction, golf swing tips, golf courses, golf shoes and much more.


This is a much better choice for web site optimization.

Advertising

Notice that none of the pages have any advertising on them yet. According to The Plan, you should not place any ads on any pages until you have been listed in the directories. The moment you are listed in at least 30 to 40 directories, it is time to place your Google AdSense ads. You can also join affiliate programs to further monetize your pages.

User Menu

You will notice that the example website does not have a menu for human visitors. You can add one, if you wish, to the right side of the page so that the search engine spiders read it after your article text.

Remember your site is all about your visitors, so adding a user navigation menu is a good idea.

Keyword Density

Keyword density is a debatable subject. To be safe you will want to keep your keyword density below 10% at most. You want your keyword to appear evenly throughout your articles. Browse around the example site, I have highlighted the target keywords on each page for example purposes.


Don’t worry about keyword density too much… Just keep it below 10%. Here is a good site to check your keyword density on your pages (Keyword Density Tool).

Web Site Optimization Conclusion

As you can see this article focuses on the ON-PAGE factors and internal linking structure of web site optimization. These are crucial elements that lend to overall relevance of the keywords you intend to rank for.
 

The example I have shown is very simplified. You may design your site to look however you like. Just remember to follow the basic guidelines that were shown here.