Match Your Keywords To Your Content – On Page SEO Checklist

Match Your Keywords To Your Content – On Page SEO Checklist

What inspired me to create an on page SEO checklist for Arabule? It probably won’t surprise you to hear that the submissions to this directory often don’t match the content on the page. But to rank well for a term, you need the on page content to match the anchor text of incoming links.

Can you rank well for a term without the matching content  Sure, with enough links you can do anything. But links are not that easy to come by – even at $7 per link in a premium web directory like Arabule – and the savvy webmaster will optimize the page before seeking incoming links. Besides, if your content doesn’t match the query term, your bounce rate will reflect that – and not only will conversions suffer,  Google will also count it against you.

So, where to start and how hard is it? On page optimization is not really that tough. Once you have got your keyword phrase in your sites, and created keyword rich content for the home page, you want to make sure that phrase is in several key spots:

• Title Tag – Put your keyword phrase first – not your company name. Really. The first few words in your title speak volumes to Google.  No more than 70 characters. And repeat it.
• In the heading of the page.
• In an h1 tag on the page (probably the page heading)
• In the first sentence of the page

Other helpful, but not critical - ways to optimize a page include using your phrase:

• In bold or italics somewhere on the page
• In an outbound link (to another page or off site)
• In h2 and h3 heading tags
• In the file name of a graphic
• In the alt attribute of a graphic

I don’t like to cheat on alt attributes, though many webmasters do.  I prefer to name my graphics by what they are and make the alt attributes match, but every page has a logo, and logo for “keyword” company is not dishonest in most cases.  

If you want a little more SEO, but don’t have much time to delve into it, this 15 Minute SEO lesson is a terrific off and on page SEO Checklist. http://www.webconfs.com/15-minute-seo.php