This is a challenging question for many in the field of SEO and web marketing. There are hundreds of lists of recommended procedures for keyword placement and on-page optimization, but as search engines have evolved and as other traffic sources: social networks, referring links, email, blogs, etc. - are more important interconnected, the nature of what is "optimal" is under discussion.
My perspective is certainly not a gospel, but it is based on years of experience, testing, failure and learning alongside a large number of statistics from the Sofco and CRE8media team. I don't think there is an absolutely correct way to optimize a page, but I think I can tell a lot about the architecture of how to target content and the greater the chance that:
A) you have the best opportunity to score high in Google
B) you earn traffic from social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
C) SEO linking and sharing is technically correct
D) the perception, confidence and potential of your company or brand to convert visitors is present
In the old days of SEO, 'page optimization' only referred to keyword placement. Search engines enjoyed seeing keywords in specific locations of the HTML code to indicate the relevance of a page for that query. But today this simple approach doesn't work for two main reasons:
The relevance and keyword-based algorithms that Google and Bing use to evaluate and rank pages are enormously more complex. Gaining a small advantage in an algorithmic element based on keyword placement can harm the overall ranking because of the impact it has on the experience of people with your site (and therefore their tendency to stay on your pages, linking to you) or to share your content socially - all of which are also considered directly or indirectly in ranking algorithms).
If <15% of the ranking comparison is packed in keyword targeting, it is no wonder that smart SEOs have evolved in the modern era to think more holistically. Personally, I like to set up a "perfect" keyword placement in the title element or a URL for a better user experience, a greater chance of my content being shared on social networks or a better clickthrough rate in the search results.
But in the context of this post, let's put aside some of those reservations and dive into the practical tips for each element of a page. It may be unwise to optimize all of these purely for search engine-based best practices, but we can also dampen the advice with comments about usability and user experience for visitors.
Uniquely valuable
An optimized page not only offers unique content, but also unique value. What is the difference?
- Unique content simply means that those words, in that order, do not appear anywhere else on the internet.
- Unique value refers to the usefulness and the collection points that visitors derive from the page.
Many pages can be "valuable," but few offer a truly unique type of value - a value that cannot be discovered on other pages targeted by that keyword group. Whenever I advise marketers about creating pages, I ask them to put themselves in the mind of their potential visitors and imagine a page that offers something so different and functional that it stands out above everything else in its field. Here are a few of my favorite examples:
Provides phenomenal UX
UX stands for User Experience, or user experience. This is the feeling that a visitor gets when visiting a website or app, for example. A good user experience gives the visitor a positive feeling and does not lose sight of the wishes of the customer.
A user's experience consists of a wide range of elements, comparable to the search engine ranking algorithms. It may not be possible to fulfill all these perfectly, but reaching a high level offers value not only in rankings, but also in second-order effects such as links and word of mouth.
At the simplest level, a great UX means that the page / site:
- Easy to understand
- Intuitive navigation and content consumption
- Fast charging, even on slower connections (such as mobile)
- Display correctly in every browser size and on every device
- Designed to be visually appealing / pleasant / attractive
Crawler / bot accessible
Search engines are still crawling the web using automatic bots and are likely to do so for the next ten years. Although there have been many leaps at the sophistication level of these crawlers, it is not best practice to take risks and follow some important guidelines when creating pages on which you want search engines to crawl, index, and rank reliably:
Make sure the page is the only URL where the content is displayed. If this is not the case, all other URLs can be returned to the original (using redirects or the rel = canonical protocol). URLs must follow best practices in length, be static versus dynamic and be included in the correct RSS feeds or XML Sitemaps files.
Don't block bots!
Robots.txt and meta robots can be used to intelligently restrict what search engines see, but be careful not to make mistakes that prevent them from crawling and indexing your content. If the page is temporarily not working, use a status code 503 (no 404) and if you redirect a page to a new location, you should not go through multiple redirect chains if possible and use 301s (permanent redirects). no other types of 30x status codes.
Keyword-targeted
As I said in the opening of this post, perfectly optimized keyword targeting may conflict with usability, user experience, or the natural flow of how you write. That's OK, and I often suggest that you lean in those more user-oriented directions. However, when keyword usage can be optimized, you need some ammunition. The following is an overview of the key elements as we have seen them through time, testing, correlation and listening to engine recommendations.
7 important keyword targeting elements
1: title of the page
It is highly recommended to use the primary keyword phrase at least once in the title of the page and preferably as close as possible to the start of the title tag / element. Not only are titles crucial to how engines weigh relevance, they also have a dramatic impact on a user's tendency to click.
Although we have seen mixed results over the years using the H1 tag specifically for keyword placement, it is almost certainly the case that a user who has just clicked on a result expects a matching headline on the page that he visits. Failure to do so may increase the likelihood of pogo sticking and our most recent rank correlations suggest that a locally relevant H1 is associated with higher rankings.
I would not always need a match between the title and the H1, but they should not be so different that they control everyone who has clicked on the result.
3: main text
It should not be a surprise that it is important to use your primary (and secondary, if relevant) phrase (s) in the content of the page. However, our research suggests that it is not just about rough use of keywords or repetition. Search engines almost certainly use advanced subject modeling algorithms to assess relevance and perhaps also quality.
This means that it is wise to make your content comprehensive, useful and relevant, not just filled with keyword input. In fact, we have found many cases where excessive keyword use negatively impacted the rankings, so be wise. If you asked a non-marketing friend to read the page, would they get the feeling that a term or sentence is suspiciously prominent, sometimes unnecessarily so? If that is the case, you are probably exaggerated.
4: URL
A good URL has some important aspects, but one is the use of keywords. Not only does it help directly with the relevance of search engines, but URLs are often used as anchor text on the web (usually by copying and pasting). For example, if I link to this message using the URL, for example https://sofco.nl/nl/seo/optimalisatie, the word groups "seo" and "optimization" appear right in the text.
5: attributes of images and image alt
Having images on a page with keyword targeting is wise for many, many reasons, not least among them is that they can directly and indirectly help rank. Usually your image has the ability to appear in an image search result. Admittedly, Google's new interface has dramatically reduced the traffic of image search, but I still find it valuable that your brand name / site is linked to the production of useful images, photos and visual elements.
For search engines, the title of the image, the file name, the surrounding text and the alt attribute are important in a ranking perspective. In particular, those who do SEO should know that when an image is linked, the alt attribute is treated in the same way as anchor text in a text link.
6: Internal and external links
A good page must be accessible with no more than four clicks from another page on a site (three for smaller sites), and it must also provide useful links to relevant information on all topics being discussed.
7: meta description
The meta description of a page is not directly used in search engine ranking algorithms (according to representatives from Google and Bing), but that does not mean that they are not critical. The meta description tag, if it uses the keyword query, is usually displayed in the search results and is part of what users consider when choosing whether to click.