Pennies for Wink Publishing

Your home page, that is. This blog is directed to my authors, but the information is of value to anyone who wants visitors to their website. The subject, SEO – Search Engine Optimization, is a huge sector of knowledge. Even an epic post would not really scratch the surface of the subject, and it is not my intention to produce even half of an epic post. There are some things that are basic to SEO that I intend to mention here.

In the world of SEO there are two sectors. Off page SEO is the building of backlinks and reputation for your site. Article marketing can be an important part of an off page SEO strategy. Participation in blog and forum conversations and social networking and bookmarking can also be parts of a good off page SEO strategy.

For off page SEO to be of maximum benefit good on page SEO is very important. On page SEO is not all that hard, but getting it right can make the difference between a high position on the first page of the search results and being on page 3 or 10 or completely buried. Would you like that number one, two, or three spot on page one? Those are the spots that get over half of all traffic from the search engines.

Keywords and keyword research are an entire subject in themselves. On page SEO should begin with good keyword research. The things that make a good keyword/phrase are a good number of searches that are conducted for the term with not too much competition. The less competition the easier it will be to rank for the keyword, but if nobody searches for the term it does little good to be number one.

The key elements of on page SEO are:

1. The page URL
2. The page title
3. The meta description
4. The html heading tags – primarily the h1 tag
5. The page content

The URL for the home page will be the domain name for the site. There is and advantage from an SEO standpoint to have the site keyword in the domain name. The url for interior pages consists of the domain name and the page.html name at the least. Use the page keyword in the page.html name if possible.

Your page title, description, and content should be written for your human visitors, but the impact for the search engines should be taken into consideration. For the title having the keyword near the beginning will be of value, as will also be the case with the description meta tag. In the content you should have the primary keyword in the opening and closing sentences. In the body you can use variations of a keyword or phrase a few times. After the title and URL the html h1 tag is of great importance. Your page keyword should be in the tagged text, nearer the beginning if possible.

These are the important points for on page SEO. Good on page SEO is of great importance. If the page keyword is not too competitive good on page SEO can put your page in a good position in the SERPs. For more competitive keywords on page SEO is the foundation on which to build your off page SEO strategy.

There it is in a nutshell. I don’t think that it qualifies as even half of an epic post, but there is good information. Small changes on page can make big changes in the search results. Now get out there and optimize your pages!!