Onsite SEO relies on a Balance of ALL available Elements
Whereas a few years back, some SEOs (Search Engine Optimizers) would promise high search engine rankings without making noticeable improvements to their clients’ web sites, successful web promotion now requires a sizeable amount of what has become known as Onsite SEO.
But what exactly is onsite SEO?
When you get right down to it, this term is actually nothing but another Internet buzzword referring to any improvements made to a web site at the code and content level so as to make it easier for human visitors to use, and more palatable for the major search engines.
Onsite SEO catering for all major Search Engines? Hang on a Second...
Let’s stop pretending for a minute, because the days when the other search engines mattered all that much to SEOs have long gone.
Sure, Yahoo and Bing still bring in a few visitors and customers, but no sensible Optimizer will concentrate their main promotional efforts on anything but Google these days, given the fact that the search giant now handles between 75% and 80% of all searches carried out globally. Any Yahoo or Bing rankings achieved are just seen as an added bonus of sorts nowadays.
Be that as it may, ethical onsite SEO should encompass things like additional and/or improved content, a better internal link and navigation structure, more relevant titles and title tags, W3C Compliance and other, often seemingly trivial actions. In short it should encompass more or less anything which improves the overall quality of a website, and makes it easier for its visitors to navigate and use.
As a rule of thumb, the main aspects of onsite search engine optimisation which most SEOs concentrate on can be summed up as follows:
Page Title
The page title is the first tag in any HTML document’s ‘head’ section. Unlike the other tags within this part of the document which are only visible to search engines, the title is also visible to a page’s human visitors as part of their web browser’s title bar at the top of the screen. It is also displayed on the search results page by search engines such as Google to give users their first idea of what any given result is about (Click to see).
Search engines will examine this tag, compare its relevance to the page’s content and use it as part of their ranking assessment process. Therefore, the page title is one of the most important components of any HTML document, both from your visitors’ point of view, and for search engines themselves.
Meta Description and Keyword Tags
As another component of an HTML document’s ‘head’, Meta Tags include, among others, the page description and keyword tags. And although they no longer hold the same value to onsite SEO as they did a few years back, many optimizers still focus their efforts on these page components.
The Meta-Description Tag is designed to provide an expanded version of the page title, and give the visitor a general idea of what the content of any given web page is actually about. But unlike the title tag, the meta description tag is not actually used by Google to assess search ranking. It nevertheless retains a crucial role in web promotion, as a page’s meta-description is almost always displayed by Google when that page appears in its search results, and a well-written, eye-catching description will almost without fail increase the overall click-through rate from search engine users.
The Meta-Keywords Tag was used to assess relevance by most major search engines until it became obvious that the Web’s many spammers were using it to manipulate natural search rankings. Consequently, it was greatly devalued in its importance, as part of the ongoing fight against unethical SEO techniques. But despite having lost all promotional value for major search engines, it is still being used by web designers and SEOs who either cater for a handful of minuscule search providers which still employ its use, or by those who remain blissfully ignorant of the keyword meta-tag’s deprecated status.
Content
While every optimiser has his or her own approach to onsite SEO, most will agree that ‘Content is King’. These days, having plenty of well-written, unique, properly organized, visitor-orientated content is absolutely essential to the long-term promotion of any web site. The Googlebot (and Yahoo’s Slurp as well as Bing’s MSNBot) will examine a web page’s content, assess it for relevance against keywords and phrases contained within it, and use this as part of the formula which ultimately determines that page’s position in the search engine results.
Navigation and Link Structure
There is no real way to overemphasize the importance of a clear, intuitive navigation structure when it comes to keeping your visitors happy, because the vast majority of Internet users hate having to guess about what to do next as they’re navigating a site. Therefore, your links should be structured, and named, in such a way as to allow your visitors to see at a glance which category or web page they’re headed for.
And, as a knock-on effect, making your website easy to use for human visitors will also make it easier for search engine spiders to index its content in a coherent manner, and therefore be of immense benefit to its long-term search engine rankings.
There you have them, the main components of onsite SEO, each one essential to long-term success, as long as they’re all used together in a balanced fashion.
It is, however, exactly this essential balance which seems to be absent with more than a few optimizers’ techniques, as many other will focus on their own favourite promotional element, while ignoring, or allocating less relevance, to the others.
From your point of view, as an online entrepreneur, it is therefore imperative to ensure that your Search Engine Optimizer employs methods which use all available ingredients proportionally.
Contact us for further information about any aspect of our balanced web promotion services.
