On Page Optimization for Search Engines

On Page Optimization involves rewriting, restructuring, and reformatting website pages to appear more relevant to search engines for a particular topic. When done correctly, this also makes your web site more effective and easier to use for your clients. The changes made in on page optimization are often subtle, and often no one but the original author or designer of the page would know that changes were made, however they can have a significant impact. On Page Optimization is crucial to obtaining relevant search placement. The first step in On Page Optimization is research. An initial list of keywords and phrases to target needs to be determined. Data should be collected on the search volume for those phrases and other related terms. The data is then analyzed to determine which keywords and phrases should be given priority in the optimization. The next step is the optimization of the website itself. The page and navigation structure should be analyzed to determine how a search engine would travel through the site and if the site needs to be restructured. If it is determined that a website needs to be restructured it should be done in a way that preserves the look and feel as much as possible and/or improves usability. The next step is rewriting the textual content in the website. The search engines look at keyword density (how often a word appears), placement (where on the page the words appear), color, size, contrast, context and use. We may modify any or all of these things to achieve optimal relevancy. It should be noted that no change should ever be done at the expense of clarity of message, purpose of the page, usability or readability. Finally a number of things are done to a website to facilitate their access by the search engines. For example XML sitemaps are added so the search engines can easily access every page on the website. Robots.txt files are added to help direct search engines to areas that are important to them and keep them out of areas not meant to be searched.