Planning for the ideal site structure
When we start creating a website, it’s a common practice that we immediately start with the creation, template, plug-in selection etc..
What we almost always forget is to plan our site’s structure.
From the image above, we can see an ideal structure for a website. To explain myself better, we have to analyze some of Google’s rules and best practices.
About Cloaking, H1 Tags and more
On page optimization factors series continues and now’s the time to cover up some more advanced stuff.
Cloaking is the method that some webmasters use to alter what the search engines see and make it different than what really exists on a web page. Cloaking was used much more in the past and is part of black-hat SEO methods(black-hat are the methods that are not in compliance with the Search Engine’s rules and their aim is to trick them and gain better ranking without much effort.).
From the point I see it black hat seems cool. You can get better rankings much faster and without much effort. But in the end you will get caught. If you’re trying to build a business out of your site, don’t try to trick the engines, people behind them work day and night to ensure that they’ll be one step ahead of you
After all you are creating a web site and want it’s reputation in the search engines to last for the years to come.
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Are images more important than text?
Moving on to the third post about on-page factors, there’s one thing we haven’t yet covered: Images.
Images are one of the most essential parts of your content and on-page optimization factors. Content is king and I am not going to deny that, but the combination of content and images is killer. An image will grab the attention of users when they enter your site. It’s the quickest and easiest way to illustrate the nature of your post and what you’re going to be talking about.
Believe it or not, posts that contain images get more votes in social networks, therefore more visitors and links.
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How to write for the search engines
After the Meta Elements article about the on-page optimization factors, here comes the most important factor. The actual content of the page.
Generally speaking, writing content is the hardest part on the website creation check-list. But then again, it’s the most important.
Since we’re in the SEO field, I just want to say one thing. No matter how good your On-Page Factors are, if your content is not of high quality, then your overall SEO efforts will not blossom.
To further explain myself and avoid misunderstandings, let’s take a look at case study scenario.
Meta elements
On my first post about Search Engine Optimization I mentioned the use of meta elements on the On-Page optimization tips section. Meta elements play an important role when you want to optimize a page for the search engines and your visitors.
As seen from the image above, meta elements are added at the end of the head section of a page, before the body section. If you are using a web creation application such as Dreamweaver or creating your pages by using only code, this is very useful to know. But since most of us nowadays create pages with CMS, we only need to see how writing the meta elements better can improve our ranking in search engines. Let’s see how we can use them effectively.
What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is the process of getting a website to rank higher in search engine results.
It is said that SEO is the holy grail for businesses. If a website ranks well with the main keywords of an industry, then it has a great chance of increasing profits. There are, of course, many other factors to consider once a website has achieved high ranking in the search engines. But worry not, we will cover everything in time!
To better optimize our site for the search engines, we have to pay attention to two things:
With On-Page Factors, we mean all elements included in our website, including code, text and images. We can control these factors.
With Off-Page Factors, we mean everything that is “said” about us. This could be in the form of links on other websites, comments, Facebook likes, tweets, etc. We may not be able to fully control these factors, but we can most definitely influence their impact.
Let’s explain what everything means and see what we can do to help our website rank higher.
