Ok, so now we've selected our main 3 keywords:
- weight loss story
- weight loss picture
- safe weight loss
Notice that all of the keywords contain the word "weight loss". This will make things
easier for us when we begin to optimize our offpage ranking factors which you'll learn
about later.
The first thing we need to do is select a page Title for our website.
The page title should:
Include ONLY our main keywords. The least amount of words you can place in the title,
the more weight Google will give to each of the keywords and the higher you will rank.
When creating your page title, it should not look like this:
- Welcome to our website!
It should not even look like this, which does containg our main keywords, but contains an unnecessary number of words:
- weight loss story and weight loss picture and safe weight loss
Although that title isn't horrible and does contain all of your main keywords, you should do a couple of things to cut down on words used.
This would be a perfect title for your webpage:
- Weight Loss Story | Safe Weight Loss Picture
Notice that I've:
- Taken out all of the "ands"
- Replaced one of the "ands" with a "|" character
- Combined the keywords "Safe Weight Loss" with "Weight Loss Picture"
- Always Combine Your Keyword When Possible to cut down on the total number
of words that are in your title!
When Google looks at our title it will see all 3 of our keywords only. Combining keywords to cut down on the total number of keywords displayed in the title is a great way to boost the strength of each individual keyword, which will have an immediate impact on your ranking.
Add H1 header tags
Next we'll need to add 1 H1 header tag and place our most important keyword there.
The H1 header tag should be as far towards the top of the page as possible. When
Google reads a webpage, it views the text from the top left hand side of the page to the bottom right hand side of the page. So, it's best to place your H1 header tag on the top left hand or top/middle portion of your page. You can think of an H1 header tag as a title for whatever content you have on your page.
For example, the H1 header tag of this lesson would be:
Of course, I would have changed my lesson title to contain my main keyword if I was
actually trying to optimize this page for Google. Also, if possible, it's ideal if you can include ONLY your main keyword within the h1 header tags.
Add H2 header tags
Next, we'll need to create an H2 header tag. This can be thought of as a sub heading for our webpage. You should place your 2nd most important keyword in the H2 header tag. The H2 tag should be placed somewhere towards the top half of your webpage.
Usually it's best to place your primary keyword in your H1 tags and your secondary keyword into the H2 tags.
After we've done this, we need to actually create the content for our webpage. When
writing the content, try to evenly sprinkle your main keywords throughout the copy.
Don't overdo it though.
Try to mention each keyword in a natural way as you are writing, but be sure to include at least one of the keywords per 1-2 paragraphs, depending on how large your page is.
Tip: Make sure to mention your main keyword at the very top left and the very bottom right hand side of the webpage. A trick I like to use is to include this in the copyright information line at the bottom of the website. For our example, this would be a good example:
Notice that it flows and doesn't really look too strange.
Bolding, italicizing and underlining ...
Once we've finished writing the copy, we should go through and bold, underline, or
italicize some of the keywords only 1 time each, maximum. Only do 1 per keyword or it
will hurt you more than it helps.
A good example of this would be to visit the #1 ranked website on Google for the search term, "search engine optimization". Notice how they've written their content. Notice the bolding etc.
Properly include ALT image tags ...
Next, click on the very top image of your webpage (This is usually your website's header graphic) and include an
Now, remember I stated above that Google views your webpage from top left, to bottom
right? Well, in general they do. But because most websites contain a left hand column
which contains all of their navigation links...
Google WILL View all of the text in the left hand column Before The Body of the webpage.
How can you get around this? I've come up with a neat little trick that will ensure that Google reads the actual body of your webpage before the left hand column containing your navigational links.
Here is what you need to do:
Rather than creating a table that looks like this:
You should create a table that looks like this:
By doing this, Google will read the top left hand row/column first (This is labeled with a 1 above)... BUT will see that it is empty, so it will then read the body of your webpage and then read the 2nd left hand row/column which contains your navigational links! :-)
That's all there is to it!
In summary, I really want to point out the fact that, although good onpage optimization is something you'll really want to do, but it is NOT how you make dramatic changes in your search engine ranking!
This is one of the biggest misconceptions in the search engine world. Many believe that by getting your keyword density just right, or by moving your keywords around on the page in just the right places, you'll really move up in the search engines.
That is not the case at all. It is the offpage optimization factors that will get you high rankings. I will teach you exactly what offpage optimization factors are, AND how to make sure you optimize these factors perfectly for Google!
