Traffic Lounge
Lesson #07 
SE Overview: Optimization Factors
Written By Cyndalie
We have talked about the Key Factors of optimizing pages for search engines. We know Who's Updating Who in Lesson #02. We have established a common Terminology and covered the Key
Concepts of how to choose keywords when optimizing pages. Since we already understand that regardless of how an engine gets the data they index or how many keywords are in the domain name, long term high rankings depend on one common factor: Page Optimization. How well is the page optimized to meet the criteria of the search engine algorithm?
Most webmasters know about Meta tags, the basic head code elements indended to tell a search engine about a page. Whether the search engine is indexing them or giving them weight, they never hurt to have. Take the extra time on this basic element; don't forget about them when creating any page for any reason at any time. Remember to use keyword PHRASES in the keyword tag starting with the phrase most commonly repeated in the title and text of the page or that are most highly relevant for the subject of the text content on the page and what you want the page to rank for. The number of characters in any Meta tag is irrelevant. There is no magic formula, number or words, or characters. Just stay within proper reasoning for what you need the page to rank for and stay focused (no keyword stuffing). If the words don't appear in the content of the page or in the title or description, they don't belong in your keyword tags generally speaking. Use your judgment. Make every page title different and make every page count.
For those of you who like to copy and paste code, here is a good example of the Meta's that should
appear in each page: [key] = [primary keyword or phrase most relevant to the
page]
<!-- [key1] services and [key2], online [key3] -->
<html>
<head>
<title>[key1] and [key2] for [key3] online.</title>
<meta name="Description" content="Need [key3] online? Enter now for [key2] and [key1] services.">
<meta name="KeyWords" content="[key2] online, [key1] [key3], [key3] online, [key1] [key2], [key1] online, [key3] [key2]">
<meta name="robots" content="all, index, follow">
<meta name="distribution" content="Global">
<meta name="revisit after" content="30 days">
</head>
An HTML page consists of 4 main parts. The <head> section and the <body> section that contains the top, middle, and foot of the page. To simply break it down, the <head> section is your Meta tag data covered above. The <body> section contains the content that is scanned by the search engine for indexable textual content. It is best that text appears on the first line of the viewable page (top) be text in <H1>-<H5> font format. The same is true for the last readable line of the page.
Think back to the old days when most documents on the Internet were basic Microsoft Word or Front Page formats. Open up Microsoft Word and click New Document, New From Template, General Templates and choose FAQ. This will open up a web page template that I swear to goodness is one of the best types of pages to optimize for ranking. Save as web page and take it to your HTML editor and give it a whirl!
The reason why this very clean and basic web page format works so well is that the search engine has to go through less code to find your keyword content. If the engine scans the page from top to bottom or from bottom to top they are going to easily find indexable keyword content. There is no reason to go overboard, just a brief sentence before and after the middle of you page is enough. Another reason for this favored format is that search engines tend to consider pages in these formats high in educational or informational value - low "commercialism".
Be a minimalist, think clean code and relevant keywords. Relevant not only in consistency of keywords throughout the page, but also relevant to where you are sending your links too (keywords in link titles to and from your page). Vary them but always try to push your links to another relevant and well optimized page.
Dealing With Design Issues
Let's face it; you can't make sales on a site that isn't found. But then again, you can't make sales on a site that looks like basic crap. Keyword content sentences above and below the main body of your page would stick out like a sore thumb. There are ways to hide keyword content we will cover in Optimization Tricks, here in the Traffic Lounge. But for now let's cover a few basic guidelines that affect the marketability of your site often overlooked by designers.
Frames sites are found to be search engine unfriendly because a frames page consists of a frame set code and no other content to index. Optimize your main frame of the frame set
and copy the <body> content into the <noframes> tag of the frames page to optimize it. Add Meta's and the frames page becomes just as SE friendly as a no-frames site or page. Search engines will spider the links in a frame set so check the engines to make sure you have no high ranking – out of frames – page that is not navigable for a surfer.
Image consoles and full page ads (FPA's) are also search engine unfriendly due to lack of textual content to index. Search engine cannot see the content of an image and graphical heavy
sites make it harder for engines to find indexable text. This can be combated with alt tags on each image that contain a phrase (such as the text in/on the image) or description of the image up to 20 words. Add text and text link above or below the console best you can. This also helps when dealing with "banner farm" type pages.
Look for more optimization tips
in the next lesson.
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