Contrary to popular belief, SEO is not a one-off thing you do when you create a new blog or website. As every expert will tell you, search engine optimization is an ongoing process.
To get the maximum benefit from your content that your business deserves, you must think about SEO with every page you create. In this article I will show you how you can maximise the chances of your pages achieving top ranking for your desired keywords.
If you have performed sufficient keyword research and put the following techniques into effect, you will begin to see results. Guaranteed.
The Title
Your title is the undisputed essential element on your page, at least in terms of SEO. It not only acts as your <title> tag, but also the only <h1> on your page. If you are not going to use your keyword in your title, you might as well stop reading this article now. It is that important.
Tip: Another slight change that could improve your results is using the keyword at the beginning of the title rather than the end.
The Subheadings
Do you use subheadings like the ones I’ve used in this article? How do you format them? If you are simply using bold on them then you are taking the wrong approach. <h2> or Heading 2 tags were created for this exact reason and search engines recognize them.
WordPress has <h2> functionality built right into it, just highlight you text and choose ‘heading 2′ in the drop down where it says paragraph. For extra credit use your keywords in the subheading.
Bold & Italics
Bold and italics are a good way of telling search engines which words are important to the page. When I am writing SEO focused content I try to use each tag once on the keyword I am targeting.
The image
Images are good for more than just making the page look good, they also allow you to tap into another traffic stream, one that a lot of people are neglecting right now, Image Search.
When you add a picture to your article you will be asked if you want to give it a description. This description is called an ‘alt tag.’ Because search engines can’t see images they depend on the alt tag to tell them what an image is.
Obviously because of the spammers and black hats the search engines do not instantly trust your alt tags, however if your whole page is about dogs, and you use the alt tag ‘dogs’ then there is a good chance you will come up for the search term ‘dogs’ in the Image Search.
Basically the image search works in the same way as the web search; relavancy is key.
The links
When placing a link on your web page you have two things to consider; the anchor text and whether or not you would like to nofollow the link.
Whether your are linking to a page within your website, or a page on another website I would always recommend using keyword optimised anchor text. If it’s a web page within your site, it will benefit you with your rankings. If it is an outgoing link to another website, the webmaster will appreciate your attention to the details.
Now onto ‘nofollow.’ By linking to a website you are giving that site a recommendation in the eyes of the search engines. By adding the rel=”nofollow” to the hyperlink you are removing that recommendation. It is completely up to you, but I personally don’t use nofollow on links within content.
The meta description
In case you don’t know what a meta description does, just look at the search results page of Google. Under the title you will see around a 200 character description of the web page. This text was extracted from the meta description.
If you do not have a meta description then Google or any of the search engines will generate one for you. Often the description they generate for you is ugly and doesn’t really make sense.
You don’t need to worry about leaving meta descriptions blank as WordPress will automatically generate a description for you by using the first sentence or so of your post. This is a relatively good option by default, but there is a bit of optimization you can perform.
To make the most out of your meta descriptions you must create one for each page you make. The all in one SEO plugin gives you a text area to do this quickly and easily when you are writing your posts. I suggest you make it readable, less than 250 characters, and include one or two keywords without looking spammy.
The permalink
The permalink is literally the url structure of the page. It can be seen in the users address bar. Here in green is an example of this pages permalink:
http://publisherhq.com/seo-optimised-content/
WordPress allows you to customize your permalinks, which not only lets you make them look nice, but also allows you to use your keyword, which has some benefit in terms of SEO.
