The following is a walkthrough of recommended best practices to optimize webpages for search engine rankings. Obviously we recommend using a professional seo agency like Small Box or our friends at Slingshot SEO to do this for your website but in the spirit of transparency and education we wanted to post this 8 step process for our existing and potential clients to use when they are updating their websites using our nifty Small Box CMS!
Step 1: Write the content for the new page and forget about SEO
Write for you intended audience and don’t worry about keywords yet. You’ll address them in the next step. For now, just concentrate on writing effective page copy. Because you know your industry and your audience, more often than not, you’ll wind up using valuable keywords without even trying.
Once your page copy is complete, publish it to the site via the CMS.
Step 2: Identify target keywords that capture what the page is about.
Now you can start thinking about SEO. Review the keyword research document and identify any keywords that capture what the page is about. Often more than one keyword will capture what the page is about. In such cases it’s usually preferable to use the keyword that has greater search volume.
No keyword research document can ever be 100% complete, so there will inevitably be cases where none of the keywords in the document capture what the page is about. In these circumstances you’ll need to do a bit of on-the-spot keyword research. Google has a tool that makes this quick and easy, so it’s a good idea to do some on-the-spot keyword research, even if there are promising keywords in the keyword research document.
Here’s how to use the Google tool:
- In a web browser, go to the new page you just created (make sure you go to the page on the “front end” of the site – not the “back end” via the CMS).
- In a separate tab or new window of your web browser goto the Google AdWords Tool here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
- Click on the radio button next to “Website content”
- From the address bar of your web browser copy the URL of the new page on your site and paste it into the Google AdWords Tool
- ·Do NOT check the box to include other pages on your site linked from this URL
- Click on the “Get keyword ideas” button.
- After the results are collected change the “Match Type” from Broad to Exact in the drop down menu.
Once you’ve identified some keyword possibilities, pick 1 keyword to be your primary keyword target. As a rule of thumb, you usually want to have the keyword with the highest search volume as your primary keyword target. However, don’t forget the user intent behind the keyword. People type in keywords because they are trying to find something. Will you page copy provide what they are looking for? If not, you may be better off targeting a keyword with lower search volume and better user-intent.
You can also indentify 1-2 keywords to be secondary keyword targets. Sometimes the secondary keywords are variations of the primary keyword. For example, [design build] and [design and build] are not the same keyword even though they might mean the same thing and have the same user intent when they’re typed into a search engine. Since [design build] has more search volume it’s the better candidate for the primary target and [design and build] would make a very good secondary target. Plural and singular of the same term are also separte keywords and should be treated in a similar manner. Secondary keyword targets can also include different terms that are related to the same idea.
Step 3: Compose a Title Tag that includes the target keywords
The Title Tag is the single most important on-site factor that influences search engine rankings. It is also becomes the clickable headline of you listing when it appears in the search engine. Use the following format to compose Title Tags that are both “clickable” and maximize the page’s ability to rank well:
Primary Keyword | Secondary Keyword | Secondary Keyword | Site Name
Since you will be limiting yourself to at most 3 keyword targets, you don’t need to worry about keyword stuffing or excessively long Title Tags. Try to keep your Title Tags less than 69 characters because Google does not display anything in the Title Tag past the 69th character.
Step 4: Compose a Meta Description that is clickable
The Meta Description does NOT influence search engine rankings. However, it is the free “ad copy” for your page that the search engines display beneath the Title Tag on the results pages. So, you want to write a Meta Description that “sells the click” and entices people to click on your listing. The following format will usually accomplish this:
[Site/Company] is/has/does [products/services/things covered on the page]. [One or two benefits]
Try to keep your meta descriptions less than 155 characters. Google won’t display anything past the 155th character.
Step 5: Add an H1 tag that includes the primary keyword target
The H1 tag shows up as the primary headline of the page. For your human visitors it will be seen as the headline of the page. It also is factor that the search engines use to determine rankings, so the H1 tag should include the primary keyword once. For both usability and SEO reasons you do not want to keyword stuff the H1 tag, so you do not need to worry about including secondary keywords in the H1 tag. Also, for SEO reasons do not make the H1 tag just the primary keyword. Instead you want an H1 tag that uses the primary keyword as part of a slightly longer title.
Step 6: Tweak page copy to include instances of the target keyword(s)
Review the page copy and make sure it uses the target keywords multiple times. Try to feature the keywords in the first few words (50-100, but hopefully even sooner) of the page’s text content. Don’t be overly aggressive and “keyword stuff” your page copy – it could result in an over-optimization penalty. So long as you follow this simple rule of thumb you’ll be fine: “2-3X on short pages, 4-6X on longer ones and never more than makes sense in the context of the copy.”
Step 7: Bold and Italicize the primary keyword target in the page copy
Try to use the primary keyword target at least once in bold and at least once in italics. This carries a minor amount of SEO weight and this can be skipped if it does not make sense in the context of the copy. There is no added SEO benefit from bolding or italicizing more than once, so do so only if it makes the copy more readable your audience.
Step 8: Add an image to the body with an optimized alt-tag
Find an image related to your primary keyword to add to the main body of the page. Pick an image that will appeal to your human audience because the search engines can’t see images. The search engines rely on the image file name and the piece of code called the alt-tag. Make the image filename exactly match the primary keyword target. If your keyword is more than one word long, use dashes to replace spaces in the filename. Make the alt tag exactly match the primary keyword target.
We could definitely add several more steps but if you follow these then you will be well on your way to having a website that is well optimized for search engines.
Good advice. Additionally, if you’re a car mechanic in Ft. Wayne, be sure that’s part of your keyword strategy, unless you’re trying to compete with every car mechanic in the world. You’ll probably want to go for a page title/keyword that includes “car mechanic Ft Wayne”.
For the description, I like to keep in mind how the listing looks on Google’s results page. Don’t waste space being redundant or telling people what they already know. Sell that click!
Nice Ben. That was an easily understood practical advice piece. Thanks for writing it.