A web page could be bursting with information and have a multitude of colors, yet remain right at the bottom of the search results. The reason is simple; the chief features of a wonderfully optimized page are absent from these sites. Here is how you can take control and make your web page do justice to itself.

01.  Use SEO Friendly URLs

The era of having clunky or long URLs is behind us. Our URLs or links (in case some are still groping around) need to be straightforward, clean and short if they are to appear at the top of the list. While numbers, equal signs, hyphens and lots of meaningless words may have seemed fancy and indistinguishable to a non-tech kid, they are a redundant breed that no one wants anymore. If you can build in keywords to your URL, you could be reaping dividends sooner than others.

02.  Have the Keyword in the Title Tag

Actually, this is simple enough to become tech – common sense. However, it will probably take a few more years before this phenomenon of tech – common sense really settles in; therefore, we will point these out until then. Stylish titles, subtle humor and complicated alliterations had their heyday, but in this busy world, the key factor has to leap out at the reader for them to pick it up amidst the rest of the scripts. Push your keyword into the title first, if you can rhyme it or throw in humor to it afterward, consider it a bonus.  

03.  H1 and H2 Tags

Once the title tag and subtitle tags are decided on, make sure you give them the prominence they deserve through H1 (for title tags) or H2 (for subtitle tags) tags. H1 carries the most amount of importance on a page and some page creators include the logo or a graphic in the H1. From an optimization point of view, this is a waste of an opportunity as a short heading would easily take the page up a few notches. Similarly, H2 tags provide due credit to subtopics which should also ideally contain a keyword of sorts.

04.  The First 100 Words

In the world of public speaking, the experts claim that you gain or lose your audience within the first twenty-five seconds. Similarly, if your first hundred words have one or more keywords, you are more likely to be successful in improving the page position in search results.

05.  Well Linked Content

No one wants to flip back and forth, key in another set of words on to another search engine and read off multiple tabs. The answer – link your content both internally and externally. If you have been wary of outbound links, well, put your worries behind you. A study has shown that pages with outbound links do better than those without. The reason is that such outbound links help the search engine understand what your page is about.

06.  Allow Sharing

If people like what they read or see, they would be your first advocates, but only if you let them. No one is going to pick up the phone and say ‘Hey, you should go read such and such an article’, but they will certainly share it willingly, if the option to share through social media is available. The more professional and mature crowd would appreciate the option of mailing the article as well; a point you might want to keep in mind for some of your serious articles.

07.  Write Long Content

This comes as a bit of a surprise. Would people really spend such a lot of time reading a page? This is a fair question to loom in one’s mind. The logic which supports long content is that it would state, confirm and even reaffirm the purpose and meaning of the page. It probably gives the reader also the assurance that the writer was confident about the subject. Either way, search engines are sold when they see long content – so cheers to more writing!