How-to: Create an Optimized Page

Many rightfully argue that SEO is a science. SEO takes time, patience and endless testing to achieve the optimal results. It seems that once that goal is achieved, the rules of SEO change and it’s back to the drawing board. So what does it take to create an optimized page? SEOMoz recently posted a blog that helps establish what an optimized page entails. While SEOMoz’s blog mentioned various steps to take for optimization, a few stand out as being particularly crucial.

In terms of HTML head tags, title tags are “the most important of on-page elements”. Title tags should incorporate target keyword themes, especially as the first word(s) in the tag. Other elements to incorporate into head tags are meta descriptions, meta keywords, meta robots and other meta tags. As far as URLs go, shorter is better. Shorter URLs will usually perform better, and are easier to share. Other URL essentials include keyword location, the use of subdomains versus subpages and word separators (SEOMoz suggest using hyphens rather than underscores to separate words). Page Architecture is another key component for an optimized page. Keyword location and content structure are two things to look out for when it comes to page architecture. Where are the keywords located? Usually engines will pick up key phrases within the first 100 words.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for on-page optimization, and as SEO changes constantly, it is important to be aware of what these changes are.