The on-page optimization you perform on your sites can make your link building efforts work a whole lot better (or make it a lot harder to see the results you want).
The reason this post is needed on a link building oriented blog is many people look to link building as the end-all, be-all for getting higher rankings, and it’s not…
While link building is an essential part of the overall rankings effort, it’s still only half of the battle.
The other half of the “battle” is to achieve the happy marriage between OFF-page and ON-page optimization.
Link building is easy to do, especially with the dearth of available services out there like Linkvana, Backlink Solutions, Unique Article Wizard etc…
So the issue comes down to how receptive your sites are going to be to these backlinks, and how effective the backlinks are going to be based on your on-page SEO.
There’s a reason why I:
- Offer site evaluations as a bonus for Linkvana buyers.
- Offer a pretty good newsletter full of link building and article marketing tips for people interested in Unique Article Wizard (via exit popup or top right sidebar on that a site, linked to above)…
- I have written the “LV Reviews newsletter” (via exit popup or top right sidebar on this site you are on right now)
- I have the Increase Website Traffic newsletter (30 info-packed emails about increasing traffic to your sites).
The reason I offer all these newsletters and bonuses and resource site is to help people make the most out of the link building and traffic generation tools that are available.
And a tool is only as useful as the wielder of the tool, so you need to set yourself up for Success with these tools by knowing
1- How best to use those tools and use them for maximum effect
AND
2- The On-page optimization factors that can greatly increase or decrease your rankings
That’s really the gist of this post, so here’s some important on-page factors that will help your links be more effective…
- Domain name,proximity factors
- titles used for site, and blog posts (related to proximity factors)
- site design, hierarchy
- site urls
- matching anchor text to destination urls
1- Domain name must have keywords in it, preferably your main KWs. If domain name has keywords in it, the keywords should be as close to beginning of name as possible ( bestinternetmarketing dot com is not as good as internetmarketingbest dot com, for example… if main KW was internetmarketing)
2- Site titles are important, too so put your main keywords in title
3- Edit the url of your About Page to include some of your main Kws, don’t leave it as just domainname.com/about…that’s a waste of a high profile site page.
4- Check your site urls! IMPORTANT!
If your site urls don’t have spaces in between them, then the search engines will deem the urls and one long word and you’ll only rank for this keyphrase for this long unbroken string of words mashed together.
Example bad url – greenteam.com/greenwidgets.htm – This url will rank well at some point for the term greenwidgets (no spaces)
Good URL – greenteam.com/green-widgets.htm – This url will rank well for the term green widget, which has spaces between GREEN and WIDGETS.
Most people search keyphrases using spaces in between the keywords is the search query so you need to make sure your site urls are well-positioned for good rankings by having spaces in between the keywords in your site urls…
5- Last but not least, match the anchor text to the url it’s pointing to.
DON’T have an anchor text link of GREEN GAGDETS linking to a site url that looks like greenteam.com/green-widgets.htm if you want the url to rank well for the term Green Widgets…
Whatever your anchor text is, make sure it matches the url it is pointing to, or at least make sure that somewhere on that url are the keywords used in the anchor text.
YES, it’s good to mix it up a bit with your anchor text terms used, just remember to include those keywords in your url…
There’s more to all of this on-page SEO but those are the most basic on-page factors than ca be explained in one post.
For more about Site Design and Structure, visit Bruce Clay’s SEO site and view this post on Theming Through Silo Sites Notice that the post was written years ago, long before most people were talking about silo sites…
NOTE: I came back to edit this post because I saw something “funny” on a lot of other SERPS mentioning the term 
n-page optimization factors”
Another “thing” that should be mentioned when talking about on-page SEO factors is LIMITING the use of delimiters words like and, or, the, but, etc…
There’s even a plugin called SEO slug that removes these extra, and useless keywords from your post slugs, and there’s obviously a reason for that.
WordPress blogs auto-create slugs (AKA post urls) based what your Post Title is so it’s easy to forget what your actual post URL ends up looking like by the time you’re done writing title, content, tags, and doing the AllInOne SEO thing…
As mentioned previously in this post, your site URLs are important ranking factors but there’s more to good site urls than just making sure there’s spaces in between your keywords:
Removing the delimiters from your site urls will add the extra OOOMPH! to your on-page optimization.
Funny how none of the other experts” are practicing this eh?
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Great article – thanks! Do you have any recommendations for analytic programs for SEOs?
I have been using Google Analytics but am extremely disappointed in the lack of up-to-date information among other things.
Any recommendations of programs to track visitors is greatly appreciated.
Hey Seth, you’re welcome…
A lot of people I know like StatCounter, it tells you what search engines and what urls (like article directory articles) are sending the traffic and for what keywords.
But for professional SEOs usage, like to tell clients how well they’re (you’re) doing for them, where they’re ranking, the progress you’re causing for them etc… I’m not really sure, since I’m not a SEO by trade.
However, I’ve done some link building privately for people and I just do an occasional keywords search to see the progress I’m making.
The way I see it, if you’re on top of your client’s needs and project and have already generated a KWs list for them, just start with the long-tails, and check those off your list once you’ve gotten them to Page 1 for those terms.
Over time you’ll have less terms to work on and worry about and check progress for, and besdies AWSTATS tells you the KWs the site is being founds for anyways.
A lot of people overlook the AWSTATS tool because it’s free (inside your cpanel by default), but it tells you a lot but it has its drawbacks, too, just like Alexa.com has its drawbacks.
I like to keep things simple for assessing my sites and KW rankings, but if you need to generate reports for clients then you might need a paid solution.
Hope this helps,
Dan
Awesome – I appreciate it and looks like I’ll have to seek out a paid solution. Once again thanks for the help and taking the time to write a nice response!
Great on page optimization tips here. Thanks for sharing them with us. I keep following things in mind when doing on page optimization.
1. Keywords in Title
2. In Description
3. In Header
4. In h1 – h6 tags (if they are present)
5. In Image names
6. In Image Alt Tags
7. In Bread Crumbs etc.
I have great improvement in serp by placing keywords in the above mentioned places.
Thanks Mr/Mrs. Online Payroll.
Pop your url into Linx Boss for online payroll, online payroll services, and one other search phrase, and you’ll probably be page 1 (instead of pages 2, and 3) within a month or so