On-Site SEO Activities

On-site SEO looks at what can be done on the actual website to drive traffic and achieve higher ratings in search engine result pages (SERPs).  On-site SEO is a lot to do with how a website has been built and fundamentally it can be divided into two main areas under the broad headings of coding and content.

Website Coding, Structure and Development Factors -

• Domain-friendly name
  • By having keyword(s) in the domain name it will help with website ranking.
• Clear and intuitive primary navigation menu (and secondary navigation)
  • In short, a websites structure is important to SEO as it has an influence on how the website is seen in search engines as it has a bearing on how the website is crawled by search engines and how the content is perceived and interpreted. It is essential to ensure a website is crawled as efficiently as possible and that it gets as many web pages indexed during the time that the search engine is on the website.
• Breadcrumb menu
  • Website breadcrumbs help both users and search engines access areas of the website and understand where they are in the overall structure of the website.
• Sitemap page
  • A sitemap page basically lists every web page and gives a link to the web page which helps with the internal linking structure of the website.
• XML sitemap file
  • Ensuring that the website has an up-to-date (and constantly updated XML sitemap) is important for SEO as it is the tool that tells search engines what pages are on the website, the change frequency and the priority of the web pages.
• Search engine friendly URL's
  • This is a must for SEO and means that URLs shouldn't contain and '?' or '='. The URL needs to be as memorable as possible and contain keywords where possible.
• XHTML W3C validated and CSS validated coding
  • All code on a website should be validated to ensure that there are no errors that will hinder or slowdown search engines crawling the website.
• Page loading times
  • Page load times are a factor in determining ranking as Google has the nice idea of speeding everything up on the web.
• 301 redirecting employed
  • 301 redirects should be used on non-www and www rewrites and in other places where it is necessary to "force" the user or search engine to a redirected page.

Content, Keywords, Page Titles, Meta Tags, Internal Links and Image Factors -

• Unique, personalised and interesting content (and relevant execution of keywords)
  • Content is King as they say and content should be based around keywords. Search engines love content that is unique and that it thinks users want to read.
  • Blogs are an important part of website content as the content on blogs is considered fresh, up-to-date and of more relevance.
• Development of appropriate meta description, page titles, headings
  • Meta description, page titles and headings are all very important in ensuring a consistent keyword theme throughout a web page.
• Internal link optimisation
  • Internal linking means ensuring that web pages within the website are linked to one another from other web pages. Not only that but the anchor text used to link to the web page is crucial. Anchor text is the visible, clickable text in any hyperlink (the text on most websites will be underlined or coloured to denote to the user that the text is clickable). Anchor text is important as it helps search engines determine the subject matter and relevance of a web page and link.  The words that you use within your anchor text are therefore important and need to be considered carefully. These should be descriptive and state where the link is going to. Also, if the same hyperlink is used on a page more than once it is generally considered that the anchor text should be the same.
• Image optimisation
  • All images should contain alt text that includes keywords for the page that the image is on. Search engines can't see images so the alt text should also state what the image is showing in a descriptive manner.

As these factors highlight, on-site SEO is about editing and updating the website content to increase keyword topics and relevance. It is considered that on-site SEO is easier and quicker to implement as it is something that a website owner has instant control over.

To improve these areas on your website, Website Consultancy Services offer the following on-site services:

Complete SEO audit - Website Consultancy Services can carry out an SEO audit on how the website can be improved. The SEO audit looks at the technical, content and reputational aspects of a website. Fundamentally, it looks technically at how search engines encounter the website and the technological aspects that influence how search engines understand the content it finds. Content-wise it looks at the user demand on keywords and at the website's wider online reputation and usability. Website Consultancy Services  have previously done SEO Audit's for the Cloud Computing Centre, The Eclipse Group and Maximise. More detail on the SEO audit can be provided if required but by implementing this audit it provides a great foundation and knowledge to know the current SEO state of your website, the work required to fix issues and how to improve SEO in a step-by-step process. It ensures that SEO isn't tackled in an ad-hoc manner but in a cohesive and researched manner so the real issues are fixed.

Implementation of the findings from the SEO audit - Once you have received the SEO audit you may decide that you need a SEO contractors help with implementing the recommended changes. Until the SEO audit is carried out I can't say what results will come back and the level of change that is required on your website. Website Consultancy Services, in effect, become your 'SEO Manager' and work for your company to get the recommended changes implemented. Please note that these changes are only the non-technical changes in relation to content and reputation (any fundamental technical and coding recommendations will require the services of your technical/web developer as Website Consultancy Services are not able to implement these changes). Areas Website Consultancy Services cover are areas such as (and areas that can be updated in a content management system) -

• Keyword research and analysis
• Existing content updating
• New content creation including SEO copywriting
• Page title, meta description and keyword development
• Heading (H1, H2, H3) generation including ensuring an appropriate structure to all web pages
• Terminology creation (based on keywords)
• Image optimisation - review and development of alt-tags on images and filename of saved images
• Internal linking review and update
• 404 messaging development
• Ensuring clean HTML code through a content management system (including WC3 validation)

Content writing - Website Consultancy Services can write new website copy and update existing website copy to ensure that it meets user demand and keywords (for SEO). Website Consultancy Services wrote all the product descriptions for Smartware2U: http://smartware2u.com e.g.http://smartware2u.com/products/1-gemalto-net-v2.aspx. 

Blog entry - Website Consultancy Services am able to write blog entries based on keywords and subjects requested by website owners to ensure that website content is fresh and constantly updated. Website Consultancy Services have written blog entries for Eventful Stays and the Cloud Computing Centre. Examples of credited blog entries can be seen on Eventful Stays on the following URL: http://eventfulstays.com/blog/2011/02/page/2/.

SEO management and monitoring - Continual SEO management and monitoring is available. This ranges from continuous SEO work on your website to reporting on and measuring the SEO weekly/monthly through a website analytics package (e.g. Google Analytics which has been installed by you).

 

 

 

Website Consultancy Services is the trading name of Sarah Wain Consultancy Services Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number: 07264797