On-Page SEO - Dallas Search Engine Optimization Services, Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.

Quality Content is King in On-Page SEO

Create good, quality content that reads well and flows seamlessly.  Write it around your target keyword phrases, using them enough but not too much.  A good rule of thumb is to use your keyword once every 30 words. 

Above all else, quality content is the single most important factor to successful on-page seo. Whatever you do, be sure that you don't write junk or filler copy and make sure it flows well.  Writing about your keyword phrase doesn't mean adding the keyword phrase unnaturally into the text.

• Build your site for your customers, within the guidelines that the search engines set out.

• The site's first focus should be on what your clients want.

Other On-Page SEO Factors are:

• Use your keywords in your page title tags (this is one of the most important seo factors).  But just each keyword once per title, do not keep repeating them in a spam-like way.  For example, if you want to rank for SEO Dallas, make your title tag read SEO Dallas, Texas.

• Use your keywords in your meta description tags once, in a well structured sentence of about 30 words.

• Place your keywords in your headers and sub headers, your image alt tags, and use them in internal linking (anchor) text to the other pages in your site.

• Use a robots tag.

• Create an XML sitemap so their spiders can easily find, crawl and index all your pages.

• Don't use frames.

• Use script and Flash sparingly (don't create your WHOLE site in Flash).

• Use external files for java-script.

• Use dynamic URLs wisely (Avoid using URLs with ? = & in them, if at all possible).

Search Engine Optimization Mistakes and Solutions

About the Author: By Jimsun Lui, who is working in Search Engine Optimization division of Agog Digital Marketing Strategy Limited. The company assists clients in both Chinese and English search engine optimization.

Major sources of website traffic come from search engines. Therefore, gaining top search engine placement through search engine optimization is very important.  Based on our several years of SEO experience, here are some common mistakes and how to correct them.

1. Cannot Get Indexed by Search Engines, Really?
A garment ERP software solution provider came to me and asked a question: "I have established a new website for 1 year, and found an SEO company to submit my website.  However, my website can be found in search engines only when I type my domain name in the search query box.  The SEO company told me my domain got banned.  What can I do?"

"My domain got banned. What can I do?"
I told them they had been fooled by that SEO company.  If you type your domain name in the search box and your website can be found, this means your website has not been banned. Interestingly, your SEO company's domain name is no longer found in Google.  Their domain got banned only.

To help them find out their real problems, I discovered the following issues in the search engines:

a. When typing their domain name in the search query box, their site was displayed in search result...  but instead of displaying their Title Tag, the search engine displayed only their domain name.

b. Only 1 page is being indexed. What's the problem then?

With a closer look at their coding, I found that at the top of their webpage, they heavily used JavaScript to present their heading, company name, visible content, and website menu. Actually, many search engines have difficulty reading JavaScript.

Solution?

Put JavaScript in external js file and leave the webpages with plain HTML code. Search engines usually have problems crawling JavaScript. Since their whole site navigation menu was written in JavaScript, they needed to build a sitemap using plain HTML so the search engines could read all of their pages.

Tip: When you cannot get indexed by search engines, do not blindly believe someone saying that your website got banned.  You should firstly look at your website structure and see if your coding is clumsy, making it hard for the search engines to "read" your website. The problem created by JavaScript is not uncommon nowadays.

2. Use of Flash
Web design companies try hard to persuade you to use a Flash introduction as your homepage. You think Wow! The flash animation is very appealing and it makes your site looks more attractive. However, do you know that it can hurt your website rankings?

Let me explain..

Search engines analyze websites based on text. Flash, unluckily, is not text.  Search engines are not able to read content presented by Flash. They just treat Flash as an embedded object or graphic only. If you use a Flash Intro as your homepage, you will never get good rankings.

In addition, many Flash intros do not offer additional and meaningful content to visitors. Ask your visitors, how many of them are really interested in reading your Flash Intro before going straight to your website content?

A solution to Flash - please ask yourself whether the Flash intro is really useful and can offer additional information to your visitors? Secondly, instead of a Flash homepage, you may consider making a Flash header together with spider readable content on your homepage.

4. Hidden Text and Meta Tags
Some webmasters use a technique called "keyword stuffing". They will stuff keywords into their webpages repeatedly, e.g. "keyword 1, keyword 2, .... keyword 1, keyword 2...." Well, everyone knows it does not make sense to visitors. Therefore, those "clever" webmasters will make that text invisible. For example, make the text color identical to background color.

This trick no longer works. Search engines are able to detect it and penalize websites using this technique. If you do not want your site being penalized, remove that hidden text immediately.

Some webmasters only stuff keywords in Meta Keyword Tags, an area for putting keywords. Stuffing keywords in Meta keyword tags is also not good.  Nowadays, search engines place less emphasis or even no emphasis on Meta keyword tags. So, what is the point of risking yourself by stuffing keywords there?

5. Use of Dynamic Pages
Many websites use content management system (CMS) to generate their webpages.  Dynamic pages are easier for website development, CMS generally creates dynamic pages. However, search engines have difficulty indexing them.

To solve the problem, consider using a Mod Rewrite if you use an Apache server, or find a CMS that can generate static HTML pages.

About the Author: By Jimsun Lui, who is working in Search Engine Optimization division of Agog Digital Marketing Strategy Limited. The company assists clients in both Chinese and English search engine optimization.