Permalink Structure On-Page SEO

Permalink Structure for Better On-Page SEO

In every blog or website, whenever a new post or page is created it is given a permalink (URL) to identify in blog or website’s database. You can say that these permalinks are the sole identity of different pages and posts. You can use these permalinks anywhere to refer to these specific pages or posts in your emails, other posts or pages, Facebook and Google Plus, or you can also provide these permalinks in printed materials.

Simple to read and simple to understand URLs (Permalinks) will convey your site’s content information easily. Just create descriptive and simple permalinks that are friendly to visitors and for Search Engines. URL like this “www.yourdomain.com/3402842xd/sdfoelp.html” can be confusing and very hard to remember if someone wants to link to your post or page for that permalink. Sometime Users may believe that a part of the permalink is unnecessary, and might leave the unnecessary part, so breaking the link. If your permalink (URL) contains relevant words, this provides users and search engines with more information about the page/post.

Remember one thing that the permalinks you created for your posts and pages would be displayed in search engine results if a user’s query triggers your post or page and the section(s) of your page’s permalink appear in bold if it matches with the users query. So you should use words in your permalinks rather than numbers so that you can reap more SEO juice from this area.

Permalink Structure Conclusion Summary:

Permalinks with words that are relevant to your site's content and structure are friendlier for both visitors navigating your site and Search Engines. Users remember short and simple URLs better and are more willing to create links to these kinds of pages and posts that have quality content with short and simple permalink.

Avoid all these in your Permalinks:

1. Lengthy and complex URLs that are difficult to remember
2. Numeric Page names like page1 pag2 or so on
3. Excessive keywords in permalinks
4. Choosing permalinks that are not related to the page’s content
5. Odd capitalization of URLs, most users like lower-case URLs

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Post/Page Title and Heading Tags

Post/Page Title and Heading Tags

In the last post we discussed the importance of Website Domain Name for On Page SEO. Today we move on to our next On Page SEO element which is Title Tags for Posts and Pages. At the top of the browser a bar displays the Title Tag for a page or post, and it is very important for On Page Search Engine Optimization. When The Search Engine crawl a website Title Tag is the first thing that a Search Engine crawler encounters. So do not waste or skip this area for better optimization.

Title Tags:

So the question is what you should write in your Page/Post Title Tags?

Your Title Tag should not contain irrelevant information or sentences that are not related to the content of the page. Title Tag should be focused on a keyword for which you write your page or post’s content. It should not be too lengthy or something that is not readable or make no sense to human visitor.

Title Tags should be easily readable, short and keyword focused. If you put more words in title tags the collective and individual value of each word in this tag would be diminished so do not over stuff your Title Tags with only Keywords. For example if you write a 4 word long tail keyword in title tag it, each word is more powerful in this 4 word keyword than a 5 or 6 word keyword.

Conclusion:

Fully optimize your title tags with tightly focused keywords. But do not over stuff your Title Tags with unnecessary information, keywords or sentences that make no sense and are not readable to human visitors.

Heading Tags:

The heading displays at the top of the content of the page/posts and is another important factor in On Page SEO. Headings on a page provide extra information or sense about what is written under this Tag. So make sure you focus your headings around the content of your page with specific related keyword in mind about the page. These tags are enclosed in <h1> and <h2> heading tags.

A page only has one <h1> tag but may have 2, 3 or more <h2> Tags. There are total six heading tags <h1>, <h2>, <h3>…. and <h6>. Do not use more than one <h1> Tag on a single page or post this may have a bad impact on your page’s optimization.

If you don’t know how to use different Heading Tags in a page to fully optimize your content, just break your content into headings and sub-heading and use closely related keyword variations in those headings but please make sure you don’t stuff your heading with only keywords for SEO. Because if you do this kind of SEO your page headings won’t look natural to human eye and will probably have a negative impression for your visitors and to Search Engines.

<h1> Heading Tag is the most important factor for SEO as compared to other heading tags but it doesn’t mean that we will not use other Heading Tags. It is very beneficial to use all the possible areas to fully optimize our page’s content for specific long tail keywords and its closely related keyword variations in the Heading Tags.

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Website Domain Name for On-Page SEO

Website/Blog Domain Name (URL)

The first thing in On Page SEO is Website Domain name, Domain of a website is really an important factor in Search Engine Optimization. You may have seen sites that are promoting a specific product and have that product name in their Domain name. It is a fast way of Search Engine Optimization. There are other sites that have their primary keyword in their Domains. For example www.longtailkeyword.com these kinds of sites have a guaranteed way of higher rankings on Google without considering the quality of content they provide. Sites that have an exact keyword in their Domains are called Exact Match Domain. There is higher probability of higher rankings on Search Engines of Exact Match Domains than other websites that provide similar content.

Why these Exact Match Domains (EMD) rank so well in Search Engine Results is because these kinds of sites have backlinks from other sites that have domain name in there anchor text by default.

Anchor Text is a text on which we place a link on, for example CLICK HERE. Search Engines analyze the links and Anchor Texts to get an idea of page that is linked to and its authority. So if you have an Exact Match Domain for your best primary keyword you may have an advantage over your competitors because whenever you got a backlink, the anchor text include the domain name by default. For example you are promoting a product called “Weight Loss Diet Plan” and your domain name is www.weightlossdietplan.com so whenever someone link to your page using your product name as anchor text your anchor text automatically include your domain name and will result in high ranking as Google and other Search Engines give importance to these links and provide you some authority for that keyword (Domain Name).

But there is a little twist now-a-days, because most of the webmasters used this technique in the past and they misused this technique, so most of the Search Engines now show red flags to these kinds of Domain Names. These Kinds of Exact Match Domains got hit by Google because they are not focusing on quality content but focus only on Search Engine Optimization. So do not plan to do this kind of stuff because it won’t work anymore if you are not focusing on Quality Content in your project. Not all EMD sites got hit by Google because they are focusing on their visitors and providing them Value/Benefit. Provide value to your visitors and then optimize your content. Because everyone like natural and relevant content, natural and relevant links and anchor texts so does the Google and other Search Engines.

Now if you really want to use Exact Match Domain (EMD) website, you have to focus on these 2 things:

1. Your website is filled with good quality content which is well optimized, and
2. You got natural backlinks from good sources with natural Anchor Text

And if you want to introduce your own brand name you can have that name as your Domain Name. It will help you, your brand and will build its own authority over time.

If you want to attract world-wide traffic you should have a .com .net or .org Domain Names. If you are targeting a particular Country and want to rank well on your local search engine like Google.co.uk then .co.uk or .org.uk Domain Names are best. But local Domains only show in local search results not in other countries. But it is sometime necessary to have a local Domain Name because of a local business like restaurants, local trading company or any professional services.

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On-Page Optimization Techniques

After you have done your keyword research, now it’s time to optimize our website/blog/content or page for selected keywords and key terms. The next thing we have to follow in three main pillars hierarchy is On Page SEO. As I told you earlier On Page Search Engine Optimization means making small but important modifications in your website or blog so that you can make your blog Search Engine friendly. There are some key elements or key areas in On Page SEO which are follows:

1- Blog/website Domain Name or URL
2- Title Tags for posts and pages
3- Heading Tag
4- Permalinks
5- Meta Tags

• Description Meta Tags
• Keywords Meta Tags

6- Author Profile
7- Image Optimization

• Image File Name
• Image Title Tags
• Image Alt Tags
• Image File Size

8- Creative and Unique Content
9- Keyword Density
10- Related Keywords
11- Inter Linking
12- Video and Audio
13- Anchor Text

On Page SEO, if done correctly, can easily give your website’s ranking the desired boost that you are looking for and you can out smart your competition. But remember one thing that it’s a process and you have to follow all the steps to make it work for you. SEO may be boring time, consuming or whatever but still it has its significance in Search Engine’s rankings. So pay good attention to all the areas related to your project and have patience it is not a one night thing where you will see results in just one night. If you do all the steps correctly you will be able to see some results in just 3 to 5 weeks depending on the keywords you selected and how properly you did the SEO steps. It is a blue print that I’m following since I started my projects. I updated and will update in future this blue print on timely basis so that it won’t rotten out.

There are some key areas from the beginning that really wants your attention. Let’s recall them and then move on to our 1st ON Page SEO area which is Website/Blog Domain Name or URL. Some of the key points are:

1- Keyword Research
2- Selection of Long Tail Keywords
3- Competition Analysis

In the next post we will Start discussion on the 2nd most important area which is On Page SEO, so stay tuned and give your feedback so that I can interact well with you guys.

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Google Adwords Keyword Planner Tool

Login Here and open the Google Adwords Keyword Planner Tool. This Tool is located in "Tools and Analysis" tab in the menu with the name of "Keyword Planner". Once you are on the Google Adwords Keyword Planner Tool page, just open the first option "Search for new keyword and group ideas" and write down your keyword or key term (Long Tail Keyword) and hit the Get Ideas button. On the next page there are lots of keyword ideas that would include your key term with Monthly Searches, Yearly Searches, Competition, CPC, etc.

Now You will see a screen like this where you can find the best keyword that is related to your content.

In Left Pane there is an option called Keyword filters use this option to select "LOW" competition so that Google Adwords tool only show keywords and key terms with low competition.

Now back to the search results or our keyword.

Avg monthly Searches are those searches that have been made in the last month for that particular keyword or key term with exact match. Competition means how other webmasters are using that keyword. Low Competition means there are not so many webmasters like us who are using the same keyword for optimizing there content and that’s where we would target our focus. We would Select Keywords with Low Competition and with High Monthly Searches.

Now we know how to conduct our keyword research we would follow this process and find as many possible long tail keywords or key terms that are related to our content, website or blog. In start it may be difficult to find some great keywords but with some practice this can be done correctly and properly. In the later posts I would show you some great stuff that will make this keyword research very easy and fun for you guys just stay tuned. One question that may tease you is that how many keywords we need to collect to start a new project. From my point of view we need keywords as many as we can find (may be 80-100 to give us a start) but do not forget the description of keywords that we need. Long tail Keywords with Low competition and High Monthly Searches.

After that keyword research now we have a pretty much big data base, now we can move to our next phase which is Analyze Competition for selected Keywords and Key Terms.

So we would start our Analysis of selected keywords for Competition. This may be a lengthy process but we have to find all information that we can get easily. We would type each keyword in Google and study the pages that Google will show us for that particular Keyword. We want to analyze our competitor’s pages, website or blog so that we can have necessary information about our competitor that how his page looks like in which areas he is strong and where he is weak.

How can we outsmart our  competitors and how can we optimize our pages, post, blog or website that will give the better impression to our readers than our competitor’s website or blog? All these and other questions are important and necessary for our knowledge about the competition we would face in future for that particular keyword so we have to make count each and every second we spent on competition analysis for our selected keywords. Because I know and when you do all these things you would also feel that this process is too lengthy and time consuming, but most important thing is that this process is the base for your project, it may be the key stone in your hands that will give you the ultimate freedom over search engine because may be your competitors haven’t figured this out yet.

So if you understand how this process works, you would have a power to rank on Google for your desired keywords and can crush your competition, it is that simple and clear. Do not worry in the start if you don’t get the results because there is always a logical explanation to any result we face. If you think something is wrong or not working just recall all the points you have learned and compare your project with those points there may be some areas that you skipped or may be applied with some other aspect so just rethink your strategy and work on all the possible areas so that you would get the best possible results.

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