Toronto SEO Blog

SEO Onsite Optimization refers to all the elements on your site that can be optimized for the Google and other search engines.

Onsite SEO Optimization includes:

Keyword Lists

• The foundation of everything – onsite optimization, link building, what you do with social media activity, this is arguably the single most important factor in the whole SEO process.
• While it’s easy to figure out what your core keywords are, do you know what keywords are actually converting and providing you with sales, leads and in turn, revenue?
• If you don’t, there are tools within Google Analytics such as goal tracking, event tracking and eCommerce tracking that will allow you to see what keywords, organic and paid, are actually converting. While you may still want to rank for broad terms that don’t immediately lead to a direct conversion, you will definitely want to be focusing on the revenue generating keywords.
• This is why as part of our keyword building process, we require access to your Analytics and Adwords accounts, and is also why the time we allot to the process may be higher than what other Toronto SEO companies allow.
• Keep the number of keywords generated for an SEO campaign in line with the number of pages you have on your site.
• With the exception of the Homepage, each page can be optimized for 1 main keyword and 5-10 supporting keywords.
• Don’t try to optimize a page for more than one main keyword as it gets messy and just doesn’t work. The theme of the page becomes too diluted and loses it’s effectiveness.
• So if you have a 10 page site (excluding about and contact pages) then your keyword list should not exceed 20-30 main terms and 100-300 supporting terms. Organize your keyword list accordingly, so it’s clear what the main terms are and which ones are supporting.
• Let’s say your main keyword is Laptops. Then you could use supporting terms like Buy Laptops, Order Laptops, Discount Laptops, Laptops on Sale, etc…  This will keep the theme of the page focused on laptops, but allows you to work in supporting terms.
• Prioritize and organize your keywords.
• Split them into geographic/local and broad terms and start with the local terms first, as they’ll be easier to achieve rankings for than broad terms.
• This does two things – one – it allows you to start receiving traffic and rank faster, and two – it allows you to start building a link profile that’s related to the core terms, so that when you’ve achieved top rankings for the local terms and flip to focus on the broad terms, you’re not starting from scratch. You’ll already have an established link profile related to the broad terms, thus reducing the quantity and time required to achieve rankings for more competitive terms.
• Once you’ve built your complete keyword list, you’ll then want to map out what keywords are going to belong to what page.
• This will quickly show you if there is content missing from your site.  If you can’t find a logical page to line up with a keyword, then you’ll either need to build a page for it, or remove it from your list (at least until you have content to support it).
• See our Adwords Services page for a more comprehensive explanation of building robust keyword lists.

META Titles

• The META title tag is what Google displays in the search results and still remains one of the most important factors in the optimization of your website.
• While Google has a character count of 60 characters with spaces, we normally use 100-120 characters with spaces.
• While you want your tags to be optimized for their target terms, you also have to remember this is what shows in the search results and the way it’s written will impact how many people actually click on it, impacting the CTR (click through rate).  So you need to balance SEO with sales copy and make the titles “clickable”, while maximizing the SEO factor.
• Make sure you’re tying in the content of the tags with other SEO elements such as internal links, and link building campaigns.

META Descriptions

• Google uses this tag the same way as they do the Title tag.
• Use the same process as the title tag – repeat main and supporting keywords and craft it for maximizing SEO and click through rates.

Content Optimization

• Think about the user.  Given the product or service your providing, what content would be useful to them?  Don’t just write useless copy, as that won’t help keep visitors engaged, give them what they want, and do it better than your competition.
• 2-3 short paragraphs of content per page isn’t going to cut it – make sure your site has robust content – more than your competitors.
• Make sure that what content you are using, is 100% unique.  This means if you’ve been using descriptions and specs given to you by the manufacturer or distributor, you absolutely must re-write them and make them your own.
• Use Social media channels like Google+, Facebook, Twitter to get your users involved with your brand/company.  Just make sure you have the time and resources to dedicate to these channels.
• Be the expert in your industry.
• Provide the ability for users to get involved and provide rating and reviews on your products and services.  There are free survey’s, or you can even do it manually for services, then use it online.
• Use video content when possible – video is much more engaging than words and it’s whatever one is looking for.
• There’s no such thing as too much content – just keep it organized so search engines and users can actually find it.

Internal Linking Structure

• Internal linking is embedding optimized links throughout the content that then links to other pages of your site.
• Pick the main keywords you want to focus on with internal linking.
• The size of your site will determine how many keywords you can select.
• Stay focused on these keywords and use them as often as you can without it looking completely stupid and spammy.
• Use the keywords as the anchor text for these links – don’t use click here or other generic terms as they don’t help.

H1, H2, H3 Usage

• Old school, but still has a place in helping search engines determine the theme of the page in question.
• Headers should contain keywords of course.

Directory/Navigation Structures

• This includes the names of the pages on your site and how your organizing these pages in folders on your webserver
• Here are a few examples of bad directory structures
• The first is from Macy’s and is how they have it organized to get to their electronics section, looking at clocks – nasty…
• http://www1.macys.com/shop/for-the-home/more-for-the-home/electronics?id=23480&edge=hybrid#!fn=ELECTRONICS_TYPE%3DClock%26sortBy%3DORIGINAL%26productsPerPage%3D40&!qvp=iqvp
• This is how the URL should be formatted:
• http://www.macys.com/shop/electronics/clocks
• Wow, what a difference – the user knows where they are and Google would too.
• This URL, while short, gives no insight as to what product or category we’re dealing with.  It’s for dinnerware, solid colors.
• http://www.pier1.com/catalog/browse/493.885.solids
• Here’s how it should look:
• http://www.pier1.com/catalog/dinnerware/solid-colors
• Our last example is from Walmart.com.
• This was browsing to the DSLR Camera category.
• While they’ve at least got the first part of the URL right – the rest is a mess.
• They also left out the most important keyword – DSLR.
• http://www.walmart.com/browse/Cameras-Camcorders/All-Cameras/_/N-97nnZ1yzhk51?browsein=true&_refineresult=true&_refineresult=true&_refineresult=true&_refineresult=true&_refineresult=true&_refineresult=true&_refineresult=true&_refineresult=true&_refineresult=true&ic=48_0&ref=429827+4292238133&catNavId=133277&povid=cat133277-env203316-moduleA071411-lLinkLHN4DSLRCameras
• Here’s our version:
• http://www.walmart.com/browse/Cameras-Camcorders/Digital-Cameras/DLSR-Cameras

Page/File Naming Conventions

• This goes hand in hand with Directory/Navigation structures.
• Name your pages using keywords, not numbers or some other completely unrelated convention.
• It’s going to help the search engines figure out what your page is about, and it helps users too.
• Use dashes, not underscores – Google has publicly stated they prefer them.
• Just don’t make them too spammy.

Domain Name

• While not always an option for brand name companies to change, if you do have the flexibility to integrate a main keyword into your domain name, do it.
• If not, you can address this by crafting a smart directory structure that incorporates keywords.

Multiple Language Handling

• The old EN/FR issue always seems to cause headaches.
• Short of the amount of resources it can require, I’m not sure why, as it’s not rocket science.
• Here’s a couple common examples of how sites deal with EN and FR content:
• EN: http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/home.aspx
• FR: http://www.bestbuy.ca/fr-CA/home.aspx
• So far this makes sense…until you go one click deeper that is.  Then what you get is an English site translated to French.
• Just about every FR site I’ve ever seen is translated, as opposed to being written for the intended audience.
• Some don’t even take the time to translate the URL, so they’ll change the language parameter but leave the product/category in English – that’s just lazy.
• Another area to watch for is if you’re using a content management solution.
• Be sure to check your code with a Googlebot crawl tester – I’ve seen many sites that are showing FR tags on the EN version, and vice versa.
• It’s important that you verify the code when using dynamic content management software as they are normally built with very little thought into SEO.

Sitemap Page

• A sitemap page (HTML) is a page that shows a logical, organized listing of all the pages on your site.
• If your site has over 10 pages, make sure you always have a sitemap page
• Link to this page from the homepage in your footer navigation.
• This page helps search engines crawl and index all your pages.

XML Sitemaps

• It’s debatable that XML sitemaps actually do anything positive for rankings, but we do them for any site that has over 20 pages.
• Automate the creation and sharing with search engines so it doesn’t require manual intervention, other then periodic testing and verification.

Summary

Following these recommendations will help you create a great user experience and will provide you with the best possible chance of ranking well for your intended keywords. The items listed on this page are not opinions, they are factual SEO best practices that every knowledgable practitioner of SEO follows.

If you’re in the proposal stages of your SEO campaign, this page is a good reference point to ensure that the SEO company is planning on dealing with these items properly.