Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website - Step 4b: Site Optimization

Written by Dave Davies

Continued from page 1

With this in mind there are three points that you should consider:

You do not work for Google or Yahoo! or any of other major search engines (and if you do you're not target audience of this article). You will never know 100% what this "magic number" is.
Even if you did know what optimal keyword density was today, would you still know it after next update? Like other aspects of search engine algorithm, optimal keyword densities change. You will be chasing smoke if you try to constantly have optimal density and chances are you will hinder your efforts more than help by constantly changing densities of your site.
The optimal keyword density for one search engine is not same as it is for another. Chasing density of one may very well ruin your efforts on another.

So what can you do? Your best bet is to simple place your targeted keyword phrase in your content as often as possible while keeping repparttar 128103 content easily readable by a live visitor. Your goal here is not to sell to search engines, it is to sell to people. I have seen sites that have gone so overboard in increasing their keyword density that repparttar 128104 content itself reads horribly. If you are simply aware of repparttar 128105 phrase that you are targeting while you write your content then chances are you will attain a keyword density somewhere between 3 and 5%. Stay in this range and, provided that repparttar 128106 other aspects of repparttar 128107 optimization process are in place, you will rank well across many of repparttar 128108 search engines.

Also remember when you're looking over your page that when you're reading it repparttar 128109 targeted phrase may seem to stand out as it's used more than any other phrase on repparttar 128110 page and may even seem like it's a bit too much. Unless you've obviously overdone it (approached repparttar 128111 10% rather than 5% end of repparttar 128112 spectrum) it's alright for this phrase to stand out. This is repparttar 128113 phrase that repparttar 128114 searcher was searching for. When they see it on repparttar 128115 page it will be a reminder to them what they are looking for an seeing it a few times will reinforce that you can help them find repparttar 128116 information they need to make repparttar 128117 right decision.

Final Notes

In an effort to increase keyword densities, unethical webmasters will often use tactics such as hidden text, extremely small font sizes, and other tactics that basically hide text from a live visitor that they are providing to a search engines. Take this advice, write quality content, word it well and pay close attention to your phrasing and you will do well. Use unethical tactics and your website may rank well in repparttar 128118 short term but once one of your competitors realizes what you're doing you will be reported and your website may very well get penalized. Additionally, if a visitor realizes that you're simply "tricking" repparttar 128119 search engines they may very well decide that you are not repparttar 128120 type of company they want to deal with; one that isn't concerned with integrity but rather one that will use any trick to try to get at their money. Is this repparttar 128121 message you want to send?

Next Week

Next week in part five of our "Ten Steps To an Optimized Website" series we will be covering internal links strategies and best practices. This will cover everything from image links and scripts to inline and basic text links.

Dave Davies is the owner of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning. He has been optimizing and ranking websites for over three years and has a solid history of success. Dave is available to answer any questions that you may have about your website and how to get it into the top positions on the major search engines.

Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website - Step 4a: Site Optimization

Written by Dave Davies

Continued from page 1

Due to their abuse by unethical webmasters and SEO's, repparttar weight given to heading tags is not what it could be however repparttar 128094 content between these tags is given increased weight over standard text. There are rules to follow with repparttar 128095 use of heading tags that must be adhered to. If you use heading tags irresponsibly you run repparttar 128096 risk of having your website penalized for spam even though repparttar 128097 abuse may be unintentional.

When using your heading tags try to follow these rules:

Never use same tag twice on a single page
Try to be concise with your wording
Use heading tags only when appropriate. If bold text will do then go that route
Don't use CSS to mask heading tags

Never use repparttar 128099 same tag twice on a single page. While repparttar 128100

tags holds greatest weight of entire heading tags, its purpose is to act as primary heading of page. If you use it twice you are obviously not using it to define main topic of page. If you need to use another heading tag use

tag. After that

tag and so on. Generally I try never to use more than 2 heading tags on a page.
Try to be concise with your wording. If you have a 2 keyword phrase that you are trying to target and you make a heading that is 10 words long then your keyword phrase only makes up about 20% of total verbiage. If you have a 4-word heading on other hand you would then have a 50% density and increased priority given to keyword phrase you are targeting.
Use heading tags only when appropriate. If bold text will do then go that route. I have seen sites with heading tags all over place. If overused weight of tags themselves are reduced with decreasing content and "priority" being given to different phrases at various points in content. If you have so much great content that you feel you need to use many heading tags you should consider dividing content up into multiple pages, each with its own tag and keyword target possibilities. For most part, rather than using additional heading tags, bolding content will suffice. The sizing will be kept same as your usual text and it will stand out to reader as part of text but with added importance.
Don't use CSS to mask heading tags. This one just drives me nuts and is unnecessary. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) serve many great functions. They can be used to define how a site functions, looks and feels however they can also be used to mislead search engines and visitors alike. Each tags has a default look and feel. It is fine to use CSS to adjust this somewhat to fit how you want your site to look. What is not alright is to adjust look and feel to mislead search engines. It is a simple enough task to define in CSS that your heading should appear as regular text. Some unethical SEO's will also then place their style sheet in a folder that is hidden from search engine spiders. This is secure enough until your competitors look at cached copy of your page (and they undoubtedly will at some point) see that you have hidden heading tags and report you to search engines as spamming. It's an unnecessary risk that you don't need to take. Use your headings properly and you'll do just fine.
Next article continues with "special text".

Dave Davies is the owner of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning. He has been optimizing and ranking websites for over three years and has a solid history of success. Dave is available to answer any questions that you may have about your website and how to get it into the top positions on the major search engines.

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