On page search engine optimization...

This post follows on from my last post about R/S - A KA user emailed me the following:

"... what I am having trouble with is this last part from your blog entry:

> Open their webpage, and go View>Source on the IE Toolbar and check
> their HTML to see if they are properly optimised.

How does one determine if they are "properly optimised", and then what are the steps to take if they aren't? "


What I am referring to is on-page optimisation - or the steps taken on a webpage to optimise for the search engines ( as opposed to off-page optimisation which refers to other matters such as linking strategies )

When reviewing your competitor's html you should be looking for whether that competitor has specifically optimised that page for the keyword.

To do this, first look in the "meta" tags firstly - in the Title and Description, is this keyword - and only this keyword, present?

Then move to the h1,h2,h3 heading tags - does the heading include this keyword?

And then look in the body of the copy - does this keyword appear in the opening sentence of the copy and then used throughout the copy structure? This is referred to as "keyword density" or the proportion of a chosen keyword to overall copy expressed in percentage terms.

Finally, is this keyword used in any links on the page (anchor text) ?

If you look for these things and find that the page is not constructed like this, then the chances are that if you set up your page properly and pay attention to off-page issues like linking, then you can compete for that position.

I deal with this briefly in the Keyword Master's Course, but one of the better books that I have read on the subject is Mike Wong's : "Search Engine Optimization Strategies." If you're looking for a comprehensive understanding of how it all works then I suggest you read it.