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Search engine optimization is pointless if you are not optimizing your site for the right keywords. So check the article on keyword research before starting any SEO work. SEO is a widely discussed topic on the internet. It has to be said that there is a lot of misconception when it comes to SEO in what is important and what isn't. On-page optimization is where you modify your pages around certain keywords in order to achieve search engine rankings for those keywords. Off-page optimization is mainly about obtaining links pointing back to your site which is by far the most important aspect of SEO for any site. On-page Optimization
A lot of people in PIPS seem to be spending a lot of time on on-page optimization and putting far to much emphasis on things like meta tags and alt tags. It is frustrating to see people mislead into thinking that in order for your site to rank well you need to have it optimized in a certain way, this is simply not true and I am going to do my best to try and put a stop to it for once and for all! Fat chance! Here is the truth, your site can rank at the top of the search engines for any keyword with no on-page optimization at all, plain and simple. If your site has enough back links it will rank well and get traffic and that is extremely important to know. You should be focusing the majority of your time building back links not fiddling around with keywords on your site. Without enough back links pointing to your site any on-page optimization is totally worthless and a complete waste of time. One thing to be be aware of is that you can't manipulate search engines with on-page optimization. Search engines can tell a lot more about your site by the sites that are linking to it rather than looking at the actually content which is on it. You can however assist the search engines by letting them know what keywords are the most important on a particular page by placing them in certain places. Right so now that we have sorted that out here is a break down of what is important when it comes to on-page optimization, I think you will be surprised at how simple it actually is. Interlinking your Pages - One the most important things you can do on your site to help improve it's rankings. Each page on your site is treated individually therefore a link form one page to the next counts as a back link. So by using keywords throughout your site to link to other related pages you will greatly improve your rankings. Title Tags - When you create an article in Joomla you should always place the keyword which that article is optimized for in the title. Once the article is published Joomla will then automatically place the title of the article in the <title></title> tags of the page. The title tags are found inside the <head></head> tags of the HTML and show in the title bar of your browser once the page is loaded. Body Text - It's also a good idea to use the keyword(s) you are targeting throughout the content on your page. There is a lot of talk about what keyword density to use however once or twice per paragraph is fine. Some people suggest using the same keyword density as the top ranked pages for the keyword you are targeting however there are so many factors that come into why that page is number one that there is no guarantee that matching the keyword density is going to improve your rankings at all. It also makes no sense to me that optimum keyword density would differ from keyword to keyword. Heading Tags - By default Joomla also adds the title of the article on to the page itself and it helps to add further importance by wrapping it in heading tags which by default Joomla doesn't do. It's easy to achieve though, when creating your article put the title into the page itself, highlight the text and select 'heading 1' in the paragraph drop down menu. Then in the 'Parameters - Advanced' menu on the right change 'Show Title' to no. Alt Tags - An alt tag is text applied to an image in case the image doesn't load the text is displayed instead. Inserting your keyword as the alt tag is believed to help rankings, how much is debatable though and something which I don't believe is worth spending too much time on. It is worth adding your main keyword(s) to your header image though if you have one and try to make it a habit to add an alt tag to every image you add to your site. To add a keyword(s) to an alt tag you simply need to open the module or article where the image resides, select the image and click the image icon in the tool bar (it's the icon with the picture of the tree on it) then in the 'Image Description' field add your keyword(s). I wouldn't add more than 10 words to the alt tag otherwise it appears spammy. Also do not use the same keyword in multiple alt tags on the same page as that is also spammy. Meta Tags - Meta keywords were abused by spammers therefore are believed to be overlooked by SE's now and most SEO professionals ignore them altogether. Meta descriptions are what SE's often use in their results and should be used to entice people into your site. Both meta keywords and meta descriptions can be easily added to your site. You can set the global meta description and keywords in the global configuration section found in the 'Site' drop down menu. Global means that every page will use that meta description and keyword unless a page has one specifically assigned. You can assign meta data to each article by selecting the article in article manager and opening the 'Metadata Information' menu on the right. That's all there is to it! The most important places for your keyword(s) is in the title and throughout your content, thats all you really need to worry about. If you want to go a step further then use the heading and alt tags and meta content as explained, however it's not essential. My main point here is that I don't want people to expect to achieve major improvements in their search engine rankings by making these changes the real improvements are achieved with off-page optimization i.e. getting more back links.
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