Webmaster Articles > Quick SEO for Newbies
A basic search engine optimization article focusing on quick optimization techniques for the newbie.
Basic On-Page SEO
On-page optimization is often ignored by the top sites on Google - after
all, who cares about a few percentage points when you can literally buy
your way to the top of the search engine result pages (SERPs) with a bucket-load
of inbound links?
Today I’ll discuss a bit about why, contrary to common practice, why on-page SEO is so important and then tell you how you can quickly optimize your web pages even if you have very little time!
On-Page SEO - The Benefits
A lot of webmasters (including some self-proclaimed SEO experts) claim that
on-page optimization is obsolete - that the only thing that matters is off-page
optimization (i.e. link building).
So is that true?
Actually, like most SEO hype, there’s some truth involved. Inbound links have become the overwhelming determining factor in a website’s search engine rankings, but there's more to the story then that.
Why bother with On-Page SEO?
Here are just three reasons off the top of my head:
- With everyone chasing after links, the playing field is leveled somewhat. This means that well-optimized pages will have a better chance of ranking higher if they might not beat the top websites on link count (but come close nevertheless).
- Because of keyword spamming, search engines paid more attention to links. Now, because of link-spamming, search engines are moving back towards paying more attention to other ranking factors, including on-page optimization.
- Over 90% of your competition probably doesn’t know how to optimize their web pages, or are doing it wrong, or are probably committing some sort of search engine spamming, so that you can immediately place yourself within the top 10% of your niche by just spending a few minutes on each page and getting things done right (or hiring someone to do it for you if you have a huge site).
On-Page SEO – A Quick Tour
Before I go over the techniques, I want you to remember these things:
Search engine optimization is a lot about doing things in moderation – you can’t do too little of it otherwise your pages won’t rank at all, and if you go too far (and start spamming the search engines), you’ll get your website banned and essentially kiss your online business goodbye.
Secondly, before you are optimizing a particular page, make sure you write down a short list of core keywords for that page. This is extremely important – search engines rank pages, not websites, so all your efforts should be directed towards making sure individual pages rank best for their own primary keyword.
