Keyword                                                                 Estimated Monthly Search

dentist in winchester va 720

dentist winchester va                                       880

dentists in winchester                                      550

While both strategies must be employed for best effect, most SEO Consultants begin with the on page optimization work before beginning their off page optimization efforts.

In this article, I’ll cover some of the things that can be performed to your website in order to increase its ability to achieve better rankings. First, however, you must understand that each and every page of your website needs to be SEO’d. This will not pose too much difficulty if your website is rather small but if you have dozens (or hundreds) of pages, the work to be done will be substantial.

Here are eleven website factors that may affect your SEO:

Meta Title

Your “meta title” information is added to the page source (i.e. your website coding). This may be done manually by your web designer or added through a WYSIWYG editor if your site uses some form of Content Management System (aka CMS). On some dynamic platforms, the meta title is created automatically as soon as the page is published.

Generally speaking, your meta title should be kept relatively short (no more than 60-80 characters) and should include the two-to-three keyword phrases you are specifically trying to optimize the page for.

Meta Page Description

Some may argue how much this affects SEO but there are other benefits to writing a good meta page description as well. Google will only display the first 156 characters (including spaces) of your page description so it’s best to use that as your maximum length.

Your page description text should read well, include your primary keyword phrase at minimum and be somewhat exciting. The page description will generally be shown to searchers just beneath the clickable title. If your description tells of a benefit or evokes curiosity in the reader, you will enhance your ability to get visitors.

Meta Keywords

Most will tell you that meta keywords are worthless when it comes to SEO and I would tend to agree. However, if you are going to add meta keyword information I would recommend that you keep the amount to no more than about five terms in total.

It’s bad practice to add dozens of meta keywords to each page and you may actually get penalized for doing so.
On Page Content

Your on page content should be unique to your website if at all possible and should also include the keyword phrases you are targeting. You don’t need to worry about the specific “keyword density” anymore as that is mostly a thing of the past but it does help to include the terms you are specifically targeting at least once.

Your Web Page URL

If your website architecture allows you to control the name of each page, it’s best to see that it includes your primary keyword phrase.
If you were targeting the term, “search engine optimization,” for example, you might cause the url to be: domain.com/search-engine-optimization or even domain.com/search-engine-optimization.html

Both examples work quite well so use whatever version is easiest for you to achieve.

Your Web Design

You may be surprised to see “web design” included in this list but it can affect your SEO in a variety of ways:

• Your design should be attractive and professional so as to keep your visitors on your site as long as possible .
• Your coding should be as “clean” as possible and should validate with the “W3C validation tool” whenever possible.
• Your images and coding should be optimized so as to maximize the speed of your site. This is good for both SEO and human visitors… no one likes to needlessly wait.

On Page Link Text

As you can control your on page link text, you can increase your optimization for a term by using the term in the text link that points to your other page. The gain is generally considered minimal so this should only be done sparingly and only when the keyword phrase is relatively short.

Links Pointing To Other Sites

This topic may surprise you but most SEO Consultants agree… the search engines’ believe that no one website is the “be all, end all” authority on a topic and therefore expect a website to link to others on the same topic.

Of course, there is a downside to this practice… you may find that the visitor leaves and never comes back. An intelligent strategy is to link to informational only sites, like Wikipedia, that do not provide competitive products or services.

Visit Duration

Many search engines now track how long your visitors remain on your site. The longer the average is, the more apt the search engines are to believe your site is relevant to the keyword phrase that brought them to your web page in the first place.

Visit Depth

In addition to visit duration, they can also track how many pages of your site the visitor looked at before leaving and which specific page they exited from.

You can see this data for yourself when viewing your web stats and can use the data to help you improve your visitor’s experience.

Page Load Speed

I touched on this when I spoke about web design but your page load speed is also affected by the speed of your web hosting. It may not be a major factor, but the search engines are paying attention to how long your pages take to load.

It makes sense, really. The search engines do their best to deliver the best possible visitor experience and if your pages take forever to load, it’s easy to conclude that many are probably irritated as a direct result.

If you address the majority of the topics contained in this article, you’ll be on your way to well-optimized pages. With a strong SEO framework, you’ll find that your off page optimization efforts yield better, and quicker results.

Instead of putting all of your eggs in one basket, it’s best to drive website traffic through several sources. This way, you can cast a wider net, resulting in more traffic, and track the efficacy of each source.

Before you begin, you should understand the core concepts of Search Engine Optimization (aka Search Engine Marketing). In order to increase your website traffic and attract qualified prospects, you need to understand three things:

1. Everything related to SEO starts with an understanding of what a “keyword phrase” is.

Anytime someone conducts a search on Google, or another search engine, they enter some text to start their search. In SEO terms, the entered text is called a “keyword” or “keyword phrase.”

If you know what keyword phrases your prospects are entering when looking for the type of information, products or services you offer, you will know what phrases to optimize your web pages for.

2. Websites are not indexed or ranked by the search engines… each web page is indexed and ranked independent of any other.

This is commonly misunderstood but so vital to understand! Just because you have one web page that ranks really well in the search engines, that doesn’t mean that your others will also rank well.

Each page of your website must be uniquely optimized for a handful of keyword phrases… keyword phrases that are searched upon and those likely to attract your targeted audience.

If you pay close attention to the optimization of each page, you should see a dramatic improvement in terms of search engine placement.

3. Like it or not, you’re competing against others!

Some have a harder time with this concept than others but the truth remains the truth… in order to get your web page listed on page one of Google, you have to kick one of the currently listed web page’s off!

This is valuable information because it will help you understand what you must do to achieve the ranking you’re after.
Thorough analysis of the web pages currently listed for a particular keyword phrase will tell you how hard it will be to overtake one of them. You need to pay close attention to a number of elements including:

How well is their page optimized for the keyword phrase?

How old is their domain (the older the better)?

How many links can be found that point to the page (the more the better)?

While there are other elements involved, these three are of primary concern. If you find you can outdo your competitor’s web page in at least two of the three areas mentioned, you can probably kick them off the page and take their place.

After ensuring you are optimizing for a keyword phrase (or phrases) that are likely to bring you the kind of traffic you want, you’ll often find it is the quantity of backlinks that make the real difference.

Of course, the quality of the backlinks is important too but if you are going to concentrate on one objective, it should be the building of links. Ensure your text links use the keyword phrases you are optimizing for and you’ll find you quickly climb the ranks of the search engines.

This is good news for all businesses who have a company website but not so good for those that don’t. While having a website for your business has always been a good idea, it’s become more vital as a result of this change.

Here are seven additional tips to help you improve your Google Places’ rankings:

1. Pay close attention to your “on page” Search Engine Optimization. This includes the keywords/keyword phrases you are targeting, all standard SEO practices, and ensuring that your business name, address and phone is listed exactly on your site as it is in your Google Places listing.

2. In addition to building backlinks to each page of your site, it’s also a good idea to build backlinks to your primary “citation” references (usually found on directory sites like Yelp, InsiderPages, CitySearch, etc.)

3. Build backlinks to your Google Places page itself. As most won’t do this, this will give you an added edge.
4. Do some social bookmarking of both the pages where your citation references are found as well as your Google Places listing itself.

5. Use a phone number with a local area code for your primary number. If you’re currently using a toll-free phone number, I recommend you get a local “virtual number” and use that instead. You can list your toll-free number as a secondary number.

6. Instead of uploading your images direct to your listing, choose to add them from the web. I recommend you upload your images to either Flickr or Panoramio and make sure to “geo tag” your images with your businesses’ address/location information.

7. As with your images, it’s wise to “geo tag” your videos as well. This causes your videos to play a dual role… they increase your ability to rank because you’ve chosen to add them to your listing and because they are now considered to be a citation as well.

In the end, optimizing your Google Places listing is very much like optimizing your website. Your goal should be to give as much helpful information as possible that will benefit those looking for a business like yours and to outperform your competition.

As it takes a significant amount of work to thoroughly optimize a Google Places listing, you will frequently find that your competitors are lacking in one or more of the areas mentioned in this article.

While it’s relatively easy to create the listing, it can be much more challenging to get your listing to appear on the first page for the keyword phrases you are targeting.

To that end, I offer the following seven tips:

1. Before creating (or claiming) your listing it is important that you do thorough research. You should know what keyword phrases you want to rank for and what your competition looks like for the terms you intend to target.

I recommend that you do not optimize your listing for any keyword phrase that does not currently have a Google Places listing associated with it. If you search Google for a phrase and don’t see a Google Places listing, it’s best to choose another phrase.

After you’ve come up with the keyword phrases you plan to target (I recommend 5) it’s wise to study your competitors listings to see whether their listings are complete. Have they filled in every field? What keywords are they targeting? Have they used their maximum allotment of photos and videos?

The answers to these questions will give you an idea as to whether you can expect to outrank one of the listings currently found on the first page.

2. Fill out every field completely.
There are approximately 20 fields to fill out when completing your Place Page listing. It is imperative that you fill out each and every field as the omission of even one can negatively affect the ranking of your Places Page.

3. Utilize every available category.
Google will suggest one category specific to your business and require you to use it. However, you can also add more categories and it is important to do so.

Using your keyword research, use your remaining keywords as the category names until you have used every additional category available to you.

4. You’re allotted ten photos — use ‘em.
It may seem basic, but it’s true. Each business owner is afforded the same opportunities when creating their Google Places listings but many don’t take advantage of them.

Google allows you to use up to ten photos and I encourage you to use every one of them. You can also enhance your optimization efforts by renaming your images to include your keyword phrases before uploading them.

5. You’re allotted five videos — use them too.
As it is a bit harder to create videos than photos, you’ll frequently find that your competitors fail to use their entire allotment.

However, you can create short “slideshow” type videos (which are merely a collection of photos put to motion) quite easily. If you search Google for the phrase, “slideshow maker,” you’ll find a number of tools that can help you make these types of videos online.
You’ll need to upload each video to YouTube.com before you can add it to your listing.

6. Understand citations and build as many of them as possible.
A citation occurs whenever an online reference is found for your business and services. In Google’s eyes, it’s a validation that your business truly exists and that it offers the type of services you list on your Places page.

It’s important that your citations closely match the information found on your Places page. You can create your own citations by submitting your information to a variety of online directories including Yellow Pages, Super Pages, CitySearch, Insider Pages, Yahoo Local, Localize and a number of others.

7. Get reviews and ratings.
Google will automatically display reviews it finds on sites like yelp.com, insiderpages.com and demandforce.com. Having a lot of positive reviews is not only helpful for your Google Places SEO, it can help you get business that might have gone to a competitor otherwise.

Ask your existing clientele to post a review of your business on the site of your choice and if necessary, offer them some form of bonus for completing the task.

If you spend the time to follow each of these seven tips, you’ll be well on your way to getting your Places page listed on the first page for a variety of terms.

Just like traditional SEO however, don’t make the mistake of neglecting your listing after completion. While you’ve completed the majority of the work, it’s wise to continually build new citations, get more reviews and ratings and respond publicly to the reviews you receive.