Basic Search Engine Optimization for HTML Pages

It's important to know a little basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for standard HTML pages so that you can know why some of these things are important for vBulletin.

SEO Tips: On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization is often overlooked by many webmasters, who tend to spend most of their time trying to get links to their site. On-page optimization is something you can do quickly to give yourself an extra boost in the SERPS. These tips will help you to optimize your web pages to make the most out of your inbound links.

One Page - One Target

Each page should be optimized for only one search term. If you are targeting two search terms, make pages for each term.
If your search term has a synonym, make separate pages for each synonym. For example, if you are targeting "Web Optmizing" and "Web SEO", make separate pages to target each term.

One Target - Two Pages

The preceding tip only tells half of the story. You don't actually want to be #1 in the SERPS for each of your search terms you want to be #1 and #2. Google and some other search engines will display two listings from a web site together if both are relevant to the users search.Therefore, for each of your important keywords, you want to build two web pages which are both optimized for that search.

The URL

Search engines tend to rank pages well when the URL contains the search term. If your page is about Home Stereo, call your page home-stero.html, not page-1.html. If you like to name your pages as index.html, then make a directory for each page and use the keywords in the directory name so the ural looks like this: www.yoursite.com/web-optimize/index.htm

Use Hyphens, not Underscores

Google and most other search engines treat hyphens as spaces, but do not treat underscores as spaces. If your URL is web-optimize.html, your page will rank well if someone searches for "web optimize". If your URL is web_optmize.html, your page will rank well if someone searches for "web_optimize". Which do you think is searched for more often, "web optmizing" or "web_optmizing"?

Optimize the Page Title

The page title should contain the keywords for which you are optimizing, and little or nothing else. Many sites prepend the site name to every page title, like
this:
<title>vBulletin Setup -- vBulletin Optimize</title>

A more optimized title would simply look like this:
<title>vBulletin Optimize</title>

Leave the company name for the title of the main page of your web site and focus every other page on the content of that particular page.

Optimize the Description Tag

Not many search engines utilize the description tag anymore, but it's best to set it properly just in case. I like to make the description something readable and useable for end users because sometimes search engines will use this tag for in your listing. SO this is a marketing opportunity you should take advantage of.
<meta name="description" content="All about vBSEO at vBulletinSetup.">

Optimize the Keywords Tag

Even fewer search engines utilize the keywords tag, but it's best to set it properly just in case. You ca use several terms as keywords, but dont pack it full.

<meta name="keywords" content="vBulletin SEO, vBulletin Optmize, vBulletin Setup">

Use Headings

Use the <h1>, <h2>, and <h3> heading tags to define your important content sections, and put your keywords at least once in each heading style. Use CSS to set the fonts and sizes of the h-tags to something pleasing to your visitors.

Add a Linked Image with ALT Text

Use an image of your page with a filename which contains your chosen keywords, such as web-optimize.jpg. The ALT text for this image should include the keywords for which you are optimizing.
Google only counts the ALT text on linked images. So we want to link the image to the page upon which it is displayed or onto a related page if you have one.

<a href="web-optimize.html"><img src="web-optimize.jpg" width=75 height=90 alt="web optmize"></a>

Validate the HTML

Use the W3C HTML validator to validate the HTML of your page. Very few HTML errors will cause a web page not to rank well in the SERPS, but you don't want your page to be that page.
In addition, validating the HTML will help to ensure that your page will look reasonably well in the wide variety of web browsers used on the Internet.

Keep Your Body Text Readable

Use your keywords in the body text, but keep your body text readable. Don't Website Optimizeing stuff Website Optimizein your Website Optimizein keywords Website Optimizein into your Website Optimizein text until it is unreadable by Website Optimizein humans.

Make Reasonably Sized Pages

The search engines seem to prefer pages which have at least 500 words of text. Give your visitors something to read. We prefer to be in the 1000 word range, and divided into sections using H3 tags for each section header.

Basic SEO Summary

If you follow these simple tips, you will get better rankings in the search engines. On-page search engine optimization is the first step towards good search engine rankings.