Home Page Optimization (Part 1)

Before we get into the details of WHAT you have to do to optimize your home page, the beginnings of each of this two-part post will briefly outline the items you have to consider tweaking before you can expect any noticable results.

There are two parts to the operation:
1. Home Page Optimization for better Search Engine Rankings
2. Home Page Optimization for improving visitor Conversion Rate

How to get Better Search Engine Rankings

As you probably already know, there are factors that you can manipulate on your website to improve a search engine spider’s understanding of what your site is about. Also, depending on how your site is constructed (the actual HTML) can be more (or less) readable by the spiders and boost their affinity for your content. Such factors include (but are not limited to): the number of keywords and key phrases your page focuses on, the positioning of your keywords on your page, the type of code you use (pure html or html generated by php, asp or java vs. flash and javascript), your website’s internal linking structure and the relevance of your content to your page title and keywords. The rest of the most important Search Engine Ranking factors and their descriptions (as well as how to manipulate them) can be found in our SEO checklist. Download it for free here.

Let’s examine these factors a little closer to see just how they may help your home page rank.

Keyword/phrase Focus:

1. Why this is important
- This gives search engines (as well as your readers) the impression that you are indeed targeting the specific area you want your page to rank for.

2. How to do this well
- Our “Shadow Targeting” method
We derived this terminology from our days as science students studying the phenomenon of shadows casted by objects as light shines on them. As you can see in the diagram below, the darkest part of the shadow (called the Umbra) is where NO light reaches. This area is completely blocked (“covered” as we would say) by the object. The other area of the shadow is not as dark (the Penumbra). This area is “not fully covered.” Our goal when creating focus is to create a natural shadow-like effect in which the world of all keywords is the light, your web page is the object and the shadow is comprised of the keywords that your “object” covers. =)

Your priority keywords would appear most on your page (the umbra) and they would be accompanied by a few associative keywords (these would form the penumbra) to create the full “shadow effect.”

Example: If you have a site that is focused on Selling Cookies:
Umbra keywords: cookies for sale, buy cookies, best cookie prices (we recommend no more than 3 major keywords per page with clear prioritization)
Penumbra keywords: buy cookies in New York, excellent cookie recepies, selling more cookies

Keyword Positioning:

1. Why this is important
- Search engine Spiders tend to read the page the way we do…top left to bottom right (for all non arabic or asian folks). So we place keywords in places that studies have shown (eye heat maps) are more heavily focused on. Top and left of the page. The spiders encounter these keywords first so it sets the tone for the rest to come from the beginning!

2. How to do this well
- As already stated, you may want to pay attention to the reults of various eye tracking studies (since we are of the opinion that spiders “read” the same way) to prominently place your most important keywords.

Code Type/Structure (Flash, Javascript, HTML):

1. Why this is important
- Depending on how your website is built, search engine spiders may or may not be able to access all that good content you put out there. Think of a spider as a simple browser…it cannot digest content that is embedded as an image, or hidden in complex Flash or Javascript code.

2. How to do this well
- Ensure that all the content that you deem important and relevant to your website’s focus appears in plain html. Simple as that!

Website’s Internal Linking Structure:

1. Why this is important
- In our experience, we have seen better page indexing results when there is a definite hierarchical internal linking pattern. Spiders may find this good organization helpful to their process.

2. How to do this well
- Categorize your website!
Using a similiar “cookie” example:
If your site is about cookies, your main menu would have categories such as “cookie recipes”, “cookies with nuts”, “popular cookies”, etc.

Content & Page Title Matching:

1. Why this is important
- It brings synergy to your web pages. (Note: DO NOT use the same titles for every webpage on your site!)
A lot of websites simply use their domain name as web page titles. This is not advisable since the Title is what defines you in the search engine results. If your domain name is “domain.com”…A potential visitor would have no idea what you were about if the search engine was gracious enough to rank you well for a particular term. Don’t waste your valuable online real estate!!!

2. How to do this well
- Make sure you use your main keyword (for the page) as the leader in your title. It is helpful to have at least one or two other associative keywords as well….
e.g. “Cookie Recipies | Best Cookie Batter | Cookies With Nuts”

NOTE: (Part 2) of this post will be coming soon…

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