On page optimization

First, let’s consider how search engines index the pages on a website. Major search engines crawl websites using spiders. These spiders are sent out to find pages by following links, just as a user browsing the site would.  We must keep in mind that these spiders aren’t human so there are limitations to what they can actually process as content. The method you use to publish content can make a huge difference in a spider’s ability to read and index your pages.
Spiders are unable to read content in Flash, Images, Frames or Javascript Menus at this time. Some progress has been made in reading text on images and certain forms of flash interpretation is being worked on, but are not available in any useful way at this time.  Avoid the use of flash intro’s, although they can be great looking and “flashy” they are useless for the purpose of optimization. Java script and frames are another avoidable form of publishing if at all possible.

- You should try to discover and understand the problems these spiders face when they are indexing your pages after the following SEO practices are put into place.  There are several free tools on the web that will imitate what the spiders see when they land on your pages.

- When using the following information please keep in mind that your users are live people trying to locate information, products and services that they’ve searched for. If you create content based solely on keyword strength, you might end up with pages that are completely unreadable to a human. Balance your pages with good “readable content” that is also keyword rich.

Note: Strength that is built by using deceptive means may grab some quick traffic but you run the risk of aquiring a bad reputation and being banned by the search engines. Always build your pages to be unique with good content that meets a searcher’s needs when they land there. How many times have you searched for something just to find a string of websites that contained very little (if any) of the information you desired to locate?  Have you been back to those websites?  1 + 1 does equal 2, it’s not rocket science to create pages that fill a need and you’ll reape good traffic numbers for doing so.

Title Tag;

Search engines place quite a bit of weight on the title tag for each page. Title tags should always include at least one keyword or keyword phrase based on that pages content.  The closer a keyword is place to the beginning of the title the better, however this may not be practical from a humans perspective. Remember that you are trying to balance what the search engines see with what your real life clients will read when they land on your pages.

It is a good idea to limit the number of keyphrases that you target per page. You will do much better landing at the top of the results pages (SERP) for 2 or 3 phrases rather than landing between pages 27 and 242 for a dozen keyword phrases. If you want to rank well for other keyword phrases then adding more pages with content based on those terms will be a better solution.  Remember to treat each page with as much attention as your home page. Each page should have its own unique content and therefore requires its own unique titles and meta tags.

Meta Description Tag;

Your description is a very important part of a pages content because thats what the human searcher will be presented with. You should treat the description as an extension of a compelling title to help entice a visitor to your site. Use your descriptions to separate yourself from the herd by making your listing look better than your competition. Contrary to popular belief, descriptions keywords are a part of a search result.

Directly from Google;
→ Use quality descriptions. Finally, make sure your descriptions are truly descriptive. Because the meta descriptions aren’t displayed in the pages the user sees, it’s easy to let this content slide. But high-quality descriptions can be displayed in Google’s search results, and can go a long way to improving the quality and quantity of your search traffic. -end

I always try to include keyword phrases when I write descriptions simply because they inherit a strong relation to a given search.

Meta Keyword Tag;

This tag is ignored (they claim) for the most part, but being from the old school of SEO,  I still like to include 6-10 keyword phrases inside my meta keyword tag. Even if it’s (most likely) ignored it certainly can’t hurt.

Content;

The single most important part of your SEO efforts are to make sure that you use the keyword phrases you are targeting within the copy on the page. These keyword phrases should be repeated as much as possible without sacrificing readability. This isn’t saying you should take a phrase and repeat it 100 times on the page. Remember, this is a balancing act between what the spiders see and what your visitors will be reading. Most optimization managers are satisfied when they reach a 5-7% saturation point for their primary keywords.

→ If you spam keywords in the content on your pages it may become unreadable which can defeat your SEO efforts!

Where you should use keyword phrases:

• Heading tags – Use h1, h2, h3 tags on every page. This is where you should place your title or similar text based on page content and use one or two keyword phrases.
• Main page text - Create content based on those phrases you are targeting.  Do not write content sctrictly to impress the search engines.  Keep it balanced and readable while building the density of keyword phrases.
• Image alt tags – Each image on your page should have an alt tag. Your alt tags should describe the image while using keyword phrases only when it is appropriate to do so.  Alternate text allow visitors with text only browsers, graphics turned off, and handicapped browsers using text-to-speech for the visually impaired to read your pages.
• Directory, Category and Filenames (Paths) - Using keyword phrases to name your paths gives you added content strength. Using keyword phrases to name internal links lets the spiders know you are strong for those phrases, as long as those pages are rich for that content.. Use hyphens (dashes) to separate keywords because the search engines strip dashes making them grammatically correct. EXP: It is better to use “silver-chains.html” rather than “silverchains.html”.

Not to sound like a broken record, but once again, avoid spamming alternative text just as you’d do with all of the other on-page content. Packing keywords into the ALT tags may bring a bit of extra traffic, however at some point the spiders may pick it up and you’ll run the risk that it could get you sandboxed.
Was that painfull?

If you follow these basic steps, you’ll be ahead of 90% of the other sites out there. Good search engine optimization doesn’t have to be tough, because it really isn’t. Using proven SEO methodology will satisfy most optimization needs and bring in organic traffic that other sites overlook.