Search Engine Optimization Programs | SEO Tutorial Program

Web Page Layout Factors Relevant To SEO

Before talking about webpage layouts, here is a brief description of what actually is meant by SEO. Search Engine Optimization – or SEO – is the way of designing or tailor making a website to suit the search algorithm used by the popular search engines. It includes a variety of factors of which web page layout is a crucial one.

One more point; SEO is not 100% successful – as search engines often change their search algorithms – it has been able to strike a successful enough rate, making the technique indispensable for almost all websites one could find in the cyberspace today.

Now, back to the current topic of discussion; Web page layout factors relevant to SEO. There are a number of factors relating to the webpage layout that are relevant to the search logic followed by popular search engines. In the following paragraphs, we’ll see few of it, one by one.

1) Text in a Web Page

Search engines only list those websites that contain relevant information. And the direct hint of information a page contains is the amount of text in that page. Ideally, a search engine optimized page must contain anywhere between 500-2000 words or 2,000 to 20,000 characters. 

2) Number of Keywords, Keyword Density & Keyword Location

Search engines lists web pages based on the keywords given for the search by the user. In other words, for a webpage to come on top of the search results, it must contain the relevant keywords ample number of times. As a rule of thumb, it can be safely assumed that the keyword phrase must be repeated a number of times in the text, the phrases coming exactly in the same order everywhere. Further, each of the words in the phrase must be used 5-7 times elsewhere in the text body.

On the other hand, stuffing too many keywords in a page is not advisable either for search engines label such websites as spam and penalize it by bringing it down in search results. Again, as a rule of thumb, the keyword density, for productive results, can be anywhere between 5-7% or to a maximum of 7-8%. Anything beyond that would be counter productive.

Further, the closer the keyword(s) to the top of the webpage, the more is the chance of it catching the eye of a search engine. But, as said in the earlier paragraph, don’t over do it.

3) Title Tag & Text Format

Using keywords inside the <TITLE> is important for search engine spiders generally take the text inside the title tag to list alongside the main link of the webpage in the search results. Often, it is the first info that people see about a particular website, listed in the search results. That way, the title tag text also serves the purpose of a business card. Careful observations have revealed that nearly 50-80 characters of title tag text are in the search results, alongside the URL.

Text formatting, in bold, not only catches the eye of netizens, but also search engine spiders. As a general rule, the headings must be highlighted in bold using <h> tags. Highlighting keywords in the body using <strong> tag is also advisable, but care must be taken that such highlighting is limited to two or three times. One more point – use <strong> instead of <b>. No explanation on that, but that is the way a search engine works.

4) Using Alternative Text in Images & Keywords in Links

All webpage images have an optional ‘alternative text’, which can be embedded during the page design using the <ALT> tag. The text included in the <ALT> will be displayed in the browser if the image fails to get downloaded. Though not a major factor that influences page ranking, including keywords in <ALT> is suggested because search engines take into account such text, especially if the image links to another webpage.

Keywords in the text of links to other web pages seem to improve the page rankings slightly. Even though, it alone cannot improve the page rankings significantly, including keywords in page links could enhance the prospects if used alongside other prominent SEO techniques.

Finally, there are the Description Meta Tags and Keyword Meta Tags, both of which are not direct SEO enhancers, but can be useful in certain situations. For example, google takes information from the description Meta tag to display in the search results if the info inside the tag matches the search keyword and page text. Keyword Meta Tags, on the other hand, were once used by search engines, but no more relied upon for determining page rankings. But, in case if there is a revival, keywords inside it will turn out to be useful. Hence, on a safer side, give keywords in that as well.