Bassem Ghali

Do you always get the same generic answers when you ask how to optimize your content? In this post I will explain how search engines technically evaluate your content and the exact best practices to follow. At the end of this post you will find points score system on how do you evaluate your page content optimization efforts?

Rule #1: write for your users first

Let’s not forget that the user is who we want to impress and prompt towards a desired action (ie: to purchase, call, subscribe, comment, re-Tweet, share on Facebook etc) and only good, well-organized, quality content can do this job. But in addition to attracting users to your website, you also must impress the search engines, too.

So let’s review how these so-called “search engines” evaluate the ideas, relevancy and quality content of a web page. Search engines have developed an algorithm that is based on many factors. Among the most important factors determining web page relevancy to a cretin keyword:

Keyword Density: Keyword density is the percentage of keyword phrases contained within the total number of indexable words within a web page.

The preferred keyword density ratio varies from search engine to search engine. In general, I recommend using a keyword density ratio for the main keyword phrase in the range of 5-8% and for the secondary and supportive keyword phrases in the range of 1-5%.

I recommend using this real-time keyword analysis tool to help you optimize a web page’s keyword density ratio. You can simply type in your keywords and then paste in your text and the tool will show your keyword density analysis on the fly.

Keyword Frequency: Keyword frequency is the number of times a keyword phrase appears within a web page.

The theory is that the more times a keyword or keyword phrase appears within a web page, the more relevance a search engine is likely to give the page for a search with those keywords.

Make sure the most important  keyword phrase is the most frequently used in a web page. But be careful not to abuse the system by repeating the same  keyword phrases over and over again.

Keyword Prominence: Keyword prominence is how prominent keyword phrases are within a web page.

Make sure to place important keyword phrases at or near the start and the end of a web page. Also ensure to use your keyword phrases in the Title Tag, H1-H6 Tags.

Keyword Proximity: Keyword proximity is the closeness between two or more keywords. In general, the closer the keywords are, the better.

For example:

How energy efficient appliances affects your bills

Want to decrease your appliances bills! Get the energy efficient ones

By using the example above, if someone searched for “energy efficient appliances” a web page containing the first sentence is more likely to rank higher than the second. That’s because the keywords are placed closer together. This is assuming that everything else is equal, of course.

How do you evaluate your page optimization efforts?

- Keywords density:  45 points

• Keyword 1 (main keyword): should be 5-8% (20 points)
• Keyword 2 (main supportive keyword): should be 3-5% (10  points)
• Keyword 3 (main supportive keyword): should be 3-5% (10  points)
• Keyword 4 (supportive keyword): should be 1-3% (2.5 points)
• Keyword 5 (supportive keyword) : should be 1-3% (2.5 points)

- Content Mass (more than 400 words):  20 points

- Headlines (3-6 headlines in a page, Headlines to be used as HTML H1-H6 tags): 15 points

• Use keywords within text of headlines: 10 points
• Start headlines with a keyword: 5 points

- Use keywords within bold & italics & bullet points: 10 points

- Use keywords within the text of Internal & External Hyperlinks: 10 points

• Use keywords within the text of internal links: 8 points
• Use keywords within the text of external links: 2 points
  (external links is not necessary for every page, external links should be to similar/non-competitor websites, max 5 external links/page)

A good optimized page should meet 80 points and more!

Please bear in mind that this algorithm for evaluating content is based on my personal experience rather than official search engine protocol.  Love or hate it, I’d love feedback on this piece.

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