How to Optimize a Web Page for a Keyword

By on 02/8/2013


We are asked many times how to optimize a web page for a keyword, and its more difficult to explain without seeing the optimization in action.  So I’m writing this post to explain how to optimize a web page for a keyword in a visual format.

First you have to decide what that keyword will be, and actually it needs to be a key phrase.  Keywords are not very detailed.  For example, I am optimizing this post for the key phrase how to optimize a web page for a keyword because it is descriptive in what I want to be found for.  A single keyword might be optimization, but as you can see thats not very descriptive of what Im writing about.  So before you start, figure out what your key phrase will be.

Once we figure that out, lets work our way down the page from the top to the bottom.  The very first item on the page is the “title” tag.  This is the blue title you see in the search results.  If your using WordPress and a system like Yoast, you will be able to add this title tag on your post page like you see below.  If your using an HTML website, you’ll have to plug the title directly into the page.  For your title, you want it to be exactly what people will search for, which would be the key phrase you determined earlier.  In my case, its how to optimize a web page for a keyword.

The next item in line would be the site “description”, which is the sales pitch that a user sees on the search results page that would make them want to click.  It needs to use the same key phrase you determined above with a call to action.  My description will be “How to optimize a web page for a keyword using simple and white hat techniques.  Step by step tutorial to optimize your web page for a keyword.”

The next item still dealing with the meta data is called the “keywords”.  This is not weighed by Google very heavily, but its easy and its not going to hurt.  Mine of couse is how to optimize a web page for a keyword.  You can see all of this in the screenshot below of my setup in Yoast.

How to optimize a web page for a keyword

How to optimize a web page for a keyword

 Now lets dig into the part that you actually see on the page.  First, make sure your “H1” title is your search phrase that we determined were going to use.  If you look up at the big blue title at the top of the content on this page, you can see thats my same key phrase, how to optimize a web page for a keyword.  Its important that your content be about optimizing a web page for a keyword, since this title is telling your readers and search engines that the content is about just that.  The H1 tag is weighed heavily with search engines.

Working on down the page, you can see I opened up my content with using my key phrase in the very first sentence.  Its important to use those key phrases soon in your content, words up high in the content weight a little more heavily than words buried down the page.  You also probably noticed I bolded the phrase, just to drive home that the phrase is important and the search engines should take notice just how important it is.

A little more down the page, you might notice a link in the content.  Behind the link there is something called a link title.  You should put your key phrase in the link title as well, just to let the search engines know the link is related to the same content were discussing, how to optimize a web page for a keyword.  Below is a screenshot on adding the link and the link title.

How to optimize a link title for a keyword

How to optimize a link title for a keyword

So on down to the images Im adding, those also need to be optimized using the same key phrase.  The screenshot below demonstrates how I names the image how-to-optimize-a-web-page-for-a-keyword.png, then added all of the meta data to the image including the title, caption, alt and description.  All systems don’t use these, but you need to at minimum name the image matching your key phrase and add your alt title to the image.

How to optimize an image for a keyword

How to optimize an image for a keyword

Working on down the content, you’ll notice I start underlining how to optimize a web page for a keyword instead of bolding it.  There is no order on how to use the different styles, but using all of them will help drive home the point to users and search engines that this content is definitely about how to optimize a web page for a keyword.  Im not suggesting to use it as much as I did, Im really overusing it just for demonstration purposes.  But use it so that it draws the eye and helps the user understand the point as well.

Off Page Factors on How to Optimize a Web Page for a Keyword

Before I jump into off page factors, which will be short, notice how I used an H2 tag for the above heading.  I worked my key phrase into a H2 heading which is weighted heavily as well.  Its almost a “sub title” if you can imagine it that way.  Try and work H2’s, H3’s and so forth to break your pages into sections.

So the off page factors such as people linking into your page is very important.  Also, the text in the link is important as well.  For example, for this post to really rank well on search engines, I would need some folks to link to it using this format.  (If you will link to me, you can help me make the point.  Thanks in advance!)

  • Text in link: How to Optimize a Web Page for a Keyword
  • Title of link: How to Optimize a Web Page for a Keyword
  • Link: https://blackbeardesign.com/how-to-optimize-a-web-page-for-a-keyword/

It would look like this to copy and paste:

<a title=”How to Optimize a Web Page for a Keyword” href=”https://blackbeardesign.com/how-to-optimize-a-web-page-for-a-keyword/”>How to Optimize a Web Page for a Keyword </a>

 Resources About How to Optimize a Web Page for a Keyword

Of course there are many other resources and many other factors when your answering the question on how to optimize a web page for a keyword.  If you need some help, we do have SEO services and would love to help.

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