On-Page SEO Factors for Website Optimization

Monte: Now, let’s get a couple for website, in getting the website really optimized, from your perspective.

Jake: Well, the on-page SEO, the number one tip I have is just has to do with title tags and H1s and H2s. It seems to be a good powerful tool if you can match the title tag, the H1 and the H2.

Monte: And explain to some of the novices out there what an H1 and H2 are, and how to get to the title tag.

Jake: Yeah. Well, the H1 and H2 and also the title tag are HTML codes that you use in a document, and the H1 is the primary header and the H2 is the secondary header. So those are just the tags that are wrapped around the text that you want to be in the header. When--it seems that if when those match, especially in Yahoo, the title, the H1 and the H2, when those match, the page seems to get quite a boost, and that’s a pretty easy on-page thing you can do. The most important thing you can ever do in any engine with on-page optimization is the title tag; it is the most important tag on a page, so.

Monte: And the key--give us some of the limits on that title tag, ‘cause it is the first thing the spiders [ph] see, I suppose?

Jake: Yeah, yeah, it is the first thing the spiders [ph] see. I mean, don’t--you know, the way I prefer to SEO websites is one specific keyword per page, so make that title very short, make it very specific, the exact phrase, two, three, preferably, four words that you want to rank on, and build the traffic up from there. Don’t start at the top and build down, so keep the title short, keep it on topic, I prefer keyword one, space, keyword two, space, keyword three, space, hyphen, space, website name.

Monte: Oh, okay.

Jake: So Buy space Used space Cars-Ford.com.

Monte: Oh, okay.

Jake: And that’s my favorite title to use, and it seems to work very well.

Monte: And then the second most important part would be the description inside the text below the title tag to support the keywords?

Jake: No, I--

Monte: Would that be correct?

Jake: --actually think the H2 parameter is probably being valued even more than the H1 or the description at this point. The H2 is a very powerful on-page tag that not a lot of people are using, which is H2 is the subheading, if you remember. So the subheadings of a page, I think, can be a lot more descriptive than the main heading of the page, often. So I think the engines are waiting those a little bit more, but your heading tags are always important, your H1, your H2 tags, and the meta-description is important that you mentioned, because if that phrase that the user’s searching for appears in the meta-description, Google will actually show that as a snip-it, so it’s a way you can control what the user sees on Google, which can actually help organic click through.

Monte: Oh, cool. Okay, well there you have it, one of the top SEOs in our industry, giving a couple good tips on both domain names and website optimization and some of the key points. And one of the questions, I guess one of the--on the chat board was what was the first domain name you ever registered?

Jake: The first one I ever registered, geez, I think I registered with the old ISP Mailbag.net.

[Laughter]

Jake: I think that was the first--

Monte: Still own it?

Jake: --one I ever registered. No, no.

Monte: Sold it?

Jake: It went with the ISP, yeah.

Monte: Yeah, it went with the ISP.

Jake: But I think Mailbag.net was the first domain I ever registered, so. And, you know, the terrible thing is, Jake.com was actually unregistered until about 1999, and I kept thinking I’m gonna buy it, I’m gonna buy it.

Monte: Was it really?

Jake: Yeah, Jake.com was totally unregistered till 1999, and I was gonna buy it, and then this hobby guy in California bought it, and he had on his page, “This domain for sale $500,” until about 2001. So I missed two times to get this domain name, and then I finally--it was for sale a couple months ago so I went to the guys and I said, “How much for Jake.com,” and they said something like $30,000. So I was like I missed my chance three different times to buy Jake.com.

Monte: Well, that little advice I gave you earlier about some other little name, grab that then.

Jake: Yeah.

Monte: So that doesn’t happen to you again and you’re not kicking yourself at the next show.

Jake: Right, right, right.

Monte: All right. Well, Jake, thanks a lot for being my guest on the show. I know that you did back-to-back interviews and you got--you’re speaking later on today. What are you speaking on?

Jake: My next session is about 25 minutes, it’s on Reader X [ph] and rewriting.

Monte: Oh, great.

Jake: So--

Monte: Well, we’re real excited to have you on board, great. Good luck with TrueLocal, and I’m sure that our listeners will be hitting that search engine quite a bit in the near future.

Jake: Thanks, Monte.

Monte: So thanks for having you on, and we’re gonna break for a commercial and then be back with Brett Crosby from Urchin.