SEO User Friendly

Some web designers (and many web content writers) view on-page SEO as a necessary evil to an effective content strategy on the web. However, when properly executed, SEO
can actually enhance a site visitor’s experience, rather than detract from it.

In this article, I’ll run through several examples of how SEO can be improved with the user in mind. Reviewing these examples should help site builders gain a solid understanding of SEO practices that work together to create highly effective sites.

Changing Your Perception About SEO

Misperceptions about SEO generally arise from outdated ideas about what SEO is all about; when people are still under the assumption that keyword stuffing, mammoth blocks of links and stilted wording are still valid SEO tactics.

Rightfully so, web designers and web content writers object to these practices because they interfere with a visitor’s ability to make sense of the site.

Google and SEO have come a long ways since those practices were in vogue. Today, the crucial thing to understand is this:

• Google trains its spiders to think like humans. Therefore, best of class SEO practices are best of class people practices.
• When someone conducts a search, Google (and all the other search engines) wants to show results that are relevant and valuable to people. Accordingly, Google designs its search algorithms to reward meaningful content and punish those who try to game the system with user-unfriendly content tricks.

With that in mind, here is a brief review of seven tips  of on-page SEO that demonstrate how good SEO, good writing and good design work together to create an exceptional product. This is not an exhaustive list of content optimization techniques, but websites that get these issues right have an extremely strong foundation.

1. Insert Primary Keyword Phrases at the Beginning of Headlines

The primary keyword phrase on a web page should clearly and concisely describe the main topic of that page. For maximum effect, the phrase should be written at the beginning of the main page heading (

 tag).

The example illustrated below is taken from a site we recently did for our client Track Your Truck, a firm that sells GPS tracking systems.

The headline, "GPS Tracking Systems", is superior to, say, "Manage Your Fleet Productivity".

When people scan a web page, their attention is drawn to the headline. If they have to pause for even a few seconds to discern its meaning and relevance, they may just click away instead.

Using keywords in the headline helps readers, which is why search engines like Google reward the practice.

2. Use Bold Text for Keywords

Another way to tell search engines — and site users — that content is important is to put it in bold type. Restricting the use of bold text to keywords is a good discipline all the way around. Too much bold text, especially used in a haphazard fashion, confuses the reader. No bold styling creates a clump of undifferentiated text that turns the reader off.

What we want is to focus the reader’s attention on the main theme of the page, so again, SEO and user preference work hand in hand.

Placing text in italics also attracts the attention of search engines and readers, but I discourage its use because italics in body copy can sometimes be difficult to read.

3. Use Bulleted Lists

Search engines are attracted to bullet points because they think bulleted content has high importance (otherwise, why would someone bullet it?). Humans think the same way.

Any time content can be transformed from an undifferentiated block of text into a short (3 to 5) list of bullet points, the writer is helping visitors and search engines quickly and decisively grasp the meaning of that page.

As a general rule, extremely long lists are undesirable: they overwhelm the reader and, for that same reason, search engines probably devalue them.

4. Use Keywords in Call to Action Links

By conveying the content of the link using keywords, you alert the reader and search-engine to what the new page is all about.

Some will make the argument that "click here" is the better choice, because readers are more likely to follow a clear command. While I can accept this argument for landing pages and email blasts, I don’t think it applies very well to websites. If the "click here" approach is used globally, you wind up with a site where every link looks the same and thus all of the urgency of the command is lost. For obvious reasons, this situation is bad for both the user reading your site and for web spiders crawling your links for context.

5. Insert Primary Keywords at the Beginning of Meta Titles

A web page’s