A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page SEO
How do I build the perfectly optimized page?
– Posted by Rand Fishkin to On-page SEO
(Last Updated: October 24, 2014 by Rand)
This is a challenging question for many in the SEO and web marketing fields. There are hundreds of “best practices” lists for where to place keywords and how to do “on-page optimization,” but as search engines have evolved and as other sources of traffic — social networks, referring links, email, blogs, etc. — have become more important and interconnected, the very nature of what’s “optimal” is up for debate.
My perspective is certainly not gospel, but it’s informed by years of experience, testing, failure, and learning alongside a lot of metrics from Moz’s phenomenal data science team. I don’t think there’s one absolute right way to optimize a page, but I do think I can share a lot about the architecture of how to target content and increase the likelihood that it will:
- A) Have the best opportunity to rank highly in Google and Bing
- B) Earn traffic from social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, etc.
- C) Be worthy of links and shares from across the web
- D) Build your brand’s perception, trust, and potential to convert visitors
With the help of some graphics from CreativeMarket (which I highly recommend), I created a number of visualizations to explain how I think about modern on-page optimization and keyword targeting. Let’s start with a graphical overview of what makes a page optimized:
