Now it’s time to optimize your posts and pages.

This means improving how your page is targeting a topic in order to better help a specific audience.

In Part One, we learned about the type of long-tail keywords we should be targeting. In Part Two, we learned how to do basic keyword research.

Today, you’ll learn how and where to put these keyphrases in order to optimize your posts and give them some meaning.

Image courtesy of cliff1066™

On-Page Targeting & Optimization

Optimizing your post means inserting the keyphrase into specific areas of a post that show the highest correlation to ranking factors.

Here are the 7 major places where you should fit the keyphrase if it makes sense.

If it isn’t logical, or detracts from the user experience, then simply leave it out. Our goal isn’t to force keyphrases into inappropriate places. We just want to be as descriptive as possible.

1. Title: When crafting your headline for search engine purposes, try to fit the keyphrase in towards the beginning. You need to balance the best headline with being as descriptive as possible.

2. Meta Description: The meta description is the brief intro to your article that shows in search engine rankings just below the headline. Keyphrases in the meta description don’t help you rank higher. But when people use that keyphrase, it’s given extra emphasis. You should use good copywriting in the description to try and increase your click-through-rate (CTR). Leveraging an AI meta description generator can be a helpful tool to craft compelling meta descriptions that draw in potential readers.

3. URL: Use the keyphrase in your URL to give a clean, informative URL structure for both people and search engines. Try to keep it as simple as possible, and avoid unnecessary words or number strings.

4. Additional Header Tags: If you’re using sub-headers to break up the text or differentiating other sections, you should use the keyphrase in sub-head tags. So you would write it as:

< h2 > Best Las Vegas Show < /h2 >5. Internal anchor text linking: You should always internally link to other posts/pages on your site. When doing this, it is “best practice” to use the specific keyword phrase as your link. For example, Best Las Vegas Show would link back to that specific post.

6. Tags: Tags are what your users are searching for within your website. So it’s smart to put that keyphrase there as well. You should put any other related words that may be appropriate for your user’s searches within your site.

7. Image ALT attribute: You should always use images in your posts. When inserting an image, you should put the specific keyphrase in the “ALT Attribute” section.

And that’s it! Simple, right? You don’t have to worry about keyword density, or anything like that.

However we’re not done yet. Once you publish it, the work isn’t over.

4 Common SEO Mistakes that Will Hurt Your Rankings this Year

Enter your name and email below to get a free on-demand video about how to fix these four common mistakes:

• Mistake #1: Relying on a “Head” Keyword Strategy
• Mistake #2: Over-Optimizing Your Pages and Posts
• Mistake #3: Acquiring Easy, Low Value & High Risk Links
• Mistake #4: Not Using a Combination of Tactics to Boost SEO