On-site SEO in 2013?

[invisibled]

Hello everyone,
I have a new website that i was thinking of optimizing. After looking around for some information, i found that the main things to optimize for your keywords are title tag, meta description, keyword in h1 and h2 tags, keyword density of around 1-2% in the body content and pictures with alt tags containing your keyword.
What i would to know, from your experience, is that do these still work in 2013? What are the most important things to optimize on-page now days?
Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[BigBigFan]

On-page optimization includes content that visitors will find appealing enough to link to, a good title, a good meta description and backlinks. Nothing else really matters anymore, at least not very much.

Proof: I stripped an established site down to just the above and it didn't lose rank.

 

[bauss]

^ What he said.

It all comes to content, and the more content you create, the better. Obviously your content will need to be unique, and use your keywords when possible. You should also make your content readable by your users, so you can increase returning visitors. Try and make your site the best resource possible for your users.

 

[Dmarcotte]

Remember content is king. If you don't provide value to your readers it doesn't matter how great your SEO is, you won't convert traffic to sales. The items you listed are important for Google to understand what your post is about and rank it appropriately. I have also found that if I bold or underline my keywords when they are in the body of the post that helps ranking a bit. Don't overdo it though. Good luck with your website.

 

[Jessi]

Yep, it's mostly about the content at this point. I don't focus so much on the keyword densities and making sure they're in every suggested location. I do think it helps, though.

 

[tommymaczoidberg]

Far too many people are looking so much at SEO that they're forgetting that they need to have actual relevant, interesting content or else SEO won't do you a lick of good

 

[BigBigFan]

Meh, Google hates SEOs. Look at the reinclusion request form, it says right on it that if your site is linked to any SEO subjects that the request will take longer to process and you will be required to provide more information.

This, to me, is a clear sign that Google hates SEO's, they even have an SEO penalty built in apparently.

 

[tommymaczoidberg]

Meh, Google hates SEOs. Look at the reinclusion request form,

You wouldn't happen to have a link to the reinclusion request form, would you?

it says right on it that if your site is linked to any SEO subjects that the request will take longer to process and you will be required to provide more information.

So, if I make a site that has an article on SEO and how to work the system in a white hat manner, Google will pitch a fit?

 

[Tara]

Remember content is king. If you don't provide value to your readers it doesn't matter how great your SEO is, you won't convert traffic to sales. The items you listed are important for Google to understand what your post is about and rank it appropriately. I have also found that if I bold or underline my keywords when they are in the body of the post that helps ranking a bit. Don't overdo it though. Good luck with your website.

Great content is very important, but Google is also including social signal in their ranking algorithms. I write my content for the reader, not to manipulate the search engine results because it's self defeating.

 

[BigBigFan]

Sure thing Tommy, here is the reconsideration form: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/reconsideration

And here is the snippet I was referring to:

In general, sites that directly profit from traffic (e.g. search engine optimizers, affiliate programs, etc.) may need to provide more evidence of good faith before a site will be reconsidered.

So as you can see, Google applies different standards to different sites and they don't trust SEOs.