The Tips

Signification

» HTML Tag

» Tips

» Number of URLs

» Relative efficiency

» Difficulty

» ROI

Parameters

» SEO parameters (Search Engine Optimization)

» The display settings

Which strategy ?

» What is incremental SEO ?

» What is the optimal strategy ?

 

» Send us your questions

The tips

Signification

The tip table is the action part of HTML4SEO. It is the heart of the application and then, probably the most visible part of it.

The table has, by default, 6 columns : HTML tag, Tip, Number of Urls, Relative efficiency, Difficulty and ROI. You can sort each one of these with Firefox and Opera (there is a small bug with Internet Explorer that should be fixed soon).

» HTML Tag

The HTML tag column only lists the HTML tags for which a tip is proposed. Therefore, all the tags are not necesseraly included.

» Tips

The Tips column tells you what to do for the corresponding HTML tag. There are 2 kinds of tips : Add N times the audited expression in the corresponding tag or remove N words except the audited expression. Applying the given tip, you will have a number of keywords and a keyword density just better than the mean level for the corresponding tag.

In the following example,

HTML4SEO proposes you to add 6 times the expression "mp3 player" (very competing keyword), and to remove 47 words except the expression "mp3 player" in the anchors (visible text from hypertext links).

As this is a hard-working task (remove 47 words...), HTML4SEO provides some alternatives. Instead of Adding 6/Remove 47, you can Add 7/Remove 34 or Add 8/Remove 21 or Add 9 remove 8 or Add 10/Remove 0. The goal is to reach the keyword density and number of keywords of the best ranked pages.

» Number of Urls

The Number of Urls column is very important. It tells you the number of Urls among the top 10 that contains the expression in the corresponding tag. For a tag, The higher its value is, the most decisive its optimization will be. If this value is low, its optimization will probably have a light impact on your ranking.

By default, are only included the tags for which there are at least 2 Urls in the top 10 containing the expression.

In the following example,

Only 2 of the 10 first Urls contain the expression "mp3 player" for the B tag (text in bold). Meanwhile, all of the 10 first Urls (10/10) contain the expression "mp3 player" in the TITLE tag (which is the text shown in the title bar of your browser). The TITLE tag optimization seems to be far more decisive than the B tag’s for this expression.

» Relative efficiency

The Relative efficiency column tells you about the weight of a tip. The word "relative" is important. It means that the efficiency depends on the context. The Relative efficiency value takes in account the type of the tag (Title, Meta Description, H1, A/Href, etc...), the weight of the proposed modification for the tip and the Number of Urls.

» Difficulty

The Difficulty column tells you about the feasibility of a tip. In fact, applying a tip is quite easy. You just need to open your HTML editor, then... that’s not that easy.

There are tags more visible than others, just like H1 for instance. The change imply a major overhaul of the web page and requires an adjustment of the speech that can have a decisive impact especially for a promotional campaign where every word count. Similarly, the A/Href tags are quite difficult to change, as the links (outbound mainly) are independent from the linking web page. On the contrary, there are painless tags to change : Img/Alt, Meta/Keywords, etc...

The Difficulty value takes in account the type of the tag (Title, Meta Description, H1, A/Href, etc...) and the importance of the proposed modification for the tip.

» ROI

The ROI column is the Return On Investment, i.e the ratio between the effort and the expected benefit.

The ROI value takes in account the Relative efficiency and the Difficulty.

In the following example,

Althought the proposed changes for the Img/Alt tag are more important than the ones for the H1 tag, its efficiency is worse.

On the contrary, the difficulty is lower for the Img/Alt tag than the H1 tag despite of the need to add more occurrencies of the expression "mp3 player".

As the Title tag is easy to modify and has a significant ranking impact, its ROI is pretty high, which is not the case of the H1 tag since, despite of a major impact, it is very visible, so difficult to change easily.

Parameters

» SEO parameters (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO is no exact science. Opinions change from a professionnal to another about certain criteria weights. Still, differences are generally pretty light.

The default SEO parameters proposed by HTML4SEO must be changed with caution. We recommend beginners not to change them. On the contrary, SEO experts can set them from their experience. To do so, click on My SEO parameters in the toolbar.

Then a dialog box pops up.

Current tab/Preferences

It is composed of 2 tabs : Current tab and preferences. The options are the same in both tabs. However, the parameters set in the 2 tabs do not have the same scope. In the Current parameters tab, they only last until the session is over. In the next session, they will be set to default again. Whereas in the Preferences tab, they will be saved between sessions. In the next session, they will be used as default settings.

Number of keywords and keyword density

The number and the density of keywords are both used by search engines to evaluate a web page revelancy toward a keyword. The keyword density seems more important than the number of keywords which must not be underestimated thought.

The number of keywords is the total number of times you can find a keyword in a text. The density is a percentage which measures the strength of a keyword in a text. It is the ratio between the number of keywords and the total number of words.

If a keyword appears twice among 400 words (number of keywords = 2, density = (2/400) x 100 = 0.5%), it is less important than if it appears once among 30 words (number of keywords = 1, density = (1/30) x 100 = 3.3%).

Once again, do not change the default settings if you are a beginner. Otherwise, if you are a SEO expert, feel free to modify the proposed values. To do so, move the sliding cursor to the number of keywords or density criteria you want to foster.

By default, the number of keywords is set to 4 and the density to 6, which corresponds to respective weights of 40% and 60%.

Changing this parameter, you will modify the audit results.

Tag weights

Search engines give a heavier weight to the words contained in some HTML tags. Once again, do not change the default settings if you are a beginner. Otherwise, if you are a SEO expert, feel free to modify the proposed values.

The HTML tag weights vary from 1 to 10. You can disable an HTML tag by unckecking it.

For example, the TITLE tag weight is set to 10 by default, as the text weight is set to 2. HTML4SEO will give 5 (10/2) times more importance to the words in the TITLE tag than the words in the text.

Changing this parameter, you will modify the audit results.

» The display settings

By default, the tip table is composed of 6 columns : HTML Tag, Tips, Number of Urls, Relative efficiency, Difficulty and ROI. You can change the layout by clicking on "My display settings" in the toolbar.

Then a dialog box pops up.

It is composed of 2 tags : Current parameters and Preferences. The options are the same in both tabs. However, the parameters set in the 2 tabs do not have the same scope. In the Current parameters tab, they only last until the session is over. In the next session, they will be set to default again. Whereas in the Preferences tab, they will be saved between sessions. In the next session, they will be used as default settings.

There are 2 kinds of possible settings.

By default, all the columns are shown, but you can choose only some of them.

By default, the tip table only includes the tags for which there are at least 2 Urls in the top 10 containing the expression. You can change this floor limit. The higher the limit will be, the fewer tips there will be, but they will be more decisive.

Which strategy ?

The tip table is made to simplify the HTML code optimization job. Still, are you sure to obtain a real gain ? This is the purpose of this article.

» What is incremental SEO ?

There are several ways to improve the ranking on a keyword, depending on the situation. If your website theme is poorly targeted, you need to work back your HTML code. This is what HTML4SEO is made for.

SEO is usually made by successive approximations, until reaching the goal. Take your distance with massive modifications of your HTML code, this could be unproductive or even harmful. It is often more profitable and easier to optimize by successive edits. If only few modifications are enough, no need to do more.

To do so, remember you can request the same audit (when payed) as many times as you want for 30 sliding days. And then, you won’t be charged for it. It means during 30 sliding days, this audit is free of charge for the same or any other web page of your choice.

For example, on september 12th 2007 you ask for an audit on the keyword "mp3 player", on the US version of Google for your web page http://www.mywebsite.com/mp3-player.htm. Therefore, you are charged for one audit in your account.

Until october 11th 2007 included, you can ask for the same audit again (the keyword "mp3 player", on Google US) for your web page http://www.mywebsite.com/mp3-player.htm but also for the web page http://www.mywebsite.com/win-your-mp3-player.htm and even your competitors web pages as many times as you want.

It has to be clear that the keyword ("mp3 player" here) and the search engine version (Google US here) have to be the same.

» What is the optimal strategy ?

The tip table is composed of 6 columns : HTML tag,Tips, Number of Urls, Relative efficiency, Difficulty and ROI. You can sort each one of these with Firefox and Opera (there is a small bug with Internet Explorer that should be fixed soon). The last 4 columns are more interesting to sort, each one can give way to a different strategy.

The key tags

The Number of Urls column is very important. It tells you the number of Urls among the top 10 that contain the expression in the corresponding tag. For a tag, the higher its value is, the most decisive its optimization will be. If this value is low, its optimization will probably have a light impact on your ranking.

Focusing on the tags which have the best number of urls, the key tags are privileged for the targeted keyword. These tags are more difficult to find and vary a lot from one keyword to another.

From the most efficient to the least efficient

The Relative efficiency column tells you about the weight of a tip. The word "relative" is important. It means that the efficiency depends on the context. If your web page title is already optimized, you won’t have a tip for it, even if this tag is often decisive. The Relative efficiency value takes in account the type of the tag (Title, Meta Description, H1, A/Href, etc...), the importance of the suggested modification for the tip and the Number of Urls.

Focusing on the most efficient tags, you will reduce the number of tags to modify. However, these tags will probably be hard to edit (H1, A/Href, etc...).

Some tags (Title, H1, etc...) are often among the most efficient. This strategy is close to SEO classics.

From the easiest to the least easy

The Difficulty column tells you about the feasibility of a tip. There are tags more visible than others and so more difficult to change.

Focusing on the easiest tags often reduces the efforts to provide. This is the strategy of the least effort. However, you may have more changes to make in the future.

que le nombre de retouches successives nécessaires soit plus grand.

Maximize performance

The ROI value takes in account the Relative efficiency and the Difficulty.

Focusing on the ROI column maximizes the performance by finding the best compromise between effects (efficiency) and efforts (difficulty).

To go further

A unique SEO strategy is certainly comfortable (no personnal efforts to make) but is not necesseraly the best. The choice of strategy will depend on the context (competing keyword, niche keyword, etc...).

You also have to remind that a good optimization of your HTML code can not be reduced to only one expression. The whole theme around the expression is to optimize. The tagcloud of the Beginner tab (or the Expert tab) tells you about the main expressions found in your competitors web pages and that lack in the audited page. By clicking on the keywords that are closed to the audited expression, you will get other tips for the clicked keyword.

For example, for the keyword "rent a car", it seems interesting to make efforts on the expressions car rental, a car and enterprise rent.

SEO must therefore be incremental in 2 levels : the first one for the main keyword (targeted on the search engine) and another one for the expressions close to the main keyword from a thematic point of view.