On-Page Optimisation

You're better off spending your money on on-page optimisation than buying links because;

This time next year, and the year after that too, your on-page optimisation will still be there and working for you. Compared to paid links that are annually renewable, after the first year it'll be free!

What's more, it will have gained in provenance. Your site will not only be seen to be about its subject, it will be seen to have been seen to be about it for quite some time. Provenance! The Holy Grail of SEO!

The same obviously can be said for inbound links, however, not for the kind of links you have to pay for, month after month or year in year out. You only rent these, while on-page optimisation, once you've made it, is yours forever.

Google, sooner or later, is going to be getting better at spotting paid links. They won't have to be site-wide at the bottom of the page from entirely unrelated sites, an obvious giveaway, to get you a penalty. I think myself though, going against the grain somewhat of what I'm saying here, that a paid single link from a respected site to a site related by theme will always be worth paying for if as and when you can get them. Because the site of origin is related, the reasoning behind the link won't be questioned.

You have to ask yourself though whether such a link wouldn't already exist, because if it didn't, or there wasn't something similar, how does the site of origin come to be so respected anyway?

But we digress...

Ten steps to on-page optimisation

1. Externalise javascripts.
2. Externalise CSS style sheets.
3. Validate the page. In fact, validate all the pages.
4. Have your keyword/phrase in the file name, hyphenated.
5. Have your keyword/phrase in the title tag.
6. Have your keyword/phrase in the meta description tag.
7. Have your keyword/phrase in the inbound anchor texts.
8. Have your keyword/phrase in at least one outbound anchor text.
9. Have your keyword/phrase in an H1 tag on the page.
10. Have your keyword/phrase in the text, liberally. Don't go mad though.

There you have it - on-page optimisation - the cost-effective way to higher ranking!