No matter what niche you are in, your home page metrics and optimization will always be, if not the most important factor, one of the top factors for ranking in the search engines. It is important that your homepage is optimized to perfection.
Is there one specific keyword that you would like to go after and go after hard? Out ranking solid competitors is tough to do but can be done if you put the work in. Just make sure that the main keyword you are targeting is not too crazy in terms of competition.
Does HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Matter?
The answer is yes. Just like browsers, search engines are very friendly towards websites that can load up very quickly. If you have bulky coding, or programming that isn’t efficiently coded, your website will take a lot longer to load, and thus will not perform as well in the search engines. Also make sure any videos or photos are formatted as best as possible. So, if you are creating a WordPress blog, you need to remain aware of these issues.
Keyword Placement
Keyword placement is very important. Many people say that placing your keyword phrase in an “H1″ tag at the top of the page (so that it’s the first thing that Google reads when it crawls the page) is getting less and less likeable by the search engines. This may be true, however it is still very obvious that this tactic is working, and performing well all over the Internet. If not the “H1″ tag you will want to include you keyword phrase in 1 or 2 “H2″ tags.
Another good placement of your keyword phrase would be somewhere in the navigation. Whether it be in the main navigation on the top, or navigation on one of the sides, it is best to put it in one of them so the search engines can see your keyword phrase in link form.
“Content is King” “Quality content is King”
Ever since Panda, the quality of your content has never been more important. That is because a big part of search engine rankings nowadays is what your bounce rate and time spent on page looks like.
You want to make sure that your absolute best content is on your homepage. Your goal should be to get the reader that is visiting your site to at least read the whole page before they decide to either jump ship or check out more pages of your website. This also makes link placement very important. Be sure to add in context links that make sense so that you can add to that pages viewed number.
Two Other Important Factors
One thing that is truly undervalued in SEO is the CTR on the SERPs page. The higher your click through rate, the better the chances that your website has to rank well. You can increase these odds by writing a very detailed and interesting Meta description – one that also has the keywords placed within it.
Another thing that is popular and search engine friendly since the Panda update is user activity within the page. Do your website offer products or services like perhaps web design service? If so, think about adding some sort of free quote form. If not it will be wise to find something else that users can interact with on your home page.
