7 replies to this topic

[tomsey]

I have a couple of seo related questions - the first is general:

Is it ok to name internal homepage bound links the main keyword of your site?


In other words, if the main keyword of your site (homepage) is ink cartridges, should you name the internal home links ink cartridges instead of home? Or some variation to include the keyword within the link? When I say home link I mean the links within your site pointing to the absolute url or index page of your site.

Could you trip an overoptimization filter doing this or is it beneficial (or both lol)?


Ok, next question is about blogs.

I'm setting up a wordpress blog and the blog makes the h1 tag content the same on each page. It kind of makes a title with it in the header graphic. You can make it link to the index page. So, if the name of your blog is - the credit card blog, every page has that as an h1. Is it ok to have the same h1 with the same text on each page - seo wise? (the title tags and other headers are different on each page)


Thanks

[Jill]

Welcome tomsey!

In other words, if the main keyword of your site (homepage) is ink cartridges, should you name the internal home links ink cartridges instead of home?

Sure, if it makes sense and you don't think it will confuse your actual human visitors. (Cuz they do matter more than the search engines!)

So, if the name of your blog is - the credit card blog, every page has that as an h1. Is it ok to have the same h1 with the same text on each page - seo wise?

It's okay to do whatever you want, it's your site. But somehow that one doesn't really sound like it makes sense. Every page of your site having the same headline? I suppose there might be a way you could do that where it wouldn't confuse the site visitor, but it's one of those things I'd probably have to see in action to know.

The thing to understand is that you don't want to do anything that the only reason for it is because you think it will help your search engine rankings. If it helps make your site better all around, and also may help rankings, then you've found a great technique!

[tomsey]

Thanks for the welcome!

Ok, thats sounds good. Honestly, I don't like the idea of having the same h1 (with the same content) on every page of the site - or the same of anything because each page is different - I don't know how I can get around it though. I'll have to read more.

thanks again.

[Jill]

I don't know how I can get around it though.

What do you mean by you don't know how to get around it? Either you do it that way or you don't, no?

[tomsey]

yes, I meant technically do it while getting rid of the headers - but its doable

thanks

[Michael Martinez]

It sounds like you're using a template in your blog or CMS with a hard-coded H1 header tag. You should be able to change the template to make the H1 header dynamic (based on the value of your on-page keywords variable).

[Randy]

Welcome tomsey !

WordPress is extremely flexible for this sort of thing. I'm sure you'll be able to find some contributions on or through their site to pull it off. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that there are some templates available there that already have what you're looking for built into them.

If you can't find anything that specifically talks about headers and titles you may even want to try search for Meta Keyword contributions. Since WP ships without including the meta keywords tag you should be able to find something that can be tweaked a little bit to work for the page title and/or H1 tags.

It's been awhile since I worked with WP, but I believe they use the H1 as a sort of Site Title instead of a Post Title. I just looked at a slightly older version I have on my computer and (for the default theme) it appears that both the page title and H1 are in the header.php file.

The H1 line appears as:

CODE

<h1 id="header">
<a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>"><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></a>
</h1>

You should be able to change this code to change your H1's, but you'll want to set up a bit of a conditional statement. You don't want to have an ultra long H1 if several posts are listed on a page, or lose the H1 altogether for the main page. Thankfully, it looks like they provide an easy way to test for this too!

Untested and I'm looking at an older version, but hopefully this will give you a place to start in your search for something on the WP site. From what I'm seeing here in a quick look it might work if you alter the H1 in the header.php to be something along the lines of:

CODE

<h1 id="header">
<?php if ( is_single() ) {
single_post_title('', true);
} else {
?>
<a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>"><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></a>
<?php
}
?>
</h1>

If I understand what I'm seeing in the code I'm looking at the above should make the H1 the title of your post if and only if someone is viewing a page on which only one post appears. Anything else will keep the standard blog name that links back to the base url address.

[Brad Callen]

Yes, I agree with Jill on this one.

Concerning the internal linking, I've found that it's best to link back to the homepage using "keyword home"

For example, if my keyword is "weight loss", then I would link back to my homepage using:

"weight loss home" from all pages within my website. I always add the word "home" to not confuse the visitors. Afterall, the site is made for people, not search engines.

Second question... Having the same h1 tag on all pages would probably be overkill. The SE's rank pages, not websites... So, each of your inner pages should have a different h1 tag, representing whatever keyword that page is "trying to" rank well for.

Brad