To get a high search engine ranking for your site you need to ensure that you consider all the key on page SEO factors and try to make them as search engine friendly as possible. Whilst good on page SEO does not automatically result in a high ranking it does help facilitate this.

The important on page SEO factors to bear in mind are:

The domain name

Choice of domain name is one of the vital on page SEO factors. In an ideal world you would simply use a keyword but you would be very lucky if this were to be available. In practice the best option it is best to use the keyword at the beginning with something following to make it unique e.g. keyword???.com. Using a hyphen is ok for SEO purposes.

How the site is constructed

Remember that the search engines can't read Flash content or graphics so these can be a hindrance for SEO purposes. Use text as far as possible.

To help the search engines find and index your content ensure you have a sitemap.

The choice of Keywords

Choice of keywords is the most critical of on page SEO factors (in fact for your SEO overall) as the wrong keywords may mean that, in practice, you will not be able to get a good ranking.

Each page should be optimised for a keyword and all the keywords (which means the site as a whole) should be in the same niche.

The URL of each page

Another of the important on page SEO factors is the URL of each page which should contain the keyword of that page. Ideally this would be sitekeyword.com/pagekeyword. WordPress users should ensure that the Permalinks are set to "postname" (to put the title in the URL) and install a plugin which will automatically shorten the URL by removing common words.

Title Tags

The page title should include the keyword and, wherever possible, this should be at the beginning.

Header Tags

The aim should be to include the keyword in h1 - h3 and others if possible. The headings can be distributed throughout the content.

How the keywords are positioned

Positioning the keywords correctly is another of the important on page SEO factors which takes practice. The keyword should be in the first sentence and the last sentence and throughout the content. Instances of the keyword can be made larger or made bold or italicised.

Keyword Density

This is total number of words divided by the number of uses of the keyword. This should be approximately 2%. The idea is for the search engines to be clear that the content is relevant to the keyword but not to suspect that you are just repeating the keyword to manipulate them. Keyword density is one of the on page SEO factors that can be done badly with a negative result.

Use of Graphics

Search engines do read the Alt tag of graphics and this can be one of the more effective on page SEO factors. You should have a graphic with the keyword as the alt text, on every page.

Internal and external Links

Internal links with the keyword as anchor text should be used throughout the site. You should also have external links to relevant sites. If you are using WordPress you can use a plugin to create the links automatically. It is important to remember that external linking is another of the on page SEO factors with the potential for negative consequences. Make sure that your external links are to reputable sites only.

Legal Pages

One of the on page SEO factors that is often overlooked is the standard pages. Search engines look for contact pages and legal pages so you should have them. This is pages like About Us, Contact Us, Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy.

Content

The search engines prefer longer content so make it a minimum of 300 words and as a maximum as long as you think your visitors will read.

Content should be unique and must not be duplicated on your site. It should not have any spelling mistakes or typos and should read well for visitors.

Search engines tend to prefer new content so you should add content on an on-going basis, as well as updating existing content.