Chapter 3. On-Page Optimization

Google and the other search engines look at the content of your site to determine whether you should show up for a particular search. It makes sense. If you don't even mention the keyword, then you probably aren't talking about that topic. It's like picking up a book and skimming the title, chapter titles, headings, text, and appendices to find out what it's about. If you're looking for a book on Drupal and you don't see the word Drupal mentioned anywhere, chances are it's not a Drupal book. Google basically does the same thing with your web site. If the keyword doesn't appear anywhere on your site, they won't rank you for that keyword.

The first step in convincing Google that you are the best is to tweak your site so that the keywords show up in all the right places. These changes to your site for the search engines are collectively called On-Page Optimization. Thankfully, because you're using Drupal, it's a lot easier than it might be otherwise.

In this chapter, we're going to look at the most important aspects of on page optimization: