Office of Marketing and Communications

Content Optimization

On-page optimization with copy

After keywords and page purpose is clear, each page should communicate information relevant to keywords and according to what is being searched for.

  • Objective: Write page content in a way that a search can locate your keywords and information (using text, photos, video captions and tags).
  • Role Considerations: Writers and editors will have the most effect on how and where keywords are used through the page information. Be sure to communicate page keywords when providing creative or marketing briefs.
  • Audience Considerations: Different audiences will respond to different keywords.
  • Prospective Students: Consider the common search queries made by students. Consider their natural language as they explore majors with career interests in mind. Avoid using university jargon unless the page is an attempt to educate users about such jargon, for example “what is a provost?” or “what is a dean?”
  • Brand Considerations: Brand distinction prevents the usage of “OSU” but branded searches may be looking for the acronym. Users will often type Ohio State and OSU in searches. We can study to understand the natural search habits of students, parents and alumni.5.1

Best Practices:

Use focus keywords in your meta title, meta description, header tags, page copy, image alt tags and provide for natural link relationships.

Title Tag

Use the focus keyword (your primary keyword) in your title tag. This will increase the likelihood of higher rankings.

Limit the length of title tags to 55 characters. Optimize for mobile search displays where possible.

Pipes are used by Google to signal a brand name. Use only one pipe in your title.

  • Follow this rule to using pipes: Primary – Secondary | Brand Name
  • Keywords – Unit or College | The Ohio State University

Don’t use the same Title Tag across pages. For individual articles and events pages, pipe with branded names are not necessary to conserve space for the article title, making room for any relevant keywords.

Examples:   

  • Contact Admissions | The Ohio State University
  • Alumni Association | The Ohio State University
  • Membership – Alumni Association | The Ohio State University
  • Civil Engineering | The Ohio State University
  • Careers – Civil Engineering | The Ohio State University

Meta Description for SEO

A better-written meta description will entice the user to click on your page, instead of an alternative.

  1. Use action language (do, see, visit, try…).
  2. Use keywords in your description.
  3. Keep it under 155 characters to be mobile-friendly and succinct.
  4. Provide a solution or benefit for your reader. (Know your audience!)

Meta Description tags are used in Social Sharing:

The meta description of your page will be read and used to highlight content in social media when your page is shared, thereby providing better context on what a new user can expect to find for the click.

Optimize content for SEO Signals

Properly constructing a page means writing it with the ability of search bots (and screen readers) to understand what purpose the page serves. Add common meta tags to all pages to set clear content focus and search descriptions for each page.

Writers and content editors will have direct effect on SEO by ensuring keywords are used naturally in their respective meta data fields. Work to write descriptions and organize information with header tags.

  • Audience Considerations: Be sure to examine the site strategy for audience needs. For example, if prospective students are your target, be sure to review natural student language.
  • Brand Considerations: While proper branding prevents the usage of “OSU” for reasons of brand distinction, it should be studied so we understand the natural search habits of students, parents and alumni. The abbreviation has been part of the vernacular and is used often. For now, adhere to brand standards and do not use acronyms in your pages.

URLs 

URLs are the uniform resource locator, or the specific address for your content. Use keywords in a URL for new webpages. An SEO-friendly URL structure uses the following things:

  • Easy to read: Users and search engines should be able to understand what is on each page just by looking at the URL.
  • Keyword-rich: Keywords matter and your target queries should be within URLs. Just be wary of overkill; extending URLs just to include more keywords is a bad idea.
  • Consistent: There are multiple ways to create an SEO-friendly URL structure on any site. It’s essential that whatever logic you choose to follow it is applied consistently across the site.
  • Static: Dynamic parameters are rarely SEO’s best friend, but they are quite common. Where possible, find a solution that allows your site to render static URLs instead.
  • Future-proof: Think ahead when planning your site structure. You should minimize the number of redirects on your domain, and it’s easier to do this if you don’t require wholesale changes to URLs.
  • Comprehensive: Use the concepts of main content and supplementary content to ensure you have adequate coverage for all relevant topics. This will maximize your site’s visibility.
  • Supported by data: It normally requires buy-in from a lot of stakeholders to launch or update a particular site structure. Numbers talk, so make to use search and analytics data to support your case.
  • Submitted to search engines: Finally, create an XML sitemap containing all of the URLs that you want to rank via SEO and submit it to search engines. That will ensure all your hard work gets the reward it deserves.
  1. Allow only one H1 and make sure it describes the page with inclusive keywords. It is not the same as styling a headline for puns or a play on words. A searchers’ intent should be evident in the context of a subhead where a header can be served.
  2. Add multiple H2s and H3s. These may also include your keyword or long-tail variations of your keyword. Try to use H2. It’s not required to have H3 tags, but they allow you to segment the ideas on your pages better for users. Do: Ensure that heading elements on a page are arranged hierarchical. For example, H2 elements should follow H1 elements, H3 elements should follow H2 elements, etc. Don’t:  Don’t “skip” levels. For example, don’t use an H3 directly after an H1. Accessibility Note: When headings are incorrectly ordered, users of assistive technology may become confused over the structure of the document and believe content is missing.
  3. Avoid using generic words as your H2 or H3. While words like “requirements” or “summary” may be short, a more descriptive H2 answers the user’s question.
  • Good:  “Requirements”
  • Better: “The requirements for a physical education degree can be met in 4 years.”
  • Good: “Education”
  • Better: “Dr. Lower’s education credentials span 30 years.”

For best search results, an H2 or H3 will answer the verbatim questions addressed by users, so know what users search for and address your copy accordingly.

  • “Can I take courses in human ecology online?”
  • “What are the work/study opportunities in the performing arts college?”
  • “What dorm is closest to classes for music majors?”

Understand a webpage anatomy with header tags

Header tags enhance the content keywords of your page. Consider these subtitles of your content and use keywords in H1, H2, H3 and beyond if necessary.

These tags allow you to tell search bots a hierarchy of important items in this page. The Google crawler (bot) checks HTML header tags such as H1, H2, H3, etc. to determine the relevancy of your site content. Examine the H1, H2, H3 structure in the example below:

Use Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are also an appropriate way to help search engines understand your pages’ layout. The breadcrumb trail shows you where you are. Every step of that path is clickable, all the way back to the homepage. If a search engine can see your page structure, it can offer a smart tree of your pages.

Advantages of using breadcrumbs:

  • Google values them, as breadcrumbs give it another way of figuring out how a website is structured.
  • Breadcrumbs improve user experience, by using a common interface element that instantly shows people a way out.
  • Breadcrumbs can lower bounce rates since visitors are offered an alternative way to browse a site.

Types of breadcrumbs

  • Location-based: showing the site’s structure to visitors. This is the most popular type.
  • Attribute-based Breadcrumbs: Showing relationship between elements. You often see the simultaneous use of two breadcrumbs types: at the beginning, there are location-based links, followed by attribute-based links, which appear when you use filters, for instance. It usually looks like “Home > Product category > Color> Size > Shape”.
  • Path-based Breadcrumbs: Provide the visitor with the path they have followed through the site.

Image and Video Tags

Video

Adding proper tags to video content aids in SEO and social posting.

Learn more about best practices when using video in web pages.

  1. Identify 10-20 keywords relevant to the video content. These are your keywords (e.g stroke, osu stroke treatment).
  2. Title
    • Title should be within 70 characters (including spaces).
    • Titles for YouTube or Vimeo videos should include relevant keywords to ensure high rankings in Google and YouTube search.
    • Include keyword phrases as close to the front of the title as possible.
    • Title should be in AP Style (only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized).
      • Example: Achilles tendon can heal faster | Ohio State Medical Center
  3. Description

Use alt tags on images and media files.

  • Use image alt tags with keywords where relevant. Alt tags carry significant search emphasis. When you use an image or a video of a building, person, place that pertains to your page’s content or keywords, use an alt tag that captures the common keywords.

Accessibility Note: Text equivalents for non-text elements communicate the meaning of images to users who cannot perceive the image, such as users of assistive technology. Proper equivalents provide text that contributes the same level of understanding to the content of the page as the image itself.

  • Add an alt attribute and provide alternative text for images. When writing alt text, focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and is in context of the content of the page.
  • For images that do not convey content, are decorative, or contain content that is already conveyed in text, add an alt attribute that is blank (alt=“”).
  • Don’t fill alt attributes with keywords. Avoid keyword stuffing.
  • Copyright and photography credits should be under image and not contained in img alt.
  • Use image alt tags on Ohio State and Buckeye brand marks. Keep this simple.
  • Do not use alt tags on images that are decoration or formatting. WCAG 2.0 section on text alternatives states that images used for decoration or formatting should be implemented in such a way that they “can be ignored by assistive technology.”
  • If your image is not specific, but only used as graphical filler for a page, leave the image alt tax blank. Ideally, a page has images relevant to the story and content presented and is devoid of this kind of filler.

Photos of specific people should identify them. Headshots should be tagged with full name and title, including class if Alumni or student.

Group photos may contain full names or described group’s attributes.

  • Good: “classroom”
  • Better: “Dr. James Smith shares case studies with business law students.”

Writing alt text and image descriptions

Editing alt text on Facebook

Editing alt text on X

Build internal link systems

Use link-building strategies to prime the search relevance of your pages. Modern search engine algorithms depend on them to connect users with the information they’re looking for.

Map out your content topics and subtopics to create a relevant journey for your user. This SEO model is called a “topic cluster.” This model supports search intent, which makes it easier for Google to find content and ultimately boost online visibility and ranking.

Pillar content that broadly outlines the topic then hyperlinks out to subtopic content pieces based on specific long-tail keyword variations. This way if one page ranks high in search, all pages linked to it are boosted in rank. The way search engines index your content is through links and the best type of link that passes value is a hyperlink.

FAQ