Click the image for a larger view.

Most people think search engine optimization is something you can only do when a site or page is originally created. That puts “most people” at a distinct disadvantage to the rest of us.

If you haven’t signed up for Google’s Webmaster Tools, click this link and do so now. You’ll need it if you’re going to optimized your existing pages for search.

Before we discuss how to optimize your pages for better search rankings after the fact, let me just mention why it’s best to do as much optimization as you can before going live with a new blog post.

Pre-Launch Optimization Avoids Certain Issues

The optimization we’ll be doing after the fact may actually entail some changes to the file structure or location of a file. Changes of that type can cause broken links around the web.

For example, let’s say we have a post who’s link is the following…

http://mywebsite.com/corn-recipes/

Let’s also say we have several corn on the cob recipes on that page and we find out from Webmaster Tools that we actually rank 24th on Google for the search phrase “corn on the cob recipes.” We might want to get a little extra mileage out of that additional search phrase by changing the name of the file from corn-recipes to corn-on-the-cob-recipes.

So, the new link is now…

http://mywebsite.com/corn-on-the-cob-recipes

The trouble we would run into in this situation would be that everyone who has already linked to this page is using the first link. Now, when someone clicks on the link on those pages, it will show a “page not found” error.

SEO work up front can help you avoid this issue in the first place. If you run into this situation while you’re trying to optimize after the fact, you’ll just have to weigh the benefits of higher search rankings against the loss of existing page links.

How to Optimize After the Fact

Now, on to the search engine optimization tip at hand.

Once you’ve got Webmaster Tools all set up, go to your Webmaster Tools dashboard and click on your website’s snapshot. On the left column is a menu item that says “traffic.” Click that and it will drop down a sub-menu. From that sub-menu, select “search queries.”

You’re now looking at a list of search queries for which your site is appearing in the search results. You can your average search position, how many impressions your site is getting from each search term and how many times people are clicking through to your site (you realize that just being visible on page 1 doesn’t guarantee clicks right?).

More importantly, if you click on any one of those keyword phrases, you’ll be able to see which pages on your site are actually the ones ranking for those search terms. This allows you to go back to those pages and make a few tweaks that can help those pages rank just a little bit higher in the future. Some of these tweaks might make the difference between page 3 and page 1 ranking. Some might be the difference between being #10 for a term and being #1.

There are several key locations for keyword phrases when doing on-page optimization. These locations help Googlebot understand exactly what your site is about. Make a few key changes and Google will consider your site more relevant for searchers.

We discussed in the section above that keywords in the url or address of your page are important. Also, having the keyword in the title, header 2, first 100 words of the body, and even in the alt text for some images can identify your page as relevant for certain keyword phrases.

Let’s use as an example of a hobby site I run for Green Bay Packer Fans.

Click the image for a larger view.

You can see from the accompanying image that one of the keyword phrases I’m ranking for is “Packer Quarterbacks.” I have an average position in the search results of 33, and there are actually two pages that are ranking for the term.

Now that I know the two pages, I can go to those pages and make some updates that will help boost my search rankings.

As mentioned above, changing the actual page name can cause problems. First, I would try adding the keyword phrase to an h2 tag or to the alt tag of an image. I might include it a couple more times in the body of the article (not too often though).  Then, I would wait.

If the pages climb the rankings sufficiently, I don’t have to bother messing up links from other sites by changing the file name. If I’m just not moving the needle enough, I may elect to change the file name at that time, but I’m going to make sure the trade-off is worth it.

Constant Improvement

Do this on a regular basis and those old pages might just generate loads of new traffic.

We must make our fans feel important to us.