• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. On-Page Optimization
        4. HTML Site SEO (NO CMS)

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        HTML Site SEO (NO CMS)

        On-Page Optimization
        6
        7
        2250
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • ArthurRadtke
          ArthurRadtke last edited by

          I have got a client site, which is dated (2007) and has not been shifted to any recognised CMS yet. It is HTML based. Is it possible to SEO on such a site? Is it even worth it?

          If it is possible to do SEO on this, any suggestions will be highly appreciated.

          Thank you.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
          • ArthurRadtke
            ArthurRadtke last edited by

            Thank you for all the wonderful responses. It was really helpful. I have been in touch with my client and we are moving the site to WP shortly.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • MChuckGreen
              MChuckGreen last edited by

              You can certainly SEO a website that doesn't use a CMS.

              The important question is, given the nature of the site, the budget and goals of the client, and the resources you have to work with, is a hard coded HTML website the most practical solution?

              Content management systems like WordPress, Drual, and HubSpot exist to make it easy to build and manage a website. Why? Because the overwhelming majority of individuals and businesses who need a website do not have extensive technical resources to be able to create and maintain a complex, highly-customized website.

              I'd be willing to bet that your client fits this bill, which means you can probably help stretch their marketing budget further by using a CMS to make your job easier.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • TimHolmes
                TimHolmes last edited by

                Absolutely!!!!!

                If you think about it logically, what does a CMS do. It uses templates and stores content  which is then output to the page - this webpage is HTML and is the basis of pretty much all webpages. Just because a site is HARD coded in HTML without the use of a CMS that compiles  it for you does not mean it cannot be optimised.

                If you ever look into the source code of a page output via CMS to the browser, you can see all the components usually utilised to give your a strong well optimised site, however if HARD coded you can probably go even further depending on your skillset to provide even more optimisation on a more bespoke level.

                Don;t delay get stuck in 🙂

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • wanatop
                  wanatop last edited by

                  Congratulations! You get the chance to do a good optimization both SEO and WPO.

                  The only problem with static pages is to go hand can be costly if there is much volume of content, in which case you can go about doing search and replace, or make a calendar of changes to be improving slowly website.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • Shakur
                    Shakur last edited by

                    Hi  ArthurRadtke,

                    In theory, a well-coded and optimized HTML site will perform as well as pages from a well-designed CMS site in organic search rankings.

                    Some of the most important HTML elements to achieve SEO success.

                    HTML title tag: They have always been and remain the most important HTML signal that search engines use to understand what a page is about. Bad titles on your pages are like having bad book titles.

                    Meta Description tag: If the HTML title is the equivalent to a book title, the meta description is like the blurb on the back describing the book.

                    Header tags: Header tags are a formal way to identify key sections of a web page.

                    Structured Data: The result of structured data often translates into what is called a ‘rich snippet‘

                    Hope it helps you.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                    • webtheoria.com
                      webtheoria.com last edited by

                      Sometimes plain HTML based website are easier to optimize. Make sure you add the necessary meta tags, google analytics, headings, etc. you could manually create friendly urls with htaccess! also manually create a robots.txt file and even an xml sitemap which you should find many online portals that could create one for you. Because you will be working on just the code, don't forget to check if there is any broken links!

                      yes you can still work just fine the html websites!

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        Last post

                      Browse Questions

                      Explore more categories

                      • Moz Tools

                        Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                      • SEO Tactics

                        Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                      • Community

                        Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                      • Digital Marketing

                        Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                      • Research & Trends

                        Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                      • Support

                        Connect on product support and feature requests.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • sarahwalsh

                        On-page SEO

                        onpage

                        This is a question for the organic SEO experts, once you added the main keyword that you want to rank for in the homepage title, meta title plus meta description, perhaps once or twice in the text on the homepage. How often do you then write it in the content marketing, say blog posts, we want to rank higher on Google for "SEO agencies Cardiff" however if you mention this in the blog posts too much say once a week, this could lead to over optimisation issues?

                        On-Page Optimization | | sarahwalsh
                        1
                      • Voopoo

                        Can access my site using www

                        www to non www ssl

                        Hello, when I try to access my website using www i would like it to redirect to non www but instead it shows a sal error message.

                        On-Page Optimization | | Voopoo
                        2
                      • Christinaa

                        Tags - Good or bad for SEO

                        We are getting Moz errors for duplicate content because tag pages share the same blog posts. Is there any way to fix this? Are these errors bad for SEO, or can I simply disregard these and ignore them? We are also getting Moz errors for missing descriptions on tag pages. I am unsure how to fix these errors, as we do not actually have pages for these on our WordPress site where we are able to put in a description. I have heard that having tags can be good for SEO? (We don't mind having several links that show up when searching for us on google...) As far as the SEO goes, I am not sure what to do. Does anyone know the best strategy?

                        On-Page Optimization | | Christinaa
                        0
                      • anavasis

                        Include Site Name in Page Titles or not

                        i would like to ask if it is a good practice or not to Include Site Name in Page Titles. My page is not selling products it is about plagiarism checker tool. i will give one example in one page we are writing about the plagiarism types so the page title is plagiarism types and then is the site name. what is the better practice? Keep it or not? thanks in advance

                        On-Page Optimization | | anavasis
                        3
                      • dwautism

                        SEO Optimization for Sales Page

                        Hi, I am new to eCommerce. Traditionally I have run a couple of semi-successful websites relying largely on Adsense revenue and affiliate income. So I have a bit of experience with on page and off page SEO. This time around I am creating a membership site and also sell eBooks as bundles that non members can buy. My question is, should I SEO optimize the sales page for my eBook or use another content page that links to the sales page. For example, if I am selling an ebook on Dog Training and targeting the main KW "Dog Training Tips", should my sales page be optimized for "Dog Training Tips"? The reason I ask is because typically Sales pages do not provide a lot of useful information but are more geared around selling the product. The other option would be to create a helpful information page targeted for "Dog Training Tips" and lead users to my sales page through contextual links, banners, popups (I hate popups), etc. This would be the approach for the other LSI keywords anyways. Any thought would be appreciated.

                        On-Page Optimization | | dwautism
                        0
                      • marketing_zoovy.com

                        Using Escaped Fragments with SEO

                        Our e-commerce platform is in the process of changing to what we call app based stores (essentially running in a browser as single page web-app)  With these new stores they are being built in HTML 5 and using escaped fragments.
                        Currently merchants are usually running 2 stores until we launch to app site at 100%.  My questions are really concerning the app stores which right now show on a subdomain but will essentially take over the primary domain.   Here is an example:
                        app.tikimater.com and app.sportsworld.com Since I am not a developer, I'm really having a hard time understanding the escaped fragments. I'm using this but https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/getting-started I'm not sure what my actual urls should look like and what the canonical should be set to. Right now they have been removed but previously they had  http:app.tikimaster.com#!v=1  Also, and how I should be setting up my meta information for Google so 1) pages are indexed timely 2) pages are indexed with the correct information.  I am still setting the meta titles and descriptions but in some instances Google uses other info. With the new platform we are moving away from on page content (written paragraphs) but category pages would have related products embedded.  Should I still be pushing to have some type of intro text, since it would solely be for SEO and not the shoppers experience. All product pages have content (product description etc) Thank you for any advice

                        On-Page Optimization | | marketing_zoovy.com
                        0
                      • jorgeapartime

                        Multilingual site with untranslated content

                        We are developing a site that will have several languages. There will be several thousand pages,  the default language will be English.  Several sections of the site will not be translated at first, so the main content will be in English but navigation/boilerplate will be translated. We have hreflang alternate tags set up for each individual page pointing to each of the other languages, eg in the English version we have: etc In the spanish version, we would point to the french version and the english version etc. My question is, is this sufficient to avoid a duplicate content penalty for google for the untranslated pages? I am aware that from a user perspective, having untranslated content is bad, but in this case it is unavoidable at first.

                        On-Page Optimization | | jorgeapartime
                        0
                      • BobGW

                        Ecommerce On-Site SEO: Keywords in Category Descriptions

                        Hello, I'm doing on-site SEO for a client's ecommerce site. Are 160 words enough for a category description? I'm using the keywords once at the top of the description, and once at the bottom of the description, with the ones at the bottom reworded so that they are the keywords with a different word order. I used to put the keywords in 3 times but it just feels like stuffing. Is twice, worded differently the second time, enough for a category description? Thanks.

                        On-Page Optimization | | BobGW
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      • Digital Marketers
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.