There are a lot of people who are just starting to blog and many more who have been running their own site for a while but don't know what SEO is, how important it is and how to implement it! SEO simply means search engine optimization. This is where you build your web pages and implement certain techniques to help you rank as high as possible on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). The higher your pages can be ranked on Google / Bing / Yahoo / etc. pages of results, the more traffic your site is likely to get. Now SEO can be divided into two distinct categories; On-page SEO and off-page SEO.
What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO refers to the practice of optimizing web pages to improve a website's search engine ranking and generate more organic traffic. In addition to posting relevant, high-quality content, on-page SEO includes optimizing your titles, HTML tags (title, meta, and header), and images. It also means making sure that your website has a high level of expertise, authority and reliability.
What is off page SEO?
Off-page SEO refers to all the things you can do other than your website to help you rank higher like social media, link submission, article submission, blog marketing, etc. In this blog, we'll look specifically at on-page SEO and some of the most effective ways to increase your page rank on search engines. Adapting to this development is essential, and you can do it by ensuring that your website and its content – both what is visible to users on your webpages (i.e., text, images, video, or audio) and elements that are only visible to search engines (i.e., HTML tags, structured data) – are well-optimized according to the latest best practices.
Why is on-page SEO important?
On-page SEO is important because it helps search engines understand your website and its content, as well as determine if it's relevant to a user's query. As search engines get more sophisticated, the focus is more on relevance in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Google is now much better at:
- Understand what users are actually looking for when they type a query.
- Provide search results that meet the user's intent (informational, shopping, browsing).
Adapting to these updates is essential, and you can do this by making sure that your website and its content - both what is visible to users on your web pages and elements that are only visible to search engines i.e. HTML tags, structured data are very well optimized according to the latest practices.
On-Page Search Engine Optimisation Techniques
1. Page Titles
One of the most important SEO factors for your site is the titles of your pages. Each of your pages and posts should have its own unique title, which includes the main keywords for that page. For example, you can write a blog post about ‘Top 10 Dresses for your Summer Wardrobe’. So it is extremely important that you include “Summer Wardrobe Dresses” in the title of your post, maybe “Top 10 Dresses for your Summer Wardrobe” or “10 Dresses for your Summer Wardrobe” etc. That way, every time someone searches for ‘Dresses for your Summer Wardrobe’ in a search engine, your post has a better chance of appearing since you have included those keywords.
2. Meta Descriptions & Meta Tags
These descriptions are an important place to include keywords that are relevant to your content, as they are used in search results when your page is listed. For example, if we continue to use the example "Dresses for your Summer Wardrobe", a good meta description for this page would include these and other keywords. So, "Discover how to achieve stylish dresses for your Summer Wardrobe that are perfect for every ocassion." would be a great meta description to use, as it's relatively short, while still containing a number of specific keywords.
For each of your pages, you can include a set of keywords as meta tags. These should be all the relevant keywords in your content, that you have researched beforehand.
3. URL Structure
It is highly recommended that you include search engine friendly URLs as they allow for better crawling. Shorter URLs seem to perform better in search engine results, but that's not the only factor. URLs that include targeted keywords perform better as well. The placement of these keywords can also have a major influence. For example, site.com/keyword would work better than site.com/365/738/subfolder/keyword
4. Header Tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, etc.)
When writing your articles, you should divide your content into smaller sections and paragraphs to make it easier to read. These sections can have a title, i.e. where the tags H1, H2, H3, H4, etc. are used. Usually H1 tags are reserved for your main page title, with subsequent titles issued as H2, H3, etc. Search engines use them to determine what's important in your content. This is why keyword rich headers are more useful than generic ones. Make sure to write keyword rich headers in order of precedence in the H1, H2, and H3 title tags. They are used by many crawlers to differentiate important content.
5. Keyword Density
Including relevant keywords in all of your content is very important because it helps search engines determine what your content is. However, try not to over-repeat and overuse the keywords just for the sake of ranking your page. This can result in your site being banned from search engines. To avoid this, try to keep your keyword density around 1-3%. Keyword Placement Tip: Make sure you include your Keywords in the first 100 words of your webpage.
6. Image SEO
Using images in your content is a great way to make your site more engaging and break up boring chunks of text. You can use these images to improve your site's SEO. All of your uploaded images have titles, so treat them the same as your page titles. Adding relevant keywords can help people find your site when they search Google Images. You can also include alt text for your images, making them even more useful with SEO.
7. Internal Linking
Of course, links from different sites are important, but these are not the only important links! Placing links to other pages on your website is a great way to improve your site. Internal links can be a useful weapon in your SEO arsenal. Not only does this make it much easier for your visitors to navigate your site and find all of your content, it also ensures that your site is crawled correctly, allowing search engines to find all of your pages. It also helps boost a page's relevance to relevant keywords and phrases, while also helping to increase the Google PageRank of your pages.
There are a number of different methods you can use to improve your internal linking structure. The main being; content links and navigation links. Content links are very useful when used correctly. These are links that are placed in your article / blog / service pages, which redirect people to other relevant pages on your site.
8. Content Audit
Most content creators focus on creating new content and they forget to audit their existing content. And this is a mistake. Auditing your existing content is crucial because it helps you:
- Evaluate if your existing content is meeting its objectives and generating a return on investment.
- Identify if the information in your content is still accurate or has become out of date.
- Figure out what types of content work for you.
Content audits can greatly help your SEO strategy and they should be done regularly.
9. Keyword cannibalization
True or false? The more pages you have targeting a keyword, the better you will rank for that keyword. False!
Targeting a specific term across multiple pages can result in "keyword cannibalization" which has potentially disastrous consequences for your SEO. When multiple pages are ranked for the same keyword, you are actually competing with yourself. It is important to identify if keyword cannibalization exists on your website and resolve it immediately.
10. Site Speed
Recent articles indicate that even a second of delay in loading a webpage can lead to a 7% drop in conversions. You can check your website's performance in the speed service using the handy Google PageSpeed Insights. You can do a variety of things to speed up your site, including using fast hosting, a robust CDN (Content Delivery Network), and image compression software, minimizing JavaScript, HTML resources. and CSS, etc. Google's Matt Cutts has also mentioned that site speed is an important on-page SEO factor in order to get better ranking on Google's SERPs.
11. On-page User Experience
UX is vital for SEO. So invest some time in the quality of your website design, the browsing experience, basically the ease of use of your website), the reading experience, specials, and pop-ups (so they're not annoying) - in short, do everything to improve your users' on-site experience.
12. Utilize Schema Markup
This is an underutilized on-page SEO technique that you can use to outperform your competitors. By adding Schema or structured data, you help search engine to understand your content better. Rich snippets make your webpages appear more prominently in SERPs. This improved visibility has shown to improve click-through rates(CTR's). A simple example is the number of stars (reviews) you see in the search engine mostly for online ecommerce store. Schema is Used For - Businesses and organizations, Events, People, Products, Recipes, Reviews, Videos.
Final Thoughts
These 11 techniques are just a few of the ways you can improve your on-page SEO. All of those used independently of the others won't make much of a difference to your site's ranking, but when used together they can help improve your site's traffic. There's a lot to consider, but remember you don't have to become the world's best SEO expert overnight. Make the effort to understand even the basics of SEO and you'll see a big difference in click-through rates, engagement, and of course, your website's ranking.
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