While on-page SEO isn’t as simple as it used to be, it is still the most fundamental aspect of SEO. It’s one of the few things you have complete control over and doesn’t need a high level of technical knowledge. You can do a good job if you know how to make simple website adjustments, write (or know someone who can), and do some research.
SEO is not how people perceive it to be. It is not a matter of sprinkling a few keywords here and there. It is not a matter of sprinkling a few keywords here and there. Keyword placement is still vital.
So, without wasting any more time, let’s dig into this on-page SEO guide to learn everything you need to know about on-page SEO.
What is On-Page SEO?
On-page SEO is an optimization that you control and incorporate into your website. It tries to increase your rank or visibility in search results like Google, Bing, etc., by making your website more useful to your users.
It is the practice of improving a web page’s ranking in a search engine to generate more traffic. It refers to both the text and HTML source codes of a webpage.
On-page SEO works better when it comes to higher-rank searches. It brings more traffic to your site. Although it takes time to provide results, once it does, it has the potential to improve your online rankings.
Why is On-Page SEO important?
On-page SEO helps search engines understand your website a little better. It also aids search engines in figuring out if the content on your website is relevant to search queries or not.
Relevance is becoming important in search engine results pages as search engines get more complex.
On-page SEO optimizes your headlines, HTML elements (title, meta, and header), and images, along with posting relevant, high-quality content.
It ensures that your website has a high level of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
On-Page SEO Best Practices
Many practices might increase the traffic on your website and help you perform better on-page SEO.
Some of these practices include:
- Content Audit
- Writing SEO Content
- Keyword Optimization
- Avoid Cannibalization of Keywords:
- The E-A-T framework
- Meta Description
- Image Optimization
- Video Optimization
- URLs
- Title Tags
- Mobile Optimization
1. Content Audit
Most of us are so focused on creating new material that we overlook what we currently have.
This is a blunder since not everything you write will be a hit. It may occasionally fail to rank on Google, convert, or contribute significantly to your company’s goals.
You shouldn’t just leave the page to suffer a long, excruciating death when this happens. You should go over it, figure out what went wrong, and take steps to fix it.
Auditing your current material is important. It allows you to examine if your current content is accomplishing its objectives and providing an ROI. It also helps you determine if the information in your material is current or has become obsolete. You can also figure out which content is most effective for you.
Many content auditors focus on SEO performance, but a comprehensive audit considers the content’s financial performance and value.
Reasons why you should carry out your content audit religiously;
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Accuracy:
Facts and previously correct statistics may become inaccurate as your content ages. Regularly auditing your content will maintain its accuracy, helping to safeguard your brand’s reputation and search rankings.
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Staleness:
Over time, your content may become stagnant or obsolete. But don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s not your fault if your content has become stale. What was important two years ago may require minor revisions.
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What’s Working:
If you don’t look back on the content you uploaded earlier, how would you find out what’s working for your website? Writing three blog content a week is simply too exhausting, and it’s not generating any outcomes. You’ll never know if you don’t go back and run a content audit to discover which items work best and which perform poorly.
Understandably, there are more domains for you to cater to. That’s why there are SEO service providers, you know?
There is always an option to get SEO services from an expert who can audit your content and figure out what works for you and what doesn’t.
2. Writing SEO Content
Using keywords and key phrases in online content is known as “SEO writing.” Copywriters and marketers use SEO to improve their website’s organic visibility and SERP rankings. Combining high-quality material with relevant search queries is the best method for writing for SEO.
SEO writing is creating material optimized for both search engines and users. It is not just about keyword research and filling in spaces; it is far more. Producing content just for the sake of it isn’t going to work. Remember that you’re producing material for people, so it needs to be high-quality, significant, and relevant.
The content may include blog posts, articles, copywriting, videos, guides, infographics, and directories. SEO writing service providers focus on all these prior mentioned factors.
The content of a website is one of the biggest SEO domains. They both go in together. Even if you write good content, if it isn’t SEO optimized, it won’t matter. Similarly, if the content isn’t good enough, the search engines will not rank it higher. So, they both need to be put together for better results.
Furthermore, internal linking is also a good tactic to help consumers find your blogs. For those wondering what internal linking is – any link on your website that connects one page to another is known as an internal link. Your users and search engines use links to discover content on your website.
Users utilize links to browse your website and discover the content they’re looking for. In fact, search engines also use Links to browse your site. These links connect one page to the other and help you optimize the content efficiently.
Moreover, SEO content writing includes keyword optimization as well.
3. Keyword Optimization
When users search for anything on a search engine, they input terms into their browser’s search box, and the top related results are displayed. Search engines look for relevant terms and phrases linked to the user’s query on web pages. The more relevant keywords you have in your content, the more likely it will appear in the top search engine results for someone looking for similar material. Hence, using the relevant and right keywords is one of the best SEO practices.
The purpose of keyword optimization is to ensure that the keywords you choose successfully generate good traffic and that your site is ranked high enough for that traffic to find it easily.
The keywords should clarify what your content is about to search engine algorithms and which search queries should be displayed as a top result.
Keyword optimization is the process of researching, evaluating, and selecting the best keywords to target to bring relevant search traffic to your website. Choosing the right keywords might also help you target your audience more effectively.
It means using relevant keywords in the content to engage and bring traffic to the website. Keywords help to rank the content better in search engines. It is undoubtedly, one of the most important SEO writing practices.
But people often confuse keyword optimization with keyword cannibalization, which is SUCH a drawback!
4. Avoid Cannibalization of Keywords
One of the most misunderstood SEO techniques is keyword cannibalism.
Some SEO guides might even argue that it doesn’t exist, which adds to the confusion and creates even more misconceptions. However, keyword cannibalization is a genuine problem for many websites and may seriously harm your rankings.
It’s just not what you think it might be.
Targeting a single word over many pages might result in “keyword cannibalism,” which can have severe SEO consequences. It’s essential to determine whether keyword cannibalism occurs on your website and address it as soon as possible. Keyword cannibalization can cause various problems and slow down your website’s performance.
Keyword cannibalization occurs when many blog posts or articles on your site compete for the same Google search query. Either because they cover the same topic or because you optimized them for the same keyword. When you optimize posts and articles for related search queries, you’re reducing their chances of ranking. For most queries, Google will only show 1 or 2 results from the same domain in the search results. You could get all three if your domain has a lot of authority.
You’re competing with yourself for Google ranking if you cannibalize your keywords. Assume you have two postings on the same subject. In that circumstance, Google cannot determine which article should be ranked first for a given query. This would prevent the search engine from identifying which of your posts should appear on the search engine result page.
Imagine how this would affect your ranking!
So, how exactly can you avoid keyword cannibalism?
To avoid keyword cannibalism, use links to lead Google and your viewers back to a major ‘knowledge base’ or piece of foundation content.
Additionally, you may try employing several versions of the same keyword to broaden the reach of your content.
One more tactic you can use to avoid confusion in your blogs is the canonical tag. Canonical tags help you avoid duplicated or similar material from displaying on various URLs, which might cause difficulties. The canonical tag, in practice, notifies search engines which version of a URL you want to show up in search results.
5. E-A-T
In 2015, Google gave us an insight into what is considered a high-quality or low-quality website in Google’s book. It officially released its search quality evaluator guidelines.
Google uses this SEO checklist guideline to ensure that the information it delivers to searchers is accurate, true, and helpful.
Google uses Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T) to evaluate content producers, webpages, and websites.
There is a direct link between what Google believes to be high-quality content and what appears in search results. Here’s what E-A-T is:
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Expertise:
You should be an expert in your industry. Expertise entails demonstrating the creator’s ability and mentioning it in your content. Expertise isn’t as important for humor or gossip blogs for medical, financial, or legal websites. The good news is that any website may display expertise when its material is accurate and beneficial to visitors.
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Authoritativeness:
When determining authoritativeness, Google considers the author, the content, and the website. What kind of authority do you and your website have? It all comes down to who you are, who you represent, and how you are seen.
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Trustworthiness:
It’s critical to have a track record of trustworthiness. While expertise and authority might help you rank higher on Google, a lack of credibility or trustworthiness can cause your ranks to collapse. You will suffer on Google if you do not control unfavorable attitudes towards your company.
High-quality content has long been a priority for Google. It aims to ensure that high-quality content sites are given higher rankings while low-quality content sites are given lower rankings.
6. Meta Descriptions
A meta description is an HTML tag that explains the content of a web page. This description will appear beneath the title and URL when your page appears on search engine result pages (SERPs). Your meta description should be between 155 and 160 characters long to be displayed on Google.
In the SERPs, meta descriptions, or tags that describe a website’s content, are usually shown beneath the page title.
There is one thing that is very concerning to a lot of companies. They are confused about why their meta descriptions differ when they appear on the search engine. Allow us to clear the air for you.
When your meta description is not following the search engine’s guidelines or is not up to the mark, Google tends to paraphrase or edit it accordingly – to maintain the quality of your work. In order to avoid this, your content must follow the guideline set by Google.
And even though Google claims that meta descriptions do not influence results. Research, however, signals the indirect benefits of meta-descriptions.
The purpose of the meta description tag is to act as advertising content. It is a visible and significant aspect of search marketing since it drives readers to a website from the SERP.
The meta description should cleverly utilize the page’s goal keywords in a natural, non-spammy manner that entices the visitor to visit the page. Google and other search engines frequently highlight terms from the user’s query in the description display, which grabs the searcher’s attention. Try to match your descriptions closely to use search phrases without over-optimizing them.
7. Image Optimization
“A picture is worth a thousand words,” they say, and where’s the lie? Rather than words, we prefer to connect more visually. Images on websites have become increasingly important over time.
Why? That’s a brilliant question!
According to the HTTP Archive, images comprise about 64 percent of a website’s weight on average. Suppose we can minimize the size of these images without compromising their quality. In that case, it will significantly benefit your website’s page load times and user experience.
So, here’s what image optimization helps you with;
Images are a great way to make your web page more attractive. However, not all photos are created equal; some might cause your website to slow down. You can make the most of this SEO practice by correctly optimizing images.
Image optimization is a significant ranking factor that provides more ranking opportunities. It also provides a user-friendly user experience, faster web page load times, and lower bounce rates. So, they should not be a last-minute consideration.
According to Jumpshot statistics from 2018, Google Images accounts for over 20% of all web searches in the United States. SEO beginners and experts agree that optimizing images for your website is time well spent.
Image optimization has several benefits, including improved user experience, quicker website load times, and increased ranking possibilities. It’s a function that’s becoming increasingly essential.
8. Video Optimization
YouTube users upload 20 hours of video content every minute, and the service broadcasts 100 million videos daily.
According to a recent Forrester Research study, videos are 53 times more likely to yield a first-page ranking than traditional SEO techniques. Yet, there are few definitive guidelines on how to do this efficiently. There are a few guidelines for online video content to help boost a website’s search engine rankings and drive more traffic to it.
So, we’d take this opportunity to highlight ways to optimize video content for your search engine.
Video content is more than a fun way to relax and pass the time; it’s also a fantastic tool to educate your clients, broaden your reach, improve site traffic, and boost revenue. You can take advantage of this exciting and dynamic possibility with some original content and a basic grasp of optimizing your SEO for that content.
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Right Location:
Choose the right place to host your content. There are two ways you can host video content. Host it on your site or use a third-party service like YouTube. The best option is determined by the goals you want to achieve.
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Title and Description:
Your video content should have a good title and a keyword-optimized description.
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Include Video in Your Sitemaps:
If you decide to host the video on your site, make sure the search engines are aware that the pages containing the videos, as well as information about the films themselves, should be indexed. This can generate a video sitemap.
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Keep It Short:
You should not anticipate anyone watching video content longer than 10 minutes, no matter how brilliant you believe it is. So, keeping your videos short is always a good idea.
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Optimize Your Video URLs:
Optimize the URLs of your website pages by integrating data about the page.
Video content is more than a fun way to relax and pass the time; it’s also a fantastic tool to educate your clients, broaden your reach, improve site traffic, and boost revenue. You can take advantage of this exciting and dynamic possibility with some original content and a basic grasp of optimizing your SEO for that content.
9. URLs
SEO-friendly URLs are created to cater to the needs of both users and search engines. URLs that are optimized for SEO are often short and keyword-rich. An SEO service provider makes sure to keep the URLs short.
And why do they do that?
Search engines use your web page’s URL, title tag, link anchor text, and content to determine what your content reflects.
An intricate URL gives people and search engines an easy-to-understand indicator of the landing page’s content. When assessing the relevancy of a website or resource to a search query, search engines employ URLs as a minor ranking component.
- URLs should be accurate but brief. A user and search engines should know what to anticipate on the page based on the URL alone.
- Use hyphens to separate words where needed for clarity. Do not use underscores, spaces, or characters to separate words in URLs.
- To ensure that your users and search engines understand your URLs, keep them as clear, relevant, captivating, and genuine as possible.
You wouldn’t want this to work against you, would you? So, create your URLs wisely.
10. Title Tags
When consumers click the link, they need to know what they can expect to discover on your website. The robots (crawlers) rank your page and its content based on various variables. The title tag is one of the essential SEO ranking signals.
The title tag, an HTML tag found in the header of each web page’s header, serves as an initial context for the subject matter of the page it is on. Because the title tag has minimal influence on organic rankings on its own, it’s often neglected.
Title tags are important for search engines to comprehend your website. Moreover, they are often visitors’ first impressions when they find your page through organic search. Title tags are used in three locations.
- Search engine result pages (SERPs)
- Online browsers
- Social networks.
Since title tags are usually the first impressions, there are certain things that you need to keep in mind to write a good title tag. While writing a title tag, you should;
- Watch your title length – it should not exceed 60 characters.
- Don’t overdo keywords – Avoid titles, just a collection of keyword phrases or many versions of the same keyword.
- Write for your customers – Besides SEO and keyword optimization, it’s critical to consider the complete user experience while developing title tags.
- Put important keywords first – Keywords at the start of your title tag may influence search engine results more.
- Unique titles – give every page a different and unique title. Unique titles make search engines understand that the content on your site is valuable, and they drive a higher click-through rate.
11. Mobile Optimization
Mobile devices account for more than half of all Internet traffic; having a mobile-friendly website is essential. If individuals using smartphones and tablets cannot access your site, your search engine rankings will suffer greatly. Mobile-friendliness or responsiveness is a ranking criterion used by search engines such as Google. This means losing out on key leads and profits if your site isn’t mobile-friendly.
Mobile SEO Best Practices
- Video Compatibility – Make your videos compatible with mobile devices by optimizing them on your website.
- Scrollable Content – Instead of forcing consumers to browse through numerous pages, which might be difficult on mobile, make content scrollable.
- Downsized Images – Even when downsized to fit a smaller screen, your images should be high-quality and carefully cropped to optimize clarity.
- Screen Buttons – Any buttons on the screen should be simple for mobile users.
- Optimize Loading Speed – Optimize your website’s loading speed by compressing images, using lightweight themes, and lazy loading images.
- Separate Mobile URL – Another alternative is to develop a separate, mobile-friendly site. This enables you to generate content that is unique for mobile users. Most parallel mobile sites utilize an “m” subdomain to minimize URL conflict.
- Desktop and Mobile Content – Make sure all content is the same on desktop and mobile devices.
- Responsive Web Designs – Responsive website design utilizes CSS3 media queries to offer mobile and desktop users the same content. They use a fluid grid and flexible designs to adjust the user’s screen size automatically.
Mobile optimization is no longer an option. It’s a must-have, especially if you want to get discovered for your keywords. When Google ranks your website, it takes mobile compatibility into account. Low compatibility leads to a low ranking. Developing a responsive site is frequently the focus of on-page optimization for mobile friendliness. You have a single site with a responsive website, making it simple to edit and add new content.
Google’s algorithm extracts material after a search query and provides the best possible result to the reader. The search engine uses a certain algorithm to rank the content and show the required result when people add a search query.
So, to keep the quality of the content intact when any of the algorithms are updated, it’s important to do search engine optimization SEO. The practices mentioned above help produce good and desired results regarding on-page SEO: all these practices, one way or the other, influence on-page optimization for any brand or business.
On-page SEO can certainly (not to mention single-handedly) either make or destroy your company’s online presence. The ultimate SEO champion would help you understand your brand better, so you could make changes that work in your favor.
