The best bloggers aren’t only good writers; they’re also good listeners. They’re also in charge of how well their material performs in search engines. To do so, you’ll need a basic understanding of SEO, particularly “on-page” SEO.
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What Is On-Page SEO and How Does It Work?
The method of optimizing content and HTML source code to identify what your webpage is and what information it provides is known as on-page SEO.
The page title, headers (h1 and h2 tags), URL, text content, meta descriptions, internal links, and other elements of your webpage can all be improved.
What Can You Do to Improve Your On-Page SEO?
If you’re new to SEO, it’s a good idea to start with the fundamentals. Web page structure must be optimized both technically and in terms of language to rank higher in Google search.
An optimized page will be easy to locate on Google for your target audience, and they will be satisfied after reading/viewing/experiencing it.
Staying focused on the searcher’s query (aka your major keyword) and making the page easy to read, skim, understand, and share are the foundations of how to do that.
Although Google is getting better at interpreting written passages and related themes within your webpage’s text, there are still plenty of ways to send Google favorable signals that help it identify and understand your material.
Below are some SEO tools and resources for on-page SEO services and content optimization, as well as a list of crucial on-page aspects you can optimize.
Title
The best writers are aware of the importance of a strong title. It’s at the top of our on-page SEO checklist, and it’s crucial for capturing the user’s attention and raising the page’s click-through rate (CTR).
If the headline does not match the user’s objective, they are unlikely to click through and read your post.
The title should be visible not just to users, but also to crawlers. As a result, make sure your page has title tags. It’s also worth noting that, while your H1 tag and title don’t have to be identical, you still want them to be linked.
URL
Before you do anything else, make sure your URL is short and easy to remember (avoid odd number and letter combinations!).
The URL, like your title, is an excellent opportunity to include your keyword.
One piece of advice: don’t include the year in your URL (e.g., www.example.com/best-evergreen-content-2017).
It’s ideal to leave the year out of the URL if you want your content to be evergreen (i.e., a webpage that will remain optimized for search year after year).
Any “best-of” list is an example of this. Make your headline “Best Wireless Headphones 2020” and the url slug /best-wireless headphones if you want your website to rank for “Best wireless headphones 2020.”
You can then use the same page to target “best wireless headphones 2021” by simply changing the title of the post to “Best Wireless Headphones 2021,” without the need to modify the URL and set up a redirect.
However, in other circumstances, your material may be specifically suited to a year, such as if you wanted to produce an article about the “craziest events of 2020,” you are unlikely to repurpose the same content in 2021 to target the “craziest events of 2021.”
If you decide to change a webpage’s URL, make sure to include a correct redirection to avoid 404 errors and preserve the SEO value of the previous page.
Meta Description
A well-written meta description can help you stand out on SERPs and entice people who are scrolling through the results page. People may skip over your result if the meta description is poorly worded, opting for something else on the SERP.
Semantically Related Words and Keywords
This accomplishes two goals: first, it assures the searcher that this page is relevant to their query, and second, it provides the same positive message to Google, which may enhance your page’s ranking.
Material marketing is the process of creating content on your website to increase your internet presence using this simple strategy.
Check out this recorded webinar on keyword research with Ross Tavendale, Tommy Griffith, and Tristam Jarman to better understand the concept of semantic search.
Header Tags (H1, H2,…, H6)
Using clear headers to break up portions of your text with a tiered hierarchy structure is one of the easiest and most prevalent approaches.
H1-H6, with H1 being the most general heading and H6 being the most particular subheading, should be nested in descending sequence.
Internal linking
Internal linking may be a smart location to start helping your sites be found if you don’t have time to go deep into link development.
Content Duplication
Over 45 percent of websites had duplicate content on some pages, and 50 percent of websites had duplicate titles, according to our SEO Mistakes Study. This will not result in a penalty, but it will send a signal to search engines that your website is of little or no value to your readers, which they will not appreciate.
Site Crawlability
Check to see if your website is restricted from being crawled; otherwise, all of your SEO efforts will be for naught.
To do so, make sure you’re not doing any of the following things, which could make crawling difficult:
- Links that are broken.
- Internal linkages are insufficient.
- A clean sitemap.xml is missing.
- Implemented a non-index tag.
The time it takes for a page to load (Page Loading Speed)
The speed with which a page loads is important in SEO. It’s only a millisecond, yet it’s enough to cause a user to close your post and go to another website.
Simple reasons for delays can exist, such as photos on a page with huge file sizes. In other circumstances, the problem may be more serious, such as server issues.
Here’s a quick rundown of what could cause your page speeds to slow down:
- The presence of a vast quantity of HTML on a page.
- Chains and loops should be redirected.
- Javascript or CSS files that haven’t been compressed.
- Files with a lot of Javascript or CSS.
Whatever the reason, it’s critical to be aware of any concerns with page speed.
Mobile Compatibility
Responsive design and mobile website development, on the other hand, take time and effort. It’s not something you can complete in a single day, but it’s well worth your time.
Since Google officially shifted to mobile-first indexing in 2020, mobile-friendly websites have had a major priority in mobile SERPs.
Length of content
You must ensure that your content is long enough for both users and search engines, but keep in mind that there is no such thing as the “ideal” amount of material.
According to a recent study, the average word count of material on Google’s first page was roughly 1400. If the search query indicates that the visitor is seeking a rapid answer, don’t bore them with a lengthy content piece.
The notion was debunked several times by Google’s John Mueller, who stated that word quantity alone will not send you to the top of the SERPs.
Readability
The level of readability is determined by a variety of things. Everything that can influence our perception, including style, grammar, and syntax, as well as the design and structure of the text, will play a part.
Numerous SEO tools might assist you to check your text’s readability score like Grammarly.
Videos
Adding videos to your page might assist organize it and drawing attention to it. It also appeals to those who enjoy visual stuff.
While videos won’t aid your page’s SEO as much as backlinks or including the keyword in the page title will, they can help you meet your users’ needs. Some people like watching videos, while others prefer reading text – this, too, is dependent on the inquiry.
A user searching for “how to change the oil in a car,” for example, is more likely to want a video than a user searching for “what year was the constitution created.”
Image Content
Images that are too large can cause your site to load slowly, which is one of the most important aspects of a good user experience. As a result, make careful to reduce the size of your image file as much as possible while maintaining a clear image. Try to match your photos to your site’s maximum display dimensions as a general rule.
Images from your page can appear in Google image search results if they have descriptive file names, and ALT tags can help folks who are visually challenged comprehend the content better. When you upload an image, some content management systems include a place for entering an alt tag.
Buttons for Social Sharing
If an influential person or someone with a large following likes or reblogs your post, your viewership may grow.
Site Markups
The value of your content’s SERP look has already been discussed. Markup implementations can boost your CTR, and the best part is that microdata can be used on a variety of different forms of content, regardless of the topic.
