On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is one of the most important contributors to optimizing your website. It is the practice of optimizing individual webpages to rank higher and become more relevant within search engines. This includes both the content of the webpage and HTML source code.
The world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is newly developed and always advancing. This can make it difficult to keep up with best practices. This can create challenges in knowing how to best advertise your business or website.
This shouldn’t be confused with off-page SEO which deals in links and external signals.
On-page SEO takes into account all of the aspects and details of a website and optimizes them to improve your website’s ranking within search results. As Google and other search engines become more advanced, so does their methods for determining search engine results.
This has led to on-page SEO as one of the leading factors in influencing a website’s ranking. This means it’s incredibly important to be on top of your on-page SEO strategy and ensure you’re effectively executing them.
Here are the factors that matter for on-page SEO and how to improve them.
Content Of A Page
The content of a page is probably going to be the most significant factor in your on-page SEO. This means your website should provide quality content for users to interact with. Content should be able to do these two things:
- Be linkable
- Provide the user with what they’re looking for
If your content isn’t linkable, then it’ll have a severe negative effect on your value to search engines. Content that isn’t linkable means that search engines will unlikely not rank it, and thus your content won’t drive any users to your website.
This happens a lot more often than you might think. This can happen because you’re incorporating content that can’t be shared, an AJAX-powered image slide show, or by having content that is behind a paywall or requires a login.
In terms of providing the user what they’re looking for, you should know the need of your reader. If you think about it, whenever a user is visiting a website, they always have a need or a goal in mind. Whether that be to find local places to eat, or seeing what time your bakery opens, the user will need that they want to be met each time they visit your website.
Providing content that gives the user what they’re looking for is essential to providing good content. This, in turn, provides a better user experience for the consumer and helps your webpage grow in a search engine’s value.
How To Improve It
To improve the content on your website try adding share buttons to your webpage and add content that is accessible to users who don’t need a payment or account to view it. It’s fine if to have a paywall requirement – money must be made – but some free content should be accessible to the user so that search engines can rank it. It also provides a reason for the user to stay on your webpage for a longer period which can help convert sales for you.
You should also be assessing the format, design, and value of your webpages to consumers.
Ensure that your content is easily accessible through the use of headers, subheaders, bullet points, and short paragraphs. Try running tests with people who have never accessed your website. Give them a specific task such as finding the price of a 24 oz. steak if your business is a restaurant. Monitor them and see what they try to do and what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense to them, be sure to ask a lot of questions. This can be a great way to find errors or critical issues that you may have overlooked. It’ll also improve the overall experience for someone visiting your website which will, in turn, boost your rankings within search engines.
Title Tags
Title tags are arguably the second most important factor for on-page SEO. They’re part of HTML code and what it does is tells the search engine what the title of your webpage is. You can see them as a clickable headline whenever you enter in a search.
They must be accurate and concise and reflect the description of the webpage. Failure to do so will result in lower ranking and fewer users coming to your website.
While there isn’t a character limit that Google has for title tags, it’s best to keep the title tag between 50-60 characters. Google will typically only display the first 50-60 characters in a title tag. So it’s important to put the most relevant information within those characters.
Why Accuracy Matters
This will be the first thing users experience concerning your website. It can be an important contributing factor to if a user even clicks on the link in a search engine. This is why they must be accurate and concise, so you can deliver the most important information in a low amount of characters that will also pique the interest of a user who is looking for a need through a website.
They’re also displayed at the top of your web browser as the label for your browser tab. Having them be accurate and concise will help a user keep track of your webpage even if they have multiple tabs open.
Social networks will also use your title tag whenever someone shares your webpage. In this day and age, it’s incredibly important that you’re making sure your website is appropriately presentable to everyone who might see it. A share on Facebook can lead to thousands, if not millions of views. You should be prepared to present your website in the best light possible. The first step to doing that is having a great title tag within your HTML text.
To write the best title tags, give every page a unique title, use keywords first (but do not stuff the content with them,) write for your customers’ interest, and try to keep the length to between 50 to 60 characters long.
URLs
Part of a great on-page SEO campaign is ensuring that the category hierarchy of a given website is reflected within URLs.
For example, https://venturestudio.com/services-2/essentials-mastermind/ is a good URL because it demonstrates the hierarchy of the webpage’s information (Services > Essentials Mastermind.)
By using this method of creating URLs, search engines will be able to narrow down exactly what your webpage is providing for someone who is searching. To be more clear, this helps a search engine see that you are providing Essentials Mastermind, which is a service. This is better than if the URL simply has “essentials-mastermind,” which can be taken as many different things. With the optimized title tag, a search engine will recognize that it is a service and will make the webpage more relevant to those who are searching for a service.
The web is full of Bad URL structures. They most often include a series of random letters or numbers that are likely automatically generated. This tells the search engine absolutely nothing, and it tells the user nothing as well. Using a URL like this will lower your search engine rankings. It will also lower the experience of your user which may drive them from your website before they take the actions you’d like them to.
Improve Your Page Loading Speed
Improving your page loading speed is also important in on-page SEO. Almost half of all users on the internet expect the website they’re using to load within two seconds. Two seconds is an incredibly short amount of time to load such a vast quantity of information. However, there are tricks to making it better.
- Optimize your images. You can do this by compressing their size and resolution. An HD picture is great, but not if it’ll slow your webpage down. Make sure your images and videos compliment the webpage don’t slow your loading speed.
- Redirects are no good, get rid of them.
- Disable any pop-ups you have enabled. Users hate these and many are prone to click away as soon as they see one.
- Enable browser caching.
- Choose a hosting option that is better for the functions of your website
- Switch to a faster DNS provider to reduce server response time. This can be one of the biggest helpers in reducing your page load speed.
By utilizing all of these tips, you’ll soon find that your bounce rate has drastically improved. To check your bounce rate and monitor it, use Google Analytics.
