Understanding On-Page SEO
On-page SEO involves all the on-site techniques you can employ to ensure a webpage will rank on a SERP. It can also help determine how well that page ranks. How does it accomplish this?
It uses content and technical elements to improve the quality of a page, so the more on-page SEO optimization you do, the more traffic you'll get to your website and the more relevant that traffic will be.
There are many technical aspects of a webpage that can be optimized with on-page SEO to increase your page ranking, and they include:
Title tags
Headings
URL structure
Alt text for images
Site speed
Internal links
Meta descriptions
Responsiveness
On-Page SEO Technical Best Practices
In our experience, these on-page SEO technical best practices are easy to achieve and deliver the best returns for your content.
Use title tags
Title tags are HTML elements you can use to designate the name of a webpage and are displayed on SERPs as the clickable result title. Each title tag should be unique, descriptive about what the page is about, optimized with a keyword and under 60 characters in length.
Include relevant and optimized headings
Headings are the titles you give your content, and these should be in H1 format for the best results. Headings should focus on relevant and descriptive words, and while you can optimize them with keywords, don’t stuff them. In order to break up content, you can also use subheadings (H2 through H6) following the same best practices, but don’t repeat keywords or phrases throughout a post. Check out our blog on how to write headlines that sell for inspiration!
Think about your URL structure
Your URL structure is important when search engines determine how relevant a page is compared to a query, and it should be descriptive of the page’s subject. You can also optimize URLs with keywords, so long as they're relevant. An example of a good URL structure would be http://www.shoelovers.com/red- suede-shoes (compared to www.shoelovers.com/123456).
Include alt text
Alt text (alternative text) provides search engines with more information about an image, though it’s typically used to describe images to web visitors who can't see them. As such, your alt texts should be specific and descriptive of the image content, 125 characters or less, and optimized with a keyword or phrase, if appropriate.
Prioritize page load speed
Page load speed is important because slow-loading pages have high bounce rates: 47 percent of people expect a site to load within two seconds, and 40 percent will leave after three. As such, search engines penalize slow-loading pages with a lower ranking, so it’s important to ensure fast page load speed. If you’re not sure how your site ranks, test and benchmark your page speed.
Include relevant internal links
Internal links make your site easy to navigate for visitors, but they also make it easier for search engines to understand your site and index your pages which will result in a higher rank. At the very least, each page on your site should link back to its category or subcategory page and to the homepage.
Add meta descriptions
Meta descriptions are brief but vivid descriptions that expand on title tags, summarize a page’s content and tell web users why they should read your content instead of somebody else’s. The meta description appears below the title and the URL, and it should be kept below 160 characters.
Incorporate a responsive design
Responsiveness is a design element that ensures your page will display properly on any device, including mobile devices and desktop ones. This will continue to be an important factor as more and more people around the world use mobile devices for online search.
Research and include keywords
In SEO, keywords are the glue that holds together telemarketing list your on-page strategy because they can be incorporated into all these technical elements to help the right visitors find you at the right time. In order to be effective, keywords must be researched and carefully selected, and worked into content in a natural and seamless way.
On-Page SEO and the Impact of Content
While the technical aspects are important, one of the most crucial elements of on-page SEO is content because this is what brings traffic to your site.
However, not just any content will do. Today’s web users are looking for relevant, interesting, engaging, and informative content that fills a need or offers a solution. In other words, people must want to consume the content you’ve created, which can come in a number of popular content types, such as:
Blogs