On-Page SEO tips & optimizations for your website

On-page SEO requires you to implement search engine optimization solutions for your web pages so that it’s easier for users and search engines to find you. Those optimizations vary on all levels, from the source code to the content on the webpage. It’s very important for running a successful website since Google’s algorithm goes through your content to decide if your content is relevant for certain search queries. 

On-Page SEO Tips

Let’s check out some on-page SEO tips that can work as On-Page search engine optimization solutions for your website:

 

1. Keyword in the title and within the first 100 words – John Mueller, a Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst for Google has stressed a lot on the importance of heading tags and even referred to them as ranking factors. That’s why it’s conventional wisdom to include your keyword in the title and other headings. However, sometimes it’s important to be flexible and use a variant of the keyword when necessary. 

 

You can also use the keyword within the first 100 words of your article. It’s an old tried and tested tactic that works to this day. Google prioritizes web pages that have the keyword mentioned early on instead of halfway through the article. 

 

2. Headings and subheadings – While headings can be ranking factors, heading tags are also very important. Google has admitted that the H1 tag helps them to understand the structure of the webpage. Platforms like WordPress automatically wrap your heading with an H1 tag. However, it’s best to have an additional level of assurance and check the source code. 

 

The same holds for subheadings. While H2 tags won’t make a huge difference, wrapping subheadings in it with the target keyword can certainly be a search engine optimization solution. 

 

3. Keyword frequency – The right keyword frequency on a webpage signals Google that the content is about that keyword. For instance, if the keyword “strength training” appears just once in a blog post about the same topic, the algorithm won’t be confident about its relevance and may give you a worse rank on the search results. However, if it appears 4 or 5 times, Google is more likely to recommend your page for the relevant search queries. 

 

It’s also important to maintain balance and avoid keyword stuffing since it negatively affects your SEO. Stick to the flow of the article and include the keywords where they fall naturally. There’s no need to go overboard when you have rich high-quality content to push your ranking. 

 

4. URLs should be short and descriptive – As a searcher, you would prefer short and descriptive URLs over a string of characters and numbers that make no sense. For instance, let’s compare these two URLs:

 

• https://journals.lww.com/acsm-healthfitness/Fulltext/2020/05000/UNDERSTANDING_THE_DEADLIFT_AND_ITS_VARIATIONS.8.aspx?WT.mc_id=HPxADx20100319xMP
• https://www.self.com/story/how-to-do-a-deadlift

 

Both the articles are on the same topic. However, you would have a hard time figuring out the topic by looking at the first URL. This also makes a great impact on SEO and it’s a way to get more clicks on SERPs. Use CMS software that lets you change part of the URL that comes after the domain and subfolders(URL slug). You can optimize SEO for your page by including the target keyword or a close variant of it in the URL slug. Just keep it short so that Google doesn’t trim it on the SERPs. 

 

5. External Links are necessary – When your webpage has outbound links to pages related to the same topic, it signals Google that your page hosts high-quality content. The Reboot Online team conducted a study to figure out the effect of outbound links on your search ranking and the results were very promising. In their experiments, they created a few websites with half of them linking to authority sites while the rest had no external links. The websites with external links outranked all those without any links. 

 

6. Meta Description should be keyword rich and unique – Meta description of your webpage is often shown as a SERP in google searches. That’s why Google recommends that you add description meta tags to each of your pages and recommends you write it yourself instead of relying on your CMS software to do it for you. You know your content best and there’s no one better who can write a meta description best suited for it. If your meta description isn’t compelling enough, Google may ignore it and rewrite your meta description in its SERPs. According to a study, Google rewrites meta descriptions over 70 percent of the time.  

 

So, it’s essential to write captivating and relevant meta descriptions to make your website stand out amidst the competition. While it may not affect SEO and your rank, a compelling description will invite more traffic and conversions through clicks. Here’s how you can write an enticing description:

 

• Include your target keyword in the meta description. Google bolds them to highlight the topic related to the query of the user
• Address the user directly by using active voice
• Keep it short and precise, tighter than a tweet, nothing more than 120 characters
• Try your best to match the search intent

 

7. Publish unique and valuable content – With immense competition, the best way to stand out is by writing unique content. While there are thousands of articles on any given topic, the top rankers always have something unique to offer to their users. It can be in the form of better-referred resources, a new perspective or strategy, better user experience, and other such things. 

 

However, it shouldn’t stop at uniqueness. It’s just a start. Your content should also provide value to the user. To add value to your SEO content, it should have engaging crisp writing with step-by-step guides, examples, and strategies. You shouldn’t shy away from inviting guest authors for your articles either. Content written by an expert on a topic is much more valuable since he adds his own experiences and expertise that can only be acquired by a professional who lives and breathes the topic. 

 

Don’t forget to have an easy-to-digest structure so that the user doesn’t feel fatigued to read through your content to return to the search results within a few seconds. For example, show images, videos, and screenshots to make your content more rich and valuable to the user. Unique and valuable content will retain users for a longer duration on your page and will work in favor of your SEO ranking.  

Advanced On-Page SEO optimizations 

While the above tips let you optimize your website quite well, you can always do more. Here are some advanced search engine optimization solutions to push your rank even higher :

 

1. Increase page speed – Google uses site speed as a ranking factor and in recent years they have made it even more important. Here are a few things you can do to boost your page speed:

 

• Move your website to a faster host
• Reduce the total size of your page
• Get rid of third party scripts from your page 

 

2. Use original images – Stock images are a great resource for adding value to your content. A subscription to a stock image vendor also makes it affordable for small site owners who are looking to optimize their pages. However, if you are already ranking on the search results and want an additional boost, it’s best to ditch stock images. They may be detrimental to your SEO rankings. Unique and original images tend to rank you higher. 

 

3. Prioritize featured snippets – Featured Snippets are a SERP feature where Google shows the answer to the user’s query by pulling a portion of the content from a top-ranking page. The snippet answer also shows the link of the page it’s featured from and that means you have a shortcut to the top. To win the featured snippet, you need to:

 

• Provide an answer to the search query on your page by referencing the featured snippet google already shows for different queries. 
• Be in the top ten results since Google picks an answer from those pages
• Use the correct format in the form of lists, tables or paragraphs, that users and Google expects for that search query. 

 

You can find featured snippet opportunities with tools like SEMrush and even track them after you make necessary changes on your page to win that snippet. 

 

4. Voice Search SEO – Voice search is growing fast and unfortunately slips under the radar of many professionals. According to this experiment conducted by Backlinko, Google pulls a lot of voice search results from FAQ pages. Consider creating FAQ pages on your website to take advantage of that untapped traffic. 

 

5. Image optimization – Add a filename that describes your images within a couple of words. You should also add alt tags to your images and make sure both the filename and alt tags have the target keyword. This helps in SEO and gives more information to Google about the topic of your page.