Website on page SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing strategy, its primary goal is to increase website organic traffic. High-quality content is the foundation of a successful on-page SEO strategy.
Today, optimizing for search engines requires optimization for technical, on-page, and off-page factors. This is essential to succeed in organic search.
On-page SEO refers to the practice of optimizing individual pages in order for them to rank higher in search engines and get more relevant traffic.
On-page SEO refers both to the content and HTML source codes of pages that can be optimized. This is in contrast to off-page, which refers only to external signals and links.
On-page SEO is essential because it notifies search engines about the website. Search engines evaluate websites on the basis of its content and design pattern. On-page SEO determines whether the website is suitable for user queries or not to display it on the search engine result page.
SEO initiatives should include guidance about how to optimize a website’s content, popularity, and environment. We will be looking at each one in detail to help you understand and implement the best SEO practice that will result in higher rankings on search engines.
Identifying Keywords
Search engines are used by people to search for specific information. Search engines use the primary information they have about the searcher’s intent to find relevant content. The search terms people enter in the search bar are the primary information that search engines have about them.
Your goal as a content strategist is to determine exactly which words your target audience searches for content created by your company. These words are called keywords and they will be used throughout your content to draw search engine attention to your content.
Internal Link Building
It is very important to link pages within a website. These links are important for search engines to follow when crawling a site.
The anchor text used by links is another area search engines use to determine the page’s relevance. Each page should have at least one internal link. The anchor text should contain the term you want the page to rank in.
Redirects
Sometimes a business needs to change its domain name or page URL to make it relevant according to time. In such a situation, redirection would be a better solution to maintain page rank.
These redirects can be either temporary or permanent. Although there are many types of redirects available, search engines only recognize permanent redirects and give SEO value to them.
These redirects are also known as 301 redirects, while temporary ones are 302 redirects. Both can be managed by the webserver.
Permanent redirects are best for websites. Pages are rarely moved temporarily. An SEO audit will typically scan your website for the types of redirects you are using.
You should flag a temporary redirect and explain why and how long you’re using it. A subject matter expert in SEO will instruct your IT team, to make it a permanent redirect to ensure that SEO value is transferred to the new page.
URL Structures
Search engines consider URLs to be an important part of their search engine optimization. The URL string is a unique identification of the page. It’s almost like a Social Security Number for an individual.
Search engines also look at URLs when trying to identify the content of a page. It is crucial that URLs and folder structures contain keywords. When separating terms, hyphens are a good choice.
The URL contains the keywords of a particular page that you want to optimize and is separated by hyphens. Search engines use hyphens to communicate with them to separate the keyword terms, merge them, and rank them for the merged phrases search results. The keyword is given more weight if it is closer to the root folder.
It is important to only use one URL per page on your website. Variables are used by some sites to track users and display dynamic content based upon where they click throughout the site. This can be detrimental to SEO performance and rankings. In the case of duplicate content, it may lead to ranking penalties from search engines.
Website Load Time
Page speed is one of the most important ranking indicators right now. It refers to how quickly a page loads. Faster-loading pages are often the top ranking factors in search engines, especially for mobile devices. Additionally, fast-loading pages can improve user experience and increase conversion rates.
Google will lower your search engine rankings if your site or webpage loads slowly. Slow loading times are usually due to slow server performance or the density of your HTML code. The code should be simple, clear, and easy to read. You can discuss the problem with your web host and move to another provider closer to your target audience if it is caused by the server.
XML Sitemap and Robots.txt Files
XML sitemaps are files that you can use to tell search engines which web pages should be included in search results. Make sure you use your CMS tools to create a complete XML sitemap.
Broken Pages or 404 Errors
A 404 error page indicates that the web page is unavailable. This usually happens when a link is broken or the URL of a page is incorrect. A 404 error can hinder the user’s experience by preventing them from connecting to their desired page. Websites that make a lot of 404 errors can cause a decrease in traffic and SEO rankings.
Duplicate Content
Google was quick to recognize duplicate content as a spam check and part of their algorithm. If web pages have content that is more than 80 percent similar, they are considered duplicates. Sites with duplicate content can be penalized and rank lower in search engines.
Duplicate content can sometimes happen by accident, due to URL structuring or CMS reasons. It is important to make sure that only one URL is created for each web page.
Meta Description
This tag gives search engines a brief description of the page’s content. Your meta description is what the person searching for your page sees when it appears in a search results list. While algorithms don’t rely on meta description as much anymore, humans still use it.
The meta description can only be 155 characters long. So practice writing witty tweets and you’ll see the benefits. This description will be displayed when you share links via social media networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
Page Title
The title tag is used to identify the HTML document’s name. The title appears in two places: at the top of the browser and on search engine results pages (SERP). The title tag is an important part of search engine rankings. It should be used to guide keywords.
However, make sure that it sounds natural as it is one of the few tags humans can see. The maximum length of your title tag is 70 characters. When possible, it is best to put your keywords at the beginning.
Heading tags
Heading tags are used by search engines to determine the relevancy of page content. Because it identifies the page’s content, the H1 tag is the most crucial. Every page has one H1 tag. Treat them like headlines in newspapers: attention-grabbing and full keywords.
There are six sizes of heading tags: h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6. These tags denote the information hierarchy of a website and should be used only in the right places. It’s rare that websites use all six headings and it is not necessary too to use all heading to optimize the website. Balance use of heading is good for optimization.
Alt Tag Optimization
Site crawlers can use alt tags to provide information about images, videos, and graphic file assets found on web pages. This metadata allows your content to be easily ranked in image search results. The image should be accurately described by alt tags
Website Navigation
Visitors will find the information they need if the website is simple to navigate. Search engines can index and categorize pages if they have a well-organized navigation system. Search engines can easily understand the structure of your website using XML and HTML site maps.
Search engines will also benefit from internal hypertext linking between pages of your website. This will allow search engines to better understand the content relationships between pages. Content strategists should consider this important factor since these links should contain keyword-rich anchor texts.
Anchor Text
The anchor text of a link is also known as link title or link label. It describes what the user reads on your website’s links. Clear, keyword-rich anchor texts will make it easier for users to figure out where the links take them and help search engines to interpret pages.
When creating hypertext links, avoid the following:
- Use general anchor text, such as “click here”.
- Anchor text not related to the content of the webpage it takes.
- Use long sentences
- Avoid creating unnecessary links
HTTPS Encryption
Search engines have made it a priority to provide users with secure websites. Search engine ranking algorithms now consider security. Google states that HTTPS is an internet communication protocol that protects the integrity of and confidentiality between the site and the user’s computer.
Websites that don’t support HTTPS connections should expect to be lower in search engine results. They will be overtaken by websites that use HTTPS.
Global SEO Elements
It is common for global brands to have multiple versions and languages of their websites. It is ideal for countries to have different ccTLDs for each country (Amazon.com in the United States and Amazon.ca in Canada). This allows search engines to determine which content should rank in each country.
Subdirectories (spotify.com/fr) are another option if that is not possible. After you have determined your URL style, make sure to use hreflang tag (rel=”alternate”, hreflang=”x”) for each page.
These tags communicate to search engines which pages should appear to visitors based on where they are located. This tag is even more important if multiple languages are offered in the same country, such as a Canadian site offering English and French content for their respective audiences.
Page Layout and Text Usage
Long-form content is often what the top-ranking pages offer. It’s therefore important to ensure that your pages contain a lot of text on a particular topic. The top-ranking pages will have a lot more text along with fast loading speed.
Search engines can’t read images, they won’t count copy that is within the image. They will scan a page to extract basic HTML text.
Click Through Ratio (CTR)
The click-through rate refers to the ratio of users clicking on a link to the total number of people who view a page or email.
It is used to assess the success of online advertising campaigns for particular websites and the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns. CTR is an important Google ranking factor. CTR can be increased to drive more visitors to your site.