How to improve on-page SEO
“How long will it take to improve search engine rankings?” – this million dollar question haunts all business owners. But unfortunately, there is no magic button to press that can rank your site in the highest position.
However, we cannot undermine the concern of business owners to increase their web ranking. According to a survey conducted by Infront Webworks, Google’s first SERP (Search Engine Results Page) receives around 95% of web traffic.
Now this can instantly remind you of PPC (pay per click). Several site owners spend a lot of resources on PPC to quickly take the top ranks. While this can definitely lead to increased visibility for your site in a short period of time, power users often tend to avoid advertising sites and prefer to check organic results.
An interesting observation from New Media Campaigns reveals that organic SEO results are 8.5 times more likely to be clicked than paid search results. Despite that, 87% of search engine dollars (about $10 billion) are spent on PPC and only 11% (about $1 billion) is reserved for SEO efforts. This means that the strategy that is 5 times more effective, SEO, receives only 1/8 of the resources spent on the market!
While PPC can boost ranking instantly, SEO helps maintain ranking and that too, at a lower cost. That is why we strongly believe that PPC has not affected SEO relevance.
Although we have already mentioned that there is no magic, surely there are some strategies that you can adopt to improve your organic ranking. One of them is to improve your on-page SEO.
# How to improve SEO on the page?
On-page SEO refers to the practice of optimizing web pages to improve the website’s search engine ranking and therefore drive organic traffic. But sometimes, SEO best practices suggested by random professionals can be misleading. No problem. We’ve got you covered. Our extensive guide will walk you through some on-page SEO tricks recommended and practiced by the experts at any top SEO agency that you should follow if you’re looking to improve your site’s visibility on Google.
1. Generate high-quality content
Content is the heart of an on-page SEO. Google always prioritizes high-quality content. Informative and user-friendly content automatically attracts more of an audience and therefore ranks higher.
The first step to creating quality content is choosing relevant topics and keywords. The tips below will help you generate great content:
keyword optimization
With a plethora of complex algorithms, Google is constantly getting better at understanding search engine intent. It is no longer based solely on popular keywords but offers quality content that can satisfy the requirements of the users. One of Google’s main goals is to improve the user experience. Old-school SEO strategies like keyword stuffing are penalized by Google’s Penguin algorithm. That is why it is crucial to know the ideal density of keywords before writing a piece of content.
Also, Panda’s algorithm evaluates a website based on the quality of the content, and pages with high-quality content are usually rewarded with higher rankings.
Our suggestion is to do some keyword research and incorporate long-tail keywords. These keywords are more specific and are very close to the search queries. Also, make sure the keywords appear naturally or organically in the content and don’t seem forced.
Add relevant, engaging, and high-quality visual content
Images are most effectively registered in human brains. Our brain can process images more than 60,000 times faster than text. In addition, a Venngage study reveals that images can increase the desire to read content by 80%.
When uploading any visual content, make sure to optimize it properly. For example, compress the image without affecting its quality, and make sure it doesn’t take too long to load. While JPGs are used for high-quality images, PNGs are ideal alternatives for logos, icons, etc.
Also, use Alt tags (alternative text) so search engine spiders get a clue as to what the image is about. Next, we’ll take a closer look at alt text images. So keep reading.
Include compelling calls to action
Include calls-to-action (CTAs) to drive traffic to product and offer pages. This can effectively help drive more conversions and thus increase ROI (Return on Investment).
Page content is critical to all on-page SEO processes. Other on-page SEO elements are derived from the page content, so invest enough resources and time to develop and optimize it.
2. Architectural elements website
Site architectural elements indicate the constituents of your website and individual pages. The way you structure your website helps Google crawl the pages and content.
page url
Page URLs should be easily understandable by readers and the search engine. These are also important for maintaining the site’s hierarchy as you create subpages, blog posts, and other types of internal pages.
https://moz.com/blog
In this URL, the blog is the subdomain and “moz.com” is the domain. Check out the following tips for writing SEO-friendly URLs:
Delete unnecessary or extra word
Use “https” if possible, as Google uses it as a positive ranking factor.
internal links
Internal linking refers to the process of hyperlinking to other pages on your website. This is important for on-page SEO, as internal links send traffic to other web pages on your site and hint to Google that your site is useful and valuable. However, make sure that the links correspond to the topic of the content because padding irrelevant internal links will affect the user experience.
As we already mentioned, improving the user experience is a crucial concern for Google and it should be for you too. Therefore, link only those pages that can really help readers to know more about a particular niche. Only then can you expect to drive more traffic to those pages. If users find the linked pages irrelevant, they will leave the page increasing the bounce rate. In addition, it will produce a negative impact on your brand.
Check out the blog and learn how to audit internal links: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/audit-internal-links/304303/
speed website
Did you know that around 40% of consumers wait no more than three seconds for a page to load (source: Hoboweb)? This speaks volumes about the importance of optimizing page speed to improve user experience and increase retention rate. You can check site speed using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.
Code optimization is a popular strategy to speed up load time. You should remove line breaks, unnecessary spaces, and indent the code. It is also a good practice to place JavaScript files in the footer section of the web page so that they load in the background without delaying the appearance of the content on the web page.
mobile responsiveness
With mobile devices driving about 51.51% of global traffic (source: Statista), it has become crucial for business owners to develop mobile-optimized sites.
Choosing the right website design, theme, and content that is easy to read and navigate on mobile devices is critical. Also, if you’re not sure about the mobile responsiveness of your site, use Google’s mobile-friendly testing tool.
3. HTML elements
HTML elements indicate the elements in the source code of a web page. (Quick tip: To check the source code, right-click the page > view page source)
title tag
The title tag or page title is a short description of any web page that appears at the top of the browser window. The title is the first signal to the search engine and the visitors of what they can find on the respective page. Here are some best practices for optimizing the title tag:
-Keep it below 70 characters. The longest title can be cut off in the search results.
-It is better not to stuff the title with keywords, as it offers a tacky and spammy reading experience.
-Make sure the title is relevant to the page.
-Do not use capital letters when writing the title, as it affects readability.
meta descriptions
The meta description is a short, compact page description that appears below the page title in search results. It can influence click through rate (CTR) in the sense that a catchy and relevant meta description has a better chance of driving traffic than a random and messy one. Therefore, it is important to optimize the metadata.
This is how you can make a proper meta description:
-Write a compact description that reveals the USP of your products or services.
-Make sure to keep the meta description within 160 characters.
-Avoid using characters such as “-“, “+” or “&”.
-Include the entire keyword or keyword phrase.
Image alt text
Image alt text is SEO friendly for images. This will help Google accurately index the image content. Even if the image doesn’t load during some glitch, Google can still read the alt text and help rank the page.
Keep the following points in mind when adding alt text to your image:
-Make it specific and descriptive.
-Make sure it is relevant to the context of the image.
-Keep it below 125 characters.
-Use keywords sparingly and don’t stuff them. If these don’t fit naturally, try using semantic keywords or the most important terms in a long-tail keyword.
We understand that there is a lot to do when it comes to optimizing your site. And that is why we recommend you to outsource SEO services from any reputable SEO agency.
Conclusion
After finalizing your SEO plans, implement these strategies on your website. Remember that SEO is not a “do it and forget it” deal. Therefore, you need to constantly monitor and modify existing SEO strategies to keep your page relevant all the time.
I hope our guide has helped you understand how to gain a competitive advantage with advanced SEO tactics. Still, if he has any queries, don’t hesitate to contact us.
