For any individual who is looking forward to rank higher and get more traffic to their website must understand thoroughly the importance of improving their SEO. Getting started with SEO can be difficult and lengthy as there are a lot of different aspects to it that needs to be kept up with.
Always remember that when Google is ranking your website, it takes three factors into consideration, which are:
– On-page SEO
– Off-page SEO
– Technical SEO
If the basics of on-page SEO is not corrects, there is almost zero opportunity for you to secure top spots on search engines for your key expressions. Regardless of whether you have a fabulous outreach or an excellent PR campaign or a wonderful link profile, all efforts might still go in vain!
It’s a common misconception to ignore the basics of SEO and focus on getting links. It is always advisable to first do what is in your hand, which is the optimization of your own site. On-page SEO is the foundation to your campaign. If you get the basics right, success on the search engines is guaranteed.
Here is a brief guide for beginners to on-page SEO as well as the other essentials to outrank your competitors in the digital marketing industry.
KEEP IN MIND THE FOLLOWING:
Title Tags
Always place your primary keyword and variations in the title tag of a particular page. Also make sure that you target one main keyword and variations per page and don’t try and trick the search engines by optimizing multiple pages for the same keyword. Compose your title tag in a characteristic manner which uses your primary keyword towards the beginning with varieties included as well.
Keep a natural flow of the title tags and please do not stuff keywords just for the sake of it!
Best practices:
– Include your company name in the title.
– Give each page its own unique title tag.
– Try to keep it under 60 characters.
– Don’t overuse your keyword.
– Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are basically the first introduction with your brand to potential customers, so it yields result if you get them right. Even though meta descriptions don’t contribute as a ranking signal anymore, but are incredibly important for on-page optimization.
Best practices:
– Keep it under 160 characters.
– Make it compelling.
– Include your keyword.
– Create a unique meta description for each page.
Heading Tags
In case you’re not utilizing H tags in a strategic manner, you ought to start soon! Beginning with your pages’ H1 tag, make sure you use headings accurately without over-optimizing them. Spot your main keyword in a H1 tag, again ensuring it works for clients in front of search engines, and split the rest of content in next H labels.
Also, don’t keep repeating your main target keyword in each tag, rather use variations which enhance the value of the content and help break it up into readable and easy to digest sections.
Best practices:
– Use your keyword once in the H1.
– Make the topic of each section clear in the heading.
– Use H2-H6 if you have multiple topics through the page.
– Content
Spend a significant amount of time in creating unique and high-quality page content. It is undoubtedly the most vital step towards on page SEO. Quality content adds value to your website that users want to see. Always make sure you choose relevant keywords and topics that ups the interest of readers (consumers). Include content on your website like blog posts, case studies, FAQ, and about pages.
Best practices:
– Create content that other people will want to link to.
– Use keywords naturally and not too often.
– Write with a specific audience in mind.
– Identify with your audience’s problem and provide a solution.
URL Structure
A worthy URL is that which is easy to read and understand both for human users and search engines. The URL structure should also use a consistent hierarchy to keep all of your pages organized as you build more. If you notice that the site uses query strings for page URLs, this needs to be sorted out on a priority basis. Search engines must have friendly URL structure such as www.domain.com/page-name/ in place of www.domain.com/index.php?id=1.
Best practices:
– Make it relevant to the page.
– Use hyphens to separate words.
– Have set categories and subcategories.
– Remove stop words.
Structured Markup
Including structured markups adds up advantages to your pages as it can tell search engines exactly what each page is about. This makes for richer snippets in order to provide more information to users, thus attracting more organic traffic.
Best practices:
– Include the most important information.
– Follow Google’s structured data guidelines.
Internal linking
While creating content, it’s very vital for you to link internally to other pages on your website. By providing links to subsequent pages that users might find helpful, they’ll have a reason to stay on your website page longer. Internal linking also shows search engines other pages that you think are important for them to crawl.
Best practices:
– Link to your most important pages
– Select relevant anchor text
Page Speed
It is utmost important to analyze your website’s page speed on a regular basis. Page Speed Insights tool from Google can help you extensively on how information regarding how fast they can load your site as well as receive a whole host of suggestions as to how you can improve things. Ensure that your site is not sluggish and accessible to all devices at a generous speed.
Best Practices:
– Enable compression
– Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
– Reduce redirects
– Remove render-blocking JavaScript
Keeping an eye on the above techniques can help you get a better understanding of on-page SEO basic and making your website perform better. For more insights on SEO, keep reading informative blogs on the TSL website.