Building backlinks is a very important factor to help you improve your search rankings. But, while you are working your socks off trying to get backlinks to your site, you also need to take a look at your on-page search engine optimization.
“On-page SEO is just as critical to your search engine rankings as backlinks”
While you probably already know to perform keyword research and include these keywords throughout your content, there is more to on-page SEO than keyword research.
You need to think about your “Audience” as well. Because your audience will be the “buyers” and search engines will monitor their behaviour on your site.
So if you have not been thinking too much about the content on your page, then now is the time to start thinking about it because content is the top factor in search result rankings.
#TIP 1: Always Produce Quality Content
You need to produce quality content that readers will love. The content on your web pages must provide real value to your visitors.
Before you post a blog, you should ask yourself the following questions:
- What Problem is your post going to solve?
- Is it useful and Helpful to your readers?
- What will your readers learn?
- What Action will they take after reading your article
People should learn something by reading your blog posts. It should offer advice, tips, updates, or news.
Tip #2: Be Shareable
While producing quality content is essential, your content also needs to be linkable. If people can’t easily share a link to your web page, you won’t get backlinks and search engines won’t rank the page.
This problem is most common with content that only be accessed by logging into a site and slideshows powered by AJAX. If you have content that you want to get ranked in search results, it needs to be linkable without logging in or requiring the use of AJAX.
After the actual content, you need to look at the title tag. The title tag goes in the head tag in the HTML of your web page. It’s what appears along the tab in your web browser.
When the title tag isn’t specified, search engines grab the first line of text on the web page. This is what gets displayed in search results.
The title tag doesn’t need to be an exact copy of your H1 tag. Though, it should contain your focus keyword and be human readable.
The general recommendation is to keep the title tag to 60 characters or less. There isn’t an exact character limit, as google provides 600 pixels of space for the title in search results.
Some characters are wider than others. If you stick to 60 characters or less, about 90% of your titles will fully display in search results.
The description tag is also important, as it appears in search engine result pages. This means that people will read your description as they scroll through search results. But, it doesn’t appear to have an impact on the actual search engine rankings.
Page Hierarchy
Page hierarchy is also a concern when it comes to on-page SEO. When you create the URL for your web page, it should include your focus keyword and get placed in the appropriate category.
Website builders, such as WordPress, will automatically generate these URLs. If you’re building your site on your own, you should create folders for different categories.
The categories help search engines understand the topic of your content. Imagine that a human is reading your URL and attempting to determine what your content is about.
For example, your blog posts may be placed in a folder labeled “blog”. Or, you may create individual categories for your blog posts, such as news, tips, and videos.
USe Alt Tags
The final component that goes into good on-page SEO practices is the use of ALT tags.
ALT tags need to be used every time that you include an image. The ALT tag gives search engines a description of the image, which is used for users with visual impairment or text-only web browsers.
You can include your focus keyword in your ALT tags, as long as the keyword is relevant to the image. Don’t use the keyword by itself. Provide an actual description of the image, while including the keyword naturally.
For example, if you included an image of a product, you might provide a one-line description of the product. Make the best use of these ALT tags, as they count toward your search engine rankings.
Putting these simple tips together will ensure that you’re always doing your best to improve on-page search engine optimization.
In Summary
Here is a roundup of the tips we have covered so far:
- Create quality content your readers will love and want to share
- Make your Content easily linkable
- Use Alt Tags effectively
- Optimize your Images
You don’t need to spend a lot of time on on-page SEO. If you remember these four areas, you’ll easily follow proper SEO techniques, allowing you to focus more of your time on off-site SEO.
