5 On-Page SEO Factors Simplified
Parth Gajjar
SEO Specialist | T-Shaped Digital Marketer | Driving Online Success with Content and Analytics
Blog Overview
This blog is focused on providing basic knowledge of 5 on-page SEO Factors, their importance, examples, and optimizing them to improve the SEO of a website.
If you’re a beginner in the SEO industry then this blog is most suitable for you.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
· Blog Overview
· So,what is On-Page SEO?
· On-Page SEO Importance
· Most Important On-Page SEO Factors
1. Meta Titles
2. Meta Description
3. Header Tags For Readability and SEO
4. Image Optimization (Compression and Alt Tags)
5. Links in On-Page SEO
Conclusion
So, what is On-Page?SEO?
In most simple terms, on-page SEO (also known as on-site SEO) is an activity performed within a website to optimize various on-page Factors.
These Factors can be Meta Titles, Meta Descriptions, HTML Headings, Images, Internal Links, External links, and more.
On-Page SEO Importance
Who does not want more impressions and clicks on their website, right? We all are hungry for this, whether be it SEO professionals or business owners. That is why On-Page SEO is Important.
Performing On-Site SEO can improve a website’s search engine rankings, CTR(Click Through Rate), and User Experience resulting in fulfilling your SEO goals.
Most Important On-Page SEO?Factors
When I wrote my first blog post on medium about Digital Marketing For Business I knew that On-Page SEO is important to rank your content but I didn’t know how to perform it.
Over the time when I optimized hundreds of pages for our clients and gained practical experience and I came to the conclusion that to understand how to perform On-Page SEO, We have to first understand the factors affecting it.?
Here are 5 essential factors that you need to focus on first.
So, Let’s dive in.
1. Meta?Titles
“Meta Titles”, sometimes also called “Title Tags” are an HTML element of a page displayed on the SERP(Search Engine Results Page) as a blue clickable link.
Meta Titles are often overlooked but very crucial parts of On-Page SEO.
They should be SEO-Friendly and give searchers an indication of the information provided on your page.
For example, let me search “iPhone 11” on Google.
As you can see in the screenshot above, I'm getting results displayed for the search query of iPhone 11 in Google.
In the Screenshot, I’ve drawn red boxes around “The Texts Shown in Blue Color”
These Texts are examples of Meta Titles (Title Tags).
After Reading them I’m easily able to understand that, First meta title is stating if you want to buy iPhone then you should click on that link. Similarly, the second title is stating if you want to know what specifications iPhone 11 has you should click on the second link.
The intent of searchers matters when it comes to meta titles.
How to edit meta titles?
You can find them in the HTML markup of your page as shown below. (Try to find the instructions to modify <head> of your page)
<head>
<title>Put Your Title Tag Here</title>
</head>
Almost all CMSs like WordPress provide the functionality to add Meta Titles.
But how to decide what should be written in the title tag??
From an SEO perspective, Title Tags should be accurate. As accurate, as they are, the higher the chances of searchers clicking on it.
If not relevant or doesn’t match the search intent of a user then there’s a 70% chance that Google might rewrite your meta titles. So, to optimize them for SEO purposes, here are a few points that you should keep in mind.
For your future reference here’s the picture with the definition of a meta title, example, and optimization points to keep in mind.
2. Meta Description
It is a short description of your page shown below the Meta Title in SERP(Search Engine Results Page).
Google suggests, Take Meta Descriptions like a pitch to convince searchers that your page is the one they’ve been looking for.
It is one of the critical On-Page SEO Factors helping both, the search engine and searchers to quickly understand the page’s information.
Both Meta Description and Meta Titles are the decision-making factor for the searcher because they are the first touchpoint. They’re the first interaction of a searcher and can turn him/her into a reader or potential customer. Always remember, The searcher will decide to click on your webpage based on what is written in your Meta Description & Title.
Let’s Take the same example of the search query for iPhone 11.
In the Screenshot shown above, I’ve drawn red boxes around “The Grey Colored Text”
These Texts are examples of Meta Descriptions.
After Reading these descriptions I’ve easily got an overview of the information these pages hold. If my search intent and these meta descriptions match there’s almost a certainty that I’ll end up on a page by clicking it.
Note -According to Google, Meta Tags don't account for the search engine rankings. However, they directly affect the CTR(Click Through Rate)
To Add or Edit them CMSs have functionality through which you can modify the meta description of a page. Here’s an example of HTML Code.
<head>
<meta name="description" content="You've to write the meta description here. Keep it under 160 characters.">
</head>
Look for this code and then analyze your page. I'm sure you’ll find gaps to improvise the description.
Before you start optimizing Meta Description, keep these few points in mind.
For your future reference here’s the picture with the definition of meta description, example, and optimization points to keep in mind.
3. Header Tags For Readability and?SEO
“Header Tags” are my favorite On-Page SEO Factor being an essential element to structure a page content. They’re also known as Heading Tags and their Purpose is to improve two things mainly. One is Readability and the second is SEO.
领英推荐
Header tags are mainly of 6 types, from H1 to H6. As you can see in the infographic below Heading importance increases from H6 to H1, with H1 being the most important.
Let’s understand how Header Tags affect Readability and SEO
Readability - In On-Page SEO readability is very important. Header Tags if used in the right way can help the reader grasp content more efficiently. If the reader understands information effortlessly he’ll stay longer on the page. A reader can quickly scan your page by looking at the headings and getting an idea of the whole content.
SEO - Heading Tags send signals to Google that the text used in that heading is important. This will help google determine the context of a page so that it can display Your page in front of the right audience.
Now Let’s see how to structure heading tags,
<h1>Main Heading</h1>
<h2>Sub Heading</h2>
<h3>Sub Sub Heading</h3>
<h4>Sub Sub Sub Heading</h4>
<h2>Sub Heading</h2>
<h3>Sub Sub Heading</h3>
<h2>Sub Heading</h2>
So and so forth.
4. Image Optimization (Compression and Alt?Tags)
It is the activity of optimizing an image by choosing the right format, compressing it to reduce its size, adding alt tags, and placing them in the relevant location on the page.
Don’t think of images as an excuse to write less content. Instead, write valuable content and use images to complement it.
Search engines can’t read images, but they can definitely judge the intent of it through surrounding content & provided alt tags. If not done properly, Google can discourage those pages.
Let’s see how you can optimize images for On-Page SEO
Google suggests optimizing Images to fasten the loading speed of a page.
Start with producing high-quality and low-size pictures (Google Supports - BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, and SVG image formats)
If the size is too big you can compress it using compressing software or services suitable for you. All the pictures and infographics I've used in this blog are around 150 kb on average and of high quality so it takes less time to load and engage you more as a reader.
The “Name of the Image File” gets ignored the most in SEO. Choosing the right name for the file is important. Use a precise file name instead of IMG00001 format.
For Example, below is the cheat sheet image, with a definition, example, and optimization points. I’ve saved this file as “Image Optimization Cheat Sheet.png”
Let’s understand what are Alt Text and why to use them.
Alt text is the text that describes an image. This Text helps a search engine understand what the image is about. Alt Text will get displayed if an image fails to load.
Here’s what alt text code looks like,
<img src=”File Name.jpg” alt=”Alt Text is located here”/>
To check how Google uses Alt Tags, I went to a blog published by Google about “Google I/O 2022: Advancing knowledge and computing”
In the screenshot below you can see the main image with Sundar Pichai in it.
I simply right-clicked on the image and selected inspect option.
Upon clicking, Inspect menu appeared on the right side (In Chrome), where you can see the code highlighted in light blue color.
The alt text used for that image is “Sundar Pichai on stage at I/O 2022” underlined with red color. It is precise and to the point.
For practical you can go to this blog Google I/O 2022: Advancing knowledge and computing and follow the same process I did.
Also, try inspecting the images used on websites of top industry leaders to get an idea of how they’re writing Alt Texts.
To check how I’ve used alt text in this blog, you can right-click on any image, select inspect, and find alt text I’ve used.
5. Links in On-Page?SEO
There are two types of links, Internal links, and External Links. Internal Links are the links pointing from one page to another page within your website. External links are the links pointing from a page on your website to an external source.
Links are one of the most important factors of On-Page SEO and they are considered a crucial part to rank on Google.
The Internet is literally like a web and to navigate from one point to another you will need a link pointing towards a page of interest.
Let’s Discuss how links can improve the SEO of a site.
I’m sure you’ve heard the term “Crawler” before. Crawlers are the bots that visit and crawl the pages on your website so that search engines can index them. According to Google, the majority of their Search index is built by software known as crawlers.
To navigate through each page “Crawlers” use links given on the pages.?
Internal Links can help crawlers discover new pages of your website easily, so if internal linking is done strategically it can speed up the indexing process of the pages. Additionally, Internal Links can help Google understand the structure of your website and the relation between content.?
When you have written a piece of content that is unique and worth reading naturally, you’ll receive traffic and engagement but to take it even further you can provide your readers the content reference from trustworthy websites (These references should be relevant and valuable) by using external links. This will improve the credibility of your website & content. Think of external links as an extension of your content. Try to use high authority sources for external linking.?
To Optimize on-page links keep the following points in mind.
There’s so much more to learn about links in SEO but to help you start I would suggest you start with reading articles from Moz on the Fundamentals of internal links and external links.
Conclusion
To conclude SEO is a very big field constantly updating but there are a few core principles that remain the same. Each On-Page SEO factors are in-depth topic itself but to become better at it you’ve to cover the basics first. Each factor is important in improving a website’s visibility in the Search Engine.
I would suggest you start learning each topic using valuable resources, apply best practices on your website, and track and measure the results.
I hope this article was able to provide the information you’ve been looking for.
Feel Free to Comment Below if you’ve any Questions. ??
Article Was Originally Published on Medium
Senior Bioprocess Specialist I Technical & Business Consultant I Business Strategy | Key account management | Gene therapy I ATMPs I Vaccines I Biosimilars I Business Development I Sales
2 年Nice write up!