On-Site SEO (The Ultimate Guide)
Gaith Saqer
Evangelist in: Entrepreneurship, Startups, Blogging (Arabic & English,) New Media, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Growth Hacking and Product Management.
On-page SEO is very important for ranking high on Google Search results and is easy to do, here in this post is a detailed explanation.
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing various front-end and back-end components of your website so that it ranks in search engines and brings in new traffic.
Just creating and publishing your website isn't enough. You need to optimize it for Google in order to rank and attract new traffic. It's called "on-page" SEO because the tweaks and changes you make to optimize your website can be seen by visitors on your page, whereas off-page and technical SEO elements aren't always visible. Every part of on-page SEO is completely up to you; that's why it's critical that you do it correctly.
On-page SEO is important for both search engines and people. It helps search engines understand your website and its content. Google is increasingly focused on relevance in order to better understand what users are actually searching for when they type a query and deliver results that meet user intent.
Google's "How Search Works" Report "The most basic signal that information is relevant is when a webpage contains the same keywords as your search query. If those keywords appear on the page, or if they appear in the headings or body of the text, the information is more likely to be relevant."
Source: Google's "How Search Works" report
This means you need to be selective with the keywords you use.
Here we're going to cover these elements of on-page SEO:
? SEO Friendly URLs
? Heading tags
? Title tags
? External links
? Internal linking
? Use your targeted keywords on the first paragraph of your page
? Use targeted keywords on your page body
? Images SEO
? Website Download speed
? Mobile Optimized sites
What are SEO friendly URLs?
SEO-friendly URLs are URLs that are designed to meet the needs of users and help search engines understand what a web page is about. They are typically short, descriptive, and include relevant keywords.
Why are URLs important for SEO?
Along with your title tag, link anchor text, and the content itself, search engines use your webpage’s URL to understand what your content is all about.
In fact, URLs are so important that?the Google SEO starter guide ?dedicates an entire section to them:
Best Practices
Use a Keyword
Your URL should contain a keyword that you want your page to rank for.
(Preferably, that page’s target keyword)
Why?
When you include a keyword in your URL, that keyword tells Google: “This page is about that keyword”.
In fact,?Google themselves state that :
“URLs with words that are relevant to your site’s content and structure are friendlier for visitors navigating your site.”
Short
Your URLs should be short and sweet.
That’s because long URLs confuse Google and other search engines.
Also, short URLs don’t just help that individual page rank better. Using short URLs across your entire site?can help Google find and crawl all of your pages .
And if that’s not enough to convince you, a Brafton study found?a correlation between short URLs and more social shares :
Enticing to Click On and Share
Organic click-through-rate ?is a VERY important?search engine ranking factor ?right now.
And your URL is a big part of whether or not someone chooses to click on your site in the search results.
Ugly URLs (like website.com/us/p=459.aspx are less likely to get clicked on and shares on social media and online communities (like Reddit).
That said:
If you follow the other best practices here (short URLs, use a keyword etc.) you’ll naturally create something that people want to click on.
Stick With Lowercase
This isn’t a huge deal because most modern servers treat capital and lowercase letters in URLs the same.
(But some don’t)
Avoid Using Dates
Back in the day, CMS’s (like WordPress) automatically included dates in URLs:
First off, dates make your URLs longer.
Second, dates make it harder to update your content.
Help With Navigation
Well-organized URL subfolders make it easy to understand where users are on your site.
(They also help search engines organize your site’s pages into distinct sections)
Go With HTTPS
HTTPS has more to do with security than URLs. But considering that HTTP or HTTPS is part of your URL, it’s worth covering here.
There’s not much to discuss here.?HTTPS is the new standard . So if your site isn’t secured yet, I highly recommend switching over.
Subfolders > Subdomains
Subfolders are MUCH more SEO-friendly than subdomains.
That’s because Google can consider a subdomain as?a completely separate website:
But when you move that section to a subfolder, Google knows that it’s part of your main site:
What is a page heading tag?
An HTML element that provides a hierarchical structure to a web page.
In the early days of search engines, heading tags were direct ranking factors. Today, headings don't directly impact your SEO. However, they do have indirect benefits. Well-written headings make your page easier to read and navigate. This creates a better experience for the user and helps your SEO.
If your page lacks structure and visitors can't find what they need, they'll leave your site and search for their answer somewhere else. This increases your bounce rate, which search engines pay attention to.
Best Practices for Page Headings:
? Your page title should have an H1 tag.
? Subsequent headings on the page should have an H2 or H3 tag, and so on.
? Use your primary keyword in your page title.
First, you're limited to one H1 heading per page. This should be your page's name. Think of the H1 heading like the name of a book. Some CMS platforms will tag your title automatically, but it's a good idea to make sure your page heading is an H1.
As you continue down the page, use H2 or H3 headings to break out different sections. Heading tags have levels corresponding to their importance on the page. An H1 is more important than an H2, which is more important than an H3, and so on. Search engine crawlers use these tags to scan through your content, so make sure that your section headings use this format. It's unlikely that you'll need to go any further than an H3, but if you're writing a very long piece of content with many sub-categories, you can use subsequent tags.
Finally, make sure you include your target keyword in your page heading.
And also make sure that your top paragraph has your targeted keyword.
And also mention your keyword around 2 times in your page buddy, you can use synonyms words, do not worry Google understands them
next:
What is a title tag?
An HTML element that specifies a web page's title (also known as the "SEO title").
The title tag and the heading tag are two different things, but they're often written in the same way. Your heading tag is meant for people who are already on your site to tell them what a given page is about.
Your title tag, on the other hand, is meant for people who aren't yet on your website. It's what displayed in the search engine results pages (or SERPs), and its purpose is to entice people to click through onto your website.
In most CMSes, the title tag defaults to match the page heading, and often, this is fine. If you've written an effective page heading that accurately describes your page's contents, this will usually function just as well in search engines. This title in SERPs is the same as the page heading. Sometimes, it helps to have a different title tag than your heading tag.
For instance, if your page heading is very long, it may benefit you to write a shorter version for your title. This is because after a certain number of characters (about 60), your title will get cut off in Google.
Include your primary keyword in your title tag.
? Keep your title under 60 characters, if possible.
? Make sure both your page heading and title answer the searcher's primary question.
? It also helps your on-page SEO to include external links on your pages.
External linking:
These are links to other website's content. If you link to authoritative websites to support your claims, this can help your site's SEO. Just like you might not trust a paper or a news story that didn't cite any sources, when you link to quality external content, it shows your readers and search engines that you've done your research. You should write first and foremost for your readers, and to be informative and trustworthy, you need to link to your sources.
Tools to Help Optimize Your Content These tools offer suggestions to improve your content as you write it:
? Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress
? Built-in SEO Wiz in Wix
? Optimizations in HubSpot page and blog editor
The most important part of creating SEO-friendly content is creating user-friendly content. If your content is high-quality and seeks to thoroughly and accurately answer the user's search query, you have a much better chance of ranking than if you were to stuff the same keywords into lower-quality content.
Internal Linking:
What Are Internal Links?
Internal links are hyperlinks that point to pages on the same domain. These are different than external links, which link out to pages on other domains.
Why Are Internal Links Important for SEO?
Internal links help Google find, index and understand all of the pages on your site.
If you use them strategically, internal links can send page authority (also known as?PageRank ) to important pages.
In short: internal linking is key for any site that wants higher rankings in Google.
Also on page optimization on each post include one or 2 links to other pages on your site, this is called internal linking. This helps a lot with SEO. specially with pages with high authority, in this case with internal linking you pass SEO juice from high authority pages to others which will help other pages to rank high on Google
Best Practices
Use Keyword-Rich Anchor Text
You can even get away with using some exact match?anchor text ?in your internal links.
(Which is a big no-no when it comes to your site’s?backlinks )
In fact,?Google even recommends ?that you use keywords in your anchor text:
Link to Important Pages
When you link to another page on your site, you send link authority to that page.
(Which can help that page rank better in Google)
These?internal links ?aren’t nearly as powerful as links from other websites. But they still help.
That’s why smart SEOs?strategically link to important pages.
Here’s the exact process:
First, fire up your link building tool of choice, like?Semrush .
Next, find the best-performing pages on your site.
Finally, link FROM those pages to the pages that you want to rank most.
Don’t Use The Same Anchor Text For Two Different Pages
This confuses the heck out of Google.
领英推荐
For example, let’s say you have two pages on your site.
One is about grain-free chocolate chip cookies. And the other is about low-carb chocolate chip cookies.
Instead, use different, descriptive anchor text for each page:
Audit Internal Links With the Google Search Console
Put Links High Up On Your Page
I’ve tested internal link placement A LOT.
And I can tell you that putting internal links towards the top of your page can reduce your bounce rate and improve?Dwell Time .
What does this have to do with SEO?
Well, when someone spends a long time on your site, it tells Google: “People are loving this result. This page must be a great result for this keyword. Let’s bump it up a few spots”.
And when you put internal links high up on your page,?it gives people something to click on right away.
Which means they’ll spend more time on your site.
Dofollow Links
If you want to send PageRank around your site via internal links, you’ll need to use normal dofollow links.
Yup, this is obvious. But it’s worth mentioning because I’ve seen people?nofollow ?their internal links before.
It’s usually because they use some kind of plugin that automatically adds the nofollow tag to external links. And a bug or setting makes their internal links nofollow as well.
Use Internal Links To Help With Indexing
Google usually finds and indexes all of the important pages on a website.
But if you have LOTS of pages (or a limited?Crawl Budget ), Google might only index a certain percentage of your site’s pages.
That’s where internal links come into play.
Internal links make it easy for Google to find pages on your site.
(Especially pages that are buried deep in?your site’s architecture , sometimes called “Orphan pages”)
So if you have a page or set of pages that you want indexed, internal link to that page or that page’s category from your site’s navigation:
Directly from one page to another:
And don’t forget to link from your?sitemap ?to the page you want to get indexed:
Link Strategically From Your Homepage
If you’re like most people, your homepage is the most authoritative page on your entire website.
So it’s important to link strategically from your homepage to pages that need some juice.
Avoid Automation
I’m not a fan of tools that automate internal linking.
Why? 3 reasons:
Yes, many of your internal links will point from page A to page B. But you also want to link your pages together?into categories.
Ecommerce sites do an awesome job of this.
For example, if you look at Zappos.com , all of their belt product pages link to each other via their category page:
Add Internal Links to Old Pages
Here’s how it works:
First, find an old article on your site that you published at least a year ago.
Next, grab a list of pages that you published since you first published the old article.
Finally, scan the page for places where you can add an internal link to a new page.
Voila!
You just got a handful of helpful internal links from a few minutes of work
Don’t Go Overboard
Internal links are great. But at a certain point (at about 100 ), links on a page don’t pass as much value.
And if you think 100 sounds like a lot of links, keep in mind that this includes ALL internal and external links.
That’s not to say that you can’t go above 100 links on a page
First Link Priority
Sometimes you’ll find yourself with two identical internal links?on the same page.
This isn’t a big deal. In fact, it’s common if you have lots of links in your site’s navigation:
The only issue is?anchor text.
Which anchor text does Google “count”?
The first one on the page.
That’s why your navigation link anchor text is so important. Not only does your navigation result in A LOT of links, but it can override other anchor text on your page.
Images SEO:
As for images it is important to optimize them for search engines include alt-text on each image that describes what are they about and make sure they are high quality while at the same time loads fast by comprising them using apps like photoshop or other wordpress or your chosen CMS plug-ins to do that automatically.
What Is Alt Text?
Alt text ?(or alternative text) is a written description of an image.
SEOs sometimes refer to alt text as “alt attributes” or “alt tags.”?
Optimized alt text is crucial in getting Google to rank your images on Google Images.?
That’s because alt text lets you tell Google what the image shows.
It can also contribute to your site’s accessibility for users, as well as explain to users what an image should show if an image is broken.
Generally, it’s best to stick to a maximum of?125 characters ?when writing alt text. This is because most screen readers (assistive technologies to help those who are visually impaired)?stop reading alt text after 125 characters .
It’s also helpful to include relevant keywords in your alt text, but there’s a fine line between being specific and being spammy.
10 Optimization Tips to Improve Your Image SEO
1. Name Your Images Properly
2. Resize Images to the Display Dimensions
3. Compress Images
4. Choose the Right Format
Here’s a basic breakdown of how to choose:
5. Create an Image Sitemap
Put simply, creating an image sitemap increases the chance of your images showing up in search results.
An image sitemap is a lot like a regular?XML sitemap , except that an?image sitemap ?only includes the URLs to images.
Creating a dedicated sitemap that includes the URLs of all the images on your site can help Google discover those images and include them in image search results.
There is one key difference when creating an image sitemap and creating one that includes your webpages.
Image sitemaps can contain URLs from other domains, which means you can host your images on a Content Delivery Network (more on that later).
6. Use a Content Delivery Network
7. Implement Lazy Loading
When it comes to slow page loading speed, images are typically the top culprits.
One of the best ways to solve this problem:
Use “lazy loading.” Which tells web browsers to wait to load an image until it is needed.
Meaning that the page loads much more quickly when the user first lands on it. And it’s not just used for images; assets like JavaScript can also be loaded this way.
Think about it this way—if a user never scrolls down to the second half of a page, those assets will never be loaded. And this brings noticeable performance improvements.?
As noted by Google , you should avoid lazy loading above-the-fold images. This would create a poor user experience.
8. Leverage Browser Caching
The?Google PageSpeed Insights ?tool often recommends leveraging browser caching.
Browser caching is when files are stored by a visitor’s browser. This means that assets load faster when they next visit the page.
9. Add Image Structured Data
Structured data ?is a data vocabulary that helps search engines understand your site’s information more clearly.
Using structured data also increases the chances of your images showing up as “rich results .”
10. Optimize for Open Graph and Twitter Cards
Open Graph ?is an internet protocol (or set of rules) originally introduced by Facebook.?
Open Graph tags allow you to choose how a social media post preview appears. This means you can choose the preview title, image, and more for social posts.
For example: to ensure your image of choice shows up when you share a page, include this image tag in the <head> section of your page’s HTML like so:
<meta?property="og:image"?content="https://site.com/image-link.jpg "?/>
Open Graph applies to Facebook and Pinterest, while Twitter uses?Twitter cards .
For Twitter, this is the code you’ll need to add to the <head> section:
<meta?name="twitter:card"?content="summary"></meta>
Finding Issues With Your Site’s Images
We’ve covered how to optimize your site’s images. But how can you find existing issues that need fixing?
You can use our Site Audit tool to highlight these problems.?
Just head over to?Site Audit ?and click on the issues tab.
Images Without Alt Attributes
If you want your images to rank on Google, it’s extremely important to give them alt text.
Site Download:
Site download speed is one of factors googles care about in ranking, slow sites do not get much ranking while fast sites get higher ranking.
Mobile Optimized websites
Also it is important to have your site optimized for mobile, google cares for that factor a lot it is called mobile first, in order to achieve that, use a theme for your website that is responsive, which means it is optimized for any browser: desktop, tablet and mobile automatically.
And so I hope you enjoyed this post and that you find it helpful and thoughtful , and if you are reading this text please help me get more engagement by liking this post and post a thoughtful comment and head to my profile and enable the bill and subscribe so you get more content about digital marketing SEO content marketing and more.
Many thanks
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