We all know that Google search has evolved over the course of last few years. With this evolution, we’re dealing with ranking algorithms that include Hummingbird, Panda, Rankbrain and semantic importance within the page. As always, Google wants to provide the most accurate and relevant search results to users’ queries, and as Google is getting smarter, your on-page strategies must too.
What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO refers to a set of web page optimization best practices that you can apply to the pages of your website in order to improve their ranking in search engine results. A variety of different factors influence on-page SEO, and together, they influence your rank in the search results.
Why is on-page SEO important?
On-page SEO is important because the end user needs to find relevant websites quickly and easily. You have only eight seconds to influence your user, and the more they can engage with your website – and the longer they spend on it – the more satisfied they’ll be.
As Google becomes more sophisticated, one of the major factors influencing on-page optimization is relevance. How relevant is your page to the query? That’s how you have to think when you develop the page and follow SEO elements to make it a lot easier for you.
Elements of SEO
Title Tags
The title tag is what users see in the search engine when looking for your page. It outlines what your page is about. Make sure to keep your title tags short. Around 60 characters is ideal, or part of your title will only show in ellipses in Google’s search returns.
Recommended Reading: How to Run a Title Tag Test for SEO
Meta Description
A meta description is a brief description of what users will find on your page. While these do not factor into your SEO ranking, users can better know what they'll see on the page when they read them. This description should entice your readers to click to the page.
Headings
Your most important heading tag is your h1: you should never have more than one h1 on any page. But all your headings – even h6 – are important. Make sure heading tags give users information about what the page is about so the search engine algorithm can find relevance between each section and its content.
Internal Linking
Links are the most important factor considered for SEO. Internal links on a web page will help a viewer to stay engaged with your website longer. It may encourage them to become a customer or follower. These links are more accessible to viewers, and they increase the authority of your web pages and your site overall.
Meta Keywords
If you are an SEO expert, you may already know that major search engines stopped using the meta keyword tag.
Content
Creating excellent content on your page isn’t just to drive traffic to your site; it’s there to engage and provide value to the audience once they land. To improve your on-page and SEO to increase your traffic, the content must solve a user’s problem.
No Follow Attributes
While no follow links won’t help in boosting your page rank, you should include them when they’re useful because they provide referral traffic to your site.
Image Alt Tags
Google can get a better idea about the purpose of your page if you label images correctly. Don’t simply label all your pictures with your meta keywords. Instead, optimize each image with a tag that makes it relevant.
301 Redirects
If you have two pages that display similar content, set up a 301 redirect to the page you think will offer more value to your reader. Duplicate content is not looked upon favorably by Google.
On-page SEO didn’t need much tweaking, as Google search evolved because it was already so effective. On-page SEO’s long-lasting effectiveness teaches us an important lesson: no one should build a site for search engines. Instead, begin and end with the user.
Recommended Reading: How to Conduct On-Page SEO Analysis at Scale
