On page, SEO does not have to be as complicated as some people make it out to be. It does not involve any coding or programming as some people believe, especially if you are creating a blog such as WordPress. Let’s face it, the search engines have no idea what word you’re wanting to rank high for if you don’t tell them. We must let the search engines know in several different ways what keywords we’re wanting to rank high for.
I want to give you 5 very important on page SEO tips, note that some of these will apply to bloggers more than others, but just be creative and they can be used to boost your search engine rankings for any website.
1- Write a Good Optimized Title
You should take some time to give your title a lot of thought, your meta title is the most important on-page SEO factor for the search engines. If you are writing your titles to capture your reader’s eye and draw them in you are going about this the wrong way. Your focus should be more about telling the search engines what your content is about rather than trying to pull your readers in. Your meta- title is where you should focus on the search engines and not the readers.
Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about “Click here to learn the best dog training techniques that the experts don’t want you to know about” this is a terrible meta- title. Out of 14 words in that title, only 2 is what you want to rank high for, but they are the most sought after words in that niche. 7 best dog training techniques focus more on search engines while still pulling in your readers.
Short and simple works best at times, please don’t get me wrong I’m not saying it is best for all your content to be optimized in this way. Long tail keywords work best when the user types in those exact words. So you can rank high for long tail keywords, but when you’re wanting a lot of traffic to your website you need to try to rank high for those exact keywords that you are wanting to rank for.
Now if you are writing a blog “Click here to learn the best dog training techniques that experts don’t want you to know about” that would be a great post title pulling in your readers making them want to read your article. Please don’t make it your meta- title, your meta- title can be different than your post title which is better for search engine optimization. Your meta- title should contain your website’s main keywords without being so long. So as you can see that writing a good optimize title isn’t so easy it takes some thinking.
The techniques I talked about above can also be applied when writing your meta- descriptions.
2- You Need to Maintain Focus on Your Content
Content is a very important part of your website if not the most important part. If you focus your content on the right keywords it can boost your search engine rankings easily with little effort. Just think, how will the search engines rank you for the keywords that you want if it has no idea what your content is about. I have always said that SEO was more than just building links.
Don’t get a bad rep with the search engine when it comes to keyword stuffing. Always keep SEO in mind when you’re writing content for your website. Be sure to mention the keyword you’re wanting to rank for often, this is one of the best on page SEO tips that I can give, just don’t mention your keywords too much. If your keyword fits use it, if it doesn’t fit don’t use it, it will be same as keyword stuffing and Google could penalize you for that.
Use special text, I’m speaking about using bigger or bold letters. If you are able to use your keyword and it fits to put it in bold letters do so. The search engines give a lot more emphasis on words that are bold or enlarged such as your title would be. Letters that are large are bolded show more importance than non-bolded text. Do not overdo special text as with anything else this could have a negative effect.
3- Internal Linking
Internal linking doesn’t carry the same importance as links from other websites, but this is a good way to show the search engines what your website is about. What I mean by this is you can link to other articles you have on your website inside an article using different keywords. By using keywords to link to other articles on your website lets the search engine know not only what your website is about but what keywords you are trying to rank for.
An internal linking strategy should be used when writing your content, this allows visitors at your site another way to get to important content that you have on your website keeping them on your website longer. Most importantly use your targeted keywords when linking to other article or post, this strategy will help build a network of internal links on your website that will let the search engines know what keywords you are trying to target.
4- Keep a Clean URL Structure
The URLs on your website is just another way of telling the search engines what your web pages are about. URL structure is very important. A lot of webmasters and bloggers alike do not take the time to optimize their website.
What I want to talk about now mainly pertains to bloggers with keeping a clean URL structure. It is something that is just not thought about much, but it is oh so important. Always remember to put keywords in your URL this is also very important. Here are just a few examples of dirty URLs: examplesite.com/page-number-47.html, examplesite.com/47.html, examplesite.com/?p=47 etc.
Here are a few examples of some clean URLs: examplesite.com/seo-tips.html, examplesite.com/seo-tips/, examplesite.com/search-engine-optimization/seo-tips/ etc. As you probably noticed these URLs are in the main directory of the domain. Creating this sense of power within each page is very important for search optimization.
If your website is on a blog platform such as WordPress is pretty straightforward how to edit your permalinks. But for the other guys that are not using a blogging platform, you may want to learn how to edit your .htaccess files to manage a clean URL structure.
Creating a good clean URL structure can be difficult even for experienced webmasters and could drag their side down if not done correctly.
5- Good Navigation Structure
You probably already know what I’m talking, having a good navigational structure when you designing your website will allow your visitor to navigate your website and allow the search engines to index your website’s content more easily. Here are a few ways to improve your site structure.
Within the navigation bar, link to important pages. It’s not important to link to every page on your website in the navigation bar but fit in as many important links as you can using targeted keywords. The footer should also contain links to content. Bloggers might be interested in a related post plug-in that will help increase internal links and good navigational structure. The best way to get your content indexed by Google is to submit a sitemap to Google’s Webmaster Tools. There are also plug-ins available for bloggers to do this, but I manually submit mine to Webmaster tools to Google with XML Site Maps.
The Golden rule for most bloggers is to be able to visit any page on your website within three clicks, I believe this is a very good rule. I myself make sure that from any spot on my website within three clicks you can visit any part of my website. By doing this your website get some link juice and makes sure that every page can be easily accessed by the user looking for it.
I would like to add that writing good quality content is very important in giving Google a reason to index your website more often and thinking of your website as the authority site. Also writing good content gives your readers a reason to promote and link to your website. Most people overlook on page SEO and think that just building back links on the web will give their site high rankings. In some instances, it works for certain content on your site but for your site overall to be ranked highly on the page as well as off page an SEO strategy needs to be applied.
