When it comes to on-page SEO optimization, you’ve probably heard that you all need is great content and let the backlinks start rolling in. But, great content isn’t enough if you want your website to get found in the SERPs. On-page SEO is an important factor for helping the search engines determine rank your web pages so that they can better serve their users.
Great content isn’t enough if you want your website to get found in the SERPS Click to tweet
It’s also one of the easiest tasks that you can do right away to improve your SEO because unlike other SEO factors such as links, you have complete control. So, let’s take a look at the 10 on-page ranking factors you can optimize right away.
1. Increase Your Site Speed
Google has said time and again that site speed is just one of the many on-page factors that impact your rankings. So, what is a good site speed and how can you decrease it? Optimal site speed means that your web pages take about 4 seconds or less to load, anything more than that and it’ll start impacting your ability to rank. You can see how fast your website loads here.
Now that you’ve checked your website’s speed, here’s how you can get things moving a little faster. Use a content delivery network (CDN), a network of servers located around the world that cache the static content of your site. This is important because distance of your server from the end users. Other solutions include compressing images, leveraging browser caching and switching to a faster hosting provider.
2. Use Targeted Keywords Early On
Using your targeted keyword early on in your content signals to web crawlers what that content is about. How early on should you use your keywords? That depends on where those keywords appear, but here are four places you should pay special attention to:
- URL. Google states to use your targeted keywords within the first 2-3 words of your URL.
- Page title. Your primary phrase should be at the beginning of your page title.
- Headline. While your headline doesn’t have to be the same as your page title, it should include your primary phrase.
- Content. SEO best practices state that using your targeted keyword phrase within the first 100-150 words of your first paragraph is good for both search engines and users.
3. Don’t Forget Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keywords
Speaking of keywords, are you making the most of them within your on-page content? LSI keywords are words that are closely related to your targeted keywords such as synonyms or related terms. An example would be a page written about “truck driver training” where you might also mention truck driver certification, carrier certification, trucker training, CDL training and CDL permits. A few of the best places to find LSI keywords include:
- The “searches related to” list at the bottom of your Google search results page.
- In the actual search bar as you are typing in your terms
- The Google keyword planner – simply type in your keyword and find keywords closely related to your term.
- My favorite: the good old thesaurus
The great thing about LSI keywords is that they increase your opportunities for getting picked up for a variety of related terms and they sound more natural, which of course, is one of the factors that Google uses to rank your pages.
4. Make URLs Recognizable
News flash: URLs made up of random numbers and letters are just as confusing to people as they are to search engines. You can make your URLs easier to read by:
- Keeping them short, under 90 characters
- Including your keywords but leaving out “stop words” such as “and”, “the” and “of”
- Separating your keywords with hyphens
5. Share the Love with Social Sharing Buttons
Integrating social share buttons makes it easier for users to share your content on popular social sites and can cut down the amount of time it takes to get indexed. This increases the freshness of your content, making it more relevant in search and improving your rankings over time.
6. Use Internal Links
Internal links are one of the most overlooked linking opportunities for many webmasters. It’s true that they aren’t given as much weight as a link from a high authority site from a different IP, but they are still important because they help users find related content on your website. And In terms of SEO, they can help spread link juice from high ranking pages on your site to others that need a boost.
7. Vary Your Anchor Text
So, let’s get this straight – using keywords in your anchor text is a good idea but, using the same anchor text keywords over and over could be considered over-optimization. Anchor text should be descriptive of the page that you are linking to but also relevant to the topic of your page and is good way to put your LSI keywords to use.
8. Use High Quality Outbound Links
When it comes to SEO ranking factors, who you link out to is just as important as who’s linking to you. If you’re taking the time to create high quality content, chances are you’re probably using trusted sources to gather your information, so make sure that you give credit where it is due.
Linking out to high quality, trusted sites helps signal the relevancy of you content to Google and shows that you are adding value for your readers.
9. Optimize Your Meta Descriptions
Google has stated that they do not weigh your meta description as a ranking factor in the search results. So why is it still important? Because your meta description serves as advertising copy to entice users to click on your link.
By using your keywords in your meta description you can make your search results stand out and easily scannable since those keywords will be bolded when a person performs a search for them.
10. Don’t Forget the Image ALT tags!
ALT text is just as important search engine optimization as it is for users because it helps make your site more accessible. Good image alt text can help visually impaired users know what an image is about and is also helpful when an image doesn’t display correctly.
Use descriptive keywords in your ALT image text, but avoid keyword stuffing if you have more than one image on your page. Instead try to use variations or related words, such as your LSI keywords to describe each one.
When it comes to ranking your website, the best place to start is with the things that you can easily control: your on-page SEO. Remember, on-page optimization isn’t just about targeting the search engines, it’s about making your site and your content user friendly, too
Need help creating a website that’s SEO optimized and user friendly? Let Traffic Jams do the legwork for you and contact us or give us a call at 855-599-9998.
