On-page SEO factors are a very important part of the overall process necessary to rank your website higher in search engines. While it is true that off-page techniques like backlinks and social signals are still a big part of how search engines calculate rankings, on-page techniques are also important.
The bottom line is that Google and other search engines want to give their users the best results possible, and they’re doing everything they can to do that. If you can provide better results, you’ll get more organic traffic. (Yes, this is an oversimplification.)
On-page SEO is all about providing what the user wants and helping them find it. There are some on-page SEO factors that you should be aware of and use on your site. They include page load time, quality blog content, image optimization, internal links, etc.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of the most critical parts of any successful content marketing strategy. You can do everything else right when it comes to building a great content marketing strategy, but if you don’t optimize your content for search engines, then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.
What is SEO?
SEO is the short form for search engine optimization. In essence, it means optimizing your website in order to increase its page rank on search engines like Google.
If you are just starting out with SEO, understanding On-page SEO factors is critical. Here are 8 SEO techniques that can help your site rank faster…
Please Take Note!!! The demo blog post used in this blog as images is an actual blog on my site. Here is the link: Top 10 Blog AI Copywriting Tools (Free & Pro): Honest Review
1. Load Speed Optimization
To have a good pages load time, “use Good Hosting“
Optimizing load speed is an important on-page SEO factor in ranking a site faster. It is also a key factor that Google considers when deciding to rank a site higher than another.
After all, the faster your pages load, the happier your visitors will be.
This is especially true for mobile users who have limited bandwidth and slower connections.
A couple of years ago, Google started using mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal on mobile search results.
So, where can you get good hosting?
There are many hosting providers out there to start with but I recommend Bluehost. Bluehost offers the world‘s best hosting and it is recommended by WordPress. Get started now for just $2.95 per month and 1 free year domain name. Read our Bluehost Review to find out more.
It makes sense that speed would be so important to Google because it’s important to searchers. If people are waiting for your page to load, they’re not going to stick around and read what you have to say. They’ll click away and move on to a competitor’s site.
The second reason why users might click away is if they don’t find an answer to their query. Search engines want to provide their users with the best possible experience when they are searching for answers to questions, and information or to buy specific products and services online.
Check your site speed on PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix. There are always analyses on how you can fix a problem in your website.
The way forward is to do targeted keyword research before even starting to write your blog content. Our next points will discuss “keyword research” and “writing high-quality content“.
2. Keyword Research
Keyword research is the most important on-page SEO factor to consider when you start a blog. It is the process of finding both short and long-tail keywords that are relevant to your products or services.
When you want to appear in search results, you need to focus on giving Google what it’s looking for. The days when you could beat Google just by adding repetitive keywords to your pages are long gone. You need to be smart about keyword research and content creation in order to perform well in search results.
The first step in any quality keyword research is understanding how your audience uses search engines to find information. You’ll want to look for potential keywords that meet the following criteria:
- Who are your customers? What are their interests?
- What content will help them solve their problems?
- How can you differentiate yourself from them? What are your competitors doing?
It’s not always about getting visitors to your site, but about getting the right kind of visitors.
How to get Keywords for your next blog
You can go about this “keyword research” in two ways:
1) brainstorming or
2) using keyword tools.
– Brainstorming Keyword Ideas
Think about what you might type into Google when searching for content like yours. What words come to mind? Write them down (and try not to repeat yourself). Those are your keywords!
For example, if you’re writing about dog training, you might write down: dog training, how to train a dog, the best way to train a dog, puppy training, how long it takes to train a dog, etc…
– Using Keyword Research Tools
If you need help with the keyword brainstorming process, there are software tools available that will give you additional insight into which keywords are most popular in your particular niche or industry.
The best place to start is by doing keyword research with a tool like Keyword surfer Chrome extension, AnswerThePublic, Ahrefs Keyword Generator, Ubersuggest, etc. By analyzing actual search queries that real people are typing into the Google search box, you will find out what they are actually looking for.
Why keywords are an important part of on-page SEO?
- Keywords help search engines understand what your content is about.
- They help people find your content online.
- You can use keyword research to see what people want from your site.
- The right keywords will make it easier for you to rank in SERPs without paying for ads.
- Keywords help people find your content online.
- Keyword research helps you create content that is both helpful and keyword-rich.
The main point we have discussed on keyword research is to help you generate “quality content” that solves the users’ query, but why is that important?
3. Write High Quality Content
High-quality content is the main point of your website. Write and Publish Fresh quality Content Regularly
– Writing
To improve your SEO rankings, avoid simply duplicating other sites’ content. Instead, focus on creating unique and valuable content that truly adds value to your users’ lives. The search engine algorithms look at hundreds of factors while trying to determine which sites should appear at the top of their SERPs (search engine results pages).
Writing unique and quality content gives you a big advantage over other companies that aren’t focused on providing high-quality information.
The two suggested blogs will help write a long-form blog post, check it out. The reason for suggesting this is to avoid duplicating the content all over my website. Also note, the blog you will write… am going to help you optimize it in steps No 5 to 7.
Suggested For You!
How To Start A WordPress Blog: Guide for Beginners in 2022
How To Write A Perfect SEO Blog Post in 5 Steps: A Step-By-Step Guide
Tips that will help you in creating a high-quality article
- Make sure your content is 100% unique. You should always strive to write content that is original and fresh. Never copy someone else’s work because Google will penalize you for it.
- Your content should be SEO-friendly.
- Your content should be free from grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and punctuations errors.
- It should contain images, videos, and GIFs to attract more visitors and make your site more attractive.
- Also, when writing high-quality content, make sure that you pay attention to spelling and grammar mistakes. You don’t want someone else to read your article and find mistakes in it before they even get through reading it.
With the rise of technology in the modern world, new technologies have evolved to help bloggers make content easily. There are many AI copywriting software that can help you write a long-form blog post within minutes. They include copy.ai, jasper, anyword, etc. Read our suggested articles to learn how to use them on your next project.
You May Also Like?
Top 10 Blog AI Copywriting Tools (Free & Pro): Honest Review
– Publishing
It doesn’t matter how great your SEO strategy is if nobody sees it. As consumers, we’ve become used to finding fresh content right away because that’s what we experience whenever we google something – the first result provides us with answers to our questions immediately because it was published recently.
When deciding how frequently you should publish new content, think about how often people go online looking for similar products/services and adjust accordingly.
For example, if you’re publishing articles about nutrition regularly every week, publish something every day if possible instead of once a week because people are probably checking daily for nutrition info online rather than weekly.
Publish high quality consistently, at least 1 blog post for a new site!
How do you optimize your blog post for search engines? You already have done keyword research and solved the users’ queries, but that is not all. In our next step, we will use the “Yoast SEO” plugin for WordPress Website to optimize our blog post.
3. Use SEO Plugins
On-page SEO has changed dramatically over the past few years. Where once it was enough to add a keyword in the title and description, now you need to consider a lot more.
SEO Plugins are tools that can help you manage your on-page efforts so you don’t have to do it all by hand. SEO plugins enable you to do more effective on-page SEO without having to learn complex coding languages. While some plugins cost money, many of them are completely free.
If you’re a WordPress user, all of this can be done with the use of a few plugins. You can consider using Yoast SEO, Rankmath, AISEO, etc. I use “Yoast SEO” to optimize my own WordPress website. Choose one that most suits your needs.
Note!!! Both Yoast SEO and Rankmath plugins have a free and a pro version. The free version is already enough for beginners.
For our next few points “No 4 to 7”, am going to show you how to do it using Yoast SEO plugin. This way I can discuss each point at a length on its own.
The first step is to install Yoast SEO. Login to your WordPress dashboard using this link. Then proceed to plugins > add new.
Search for Yoast SEO then click > install > activate
The next step is to optimize the post we wrote in step No 3. To add a new post, on your WordPress dashboard left side menu, click posts > add new and paste your blog content.
Also Note!!! I recommend using the WordPress Gutenberg block editor. The reason is that it is well optimized for WordPress and updated regularly. Classic editor on the other hand is good but was updated last 9 months ago. This means if anything goes wrong, you blame yourself.
4. Title Optimization
Title optimization is an important element of on-page SEO. A good title tag can help search engines understand what your page is all about and determine whether to show it in the search results for a given query. It should contain your keyword, but also create a compelling reason for searchers to click.
Your title tag is one of several key components that can affect your search engine rankings.
It’s also among the first elements people see when they run a search and find your page in the results, which makes it a powerful opportunity to convince them to click and come to your website or landing page.
How to optimize your title?
From the image above, click Yoast SEO > Google Preview. Add your optimized title until the line strength is green (see image below). The best title length is 70 characters or a maximum of 13 words. Make it easy for users to read and analyze.
Another tool that is helpful for checking your title Google score is Headline Studio by CoSchedule. They show you over 10 analyses of what you should do to improve your title score in the ranking SERPs results and increase clicks.
They have a chrome extension that helps you check within your website. Download and install CoSchedule Chrome Extension. This is how the extension looks in WordPress (see image below). Just enter your title and click analyze.
Title optimization helps improve the click-through rate (CTR) of your pages from the SERPs, which can help you rank higher.
5. Meta Description Optimization
Write meta descriptions that entice users to click
The meta description of a website is usually a sentence or two long and it’s what shows up in search engine results for your page. The purpose of this sentence is to not only tell people what’s on your page but also to get them to click on it.
- A good meta description should:
- Be a maximum of 160 characters long, so it doesn’t get cut off
- Contain your keyword, but not too often (once or twice)
- Read like an ad or a headline, with a call-to-action to visit your page
- Be written for humans, not search engines
How to Optimize Your Meta Description?
From the image above, click Yoast SEO > Google Preview. Scroll down to the second option after the title you just optimized. Write your meta description until the line strength is green (see image below). The best meta length is 160 characters. Make it easy for users to read and analyze. After every action, always click save or draft your work.
Having a meta description is important because search engines use this text to display your page in search results (if you don’t set a meta description, they will pick a random chunk of text from your page instead).
6. Page URL Optimization
The URL structure of your web pages is a key factor in how search engines determine the relevancy of your content.
URLs are important for SEO because they help search engines understand what the page is about. After all, they are part of the code that is scanned by search engine crawlers.
Search engine traffic is essential for any website’s growth, so it’s critical to know what to do with their URLs to make sure you’re getting the most out of them.
How to Optimize Your Page URL?
See the image below, click Settings Icon > Permalink. Expand the option. When you first create a blog, the title of the post is added automatically as the post link. You can optimize it by typing your own words on the “URL slag“. Make the link short and easy to memorize.
Tips on how to optimize your URL
- Use hyphens, not underscores
- Keep it short, but not too short
- Include target keywords
- Use canonical tags
- Avoid dynamic URLs
If a page’s URL is too long, hard to read, or not relevant to its content, it can affect your website’s ranking on search engines and slow down your website’s speed.
7. Image Optimization (Alt Tag)
Use Smaller Images Where Possible
Smaller images often load faster than larger ones. A slow website isn’t exactly something you want if you want to rank better in search engines.
Image optimization not only has an impact on your search engine rankings but also affects how visitors perceive your content and potential customers determine whether or not to click on your site’s links.
How to Optimize Images for Search Engines?
There are basically many ways to optimize your images in WordPress and using external software from other sites. The first and the method I recommend is editing all your images before uploading them to your WordPress site/blog.
Canva for editing and Tiny PNG for compressing images are my favorite tools. Install the Smush plugin to automatically compress those images and finally ad alt text to all images.
As I said earlier, I avoid duplicating content from other pages I have already written. Since I have a blog related to image optimizing, I recommend checking it using the suggested link below.
Suggested Blog?
How to Optimize Images for Your WordPress Site: The Basics of Image Optimization
The second way is to take a look at all of your images and see if they’re really necessary. If they aren’t serving a purpose or aren’t highly important (like logos), consider removing them altogether. By doing so, you could improve your site by leaps and bounds with no work at all!
The last way is to make sure you use descriptive alt text as well when working with images. It may not seem like much, but it does help search engine crawlers index your content easier. Alt text helps both search engine bots and users better understand what is going on without having to view an image.
8. Internal Link Building
Internal linking helps to increase the average time on a site and reduce bounce rate.
When you create a new piece of content for your website, you’re likely optimizing it for search engines. But have you considered how that piece of content will benefit the other pages on your site?
Internal link building is an on-page SEO strategy that is often overlooked. It can be more complicated than external link building but it’s a necessary tactic for improving the overall SEO health of your website. They help establish site architecture and spread link equity (ranking power) around websites.
What is internal link building?
Internal links are those that go from one page to another page on the same domain. For example, within this post, we may link to our On-Page SEO Checklist or our guide to Google’s Penguin algorithm update. Links like these help Google crawl and index your site, and they pass authority (or PageRank) from one page to another.
How to add Internal Links in WordPress?
On the blog, you are editing, highlight a text as you would do when copying. There are two options to add a link, see the image below. Click on number 1 to add the link. The second way is to use these keyboard shortcuts “Ctrl + K” for pc or “Command + K” on mac.
The way you add an internal link is by typing a relevant word and the editors find the link for you on your website, click it and it is added. The second way is to paste the page link you want to link to.
Note!!! Don’t open internal links on a new tab. After all, Users are still on your website.
Internal links are valuable for three main reasons:
- Internal links help establish an information hierarchy for the given website.
- They help spread link juice (ranking power) around websites.
- They send signals to search engines about the content of the linked-to pages.
A Perfect Example:
Make Sure There is Link Diversity. Use backlinks to add authority to these pages. My best method of getting backlinks is by writing guest posts. We offer an opportunity to talented writers. Read throughout guest post guidelines to see our requirements.
To see more on “internal linking” read the suggested blog below.
Suggested Blog?
Top 12 SEO Ranking Factors: What Matters To Google?
Conclusion
Since many search engines make their decisions about which sites to include in search results based on how relevant a site’s content is, ensuring that your site includes relevant and up-to-date information can go a long way toward improving your rank.
This is why on-page SEO is so important. When combined with off-page, on-page optimization will help you get faster results. Start by answering some simple questions related to your content, then use these on-page optimization techniques to create an effective strategy for promoting your site through organic search engine results.
Even if you can’t afford off-page SEO right now, remember that well thought out and properly executed website content (on-page SEO) can help your website rank faster and be more effective over time.
FAQ
Why Is Load Speed Optimization Important?
Load speed optimization is important for a number of reasons. The first, and most obvious reason is that it’s annoying for visitors to your website for them to have to wait for pages to load. But that’s not the only reason why load speed optimization is important.
The second reason is a slow-loading website creates an immediate negative impression for visitors, increasing bounce rate and decreasing the time on site.
Users expect your website to load in under 4 seconds. Google recommends a 2 second load time or less. If it takes longer than 4 seconds to access your website, users will likely leave before they see any content and will definitely not wait around for a page to load.
Other important reasons:
- It improves user experience and accessibility, resulting in happier customers
- Website speed optimization increases average session duration (people stay longer)
- It increases the number of pages viewed per session (people view more pages)
- It increases traffic (because people visit more often)
What is a keyword?
A keyword is a word or phrase that describes a product or service. It’s important in SEO because the right keyword(s) can boost organic traffic by getting your website to rank higher in search results.
There are three types of keywords:
- Short-tail keywords (e.g., “web design”)
- Long-tail keywords (e.g., “web design company in London”)
- LSI keywords (e.g., “web design services”, “website companies”, etc.)
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It refers to the process of increasing a site’s traffic and ranking on search engines, like Google or Bing. When someone uses a search engine, they enter a keyword or phrase that relates to the information they’re looking for. The search engine looks through its database of indexed websites to find pages that match those keywords.
The pages that rank highest are listed first in the search results; anyone who wants to find your website has to click one of these links before they can get there
Why is SEO Important?
With over 3 billion web users worldwide each month and over half of the world’s top brands already have their own websites, SEO is a business necessity.
The term search engine optimization (SEO) was coined by Danny Sullivan in 1998 as a marketing term to describe how search engines can be used to optimize websites for higher ranking in search results.
Here are 7 reasons Why SEO is important:
- SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy
- It delivers better ROI than PPC (pay-per-click) advertising
- SEO drives traffic and leads to your website
- Targeted traffic means more conversions
- SEO promotes user experience
- SEO increases the visibility and reach of an e-commerce site
- Better Online Visibility
Why is URL optimization important?
Some SEO experts may tell you that the URL is only a minor factor when it comes to your Google ranking, but I beg to differ. While it’s true that the URL isn’t as crucial as other factors, such as title tags and content, it does still work toward your overall SEO efforts.
A good URL will also help you stand out from the crowd, which can help you attract more clicks in the SERPs. The cleaner, more informative, and easier to remember a URL is, the more likely people are to click on the link when they see it in search results.
What is Image Optimization?
Image Optimization is the process of reducing the file size of your image files, while not sacrificing quality. This helps your website load faster and improves the user experience.
There are two main ways to optimize images:
- You can use online tools to resize and optimize images, such as Smushit or Tiny PNG. Either one has a free version that allows you to test your images on a small number of pages before committing to a paid membership plan.
- You can do it manually by optimizing each image individually using tools like Canva. Although this approach can be time-consuming and tedious, it provides control over how an image looks and can make minor adjustments (such as brightness and contrast) extremely easy.
What are The Benefits of Image Optimization?
- Quick load times – Your web pages will load more quickly if there are fewer images to load. This can be particularly helpful for mobile users, where connections are often slower.
- Search Engine Optimization – Images that are optimized for search engines will rank higher in image searches (and therefore drive more traffic to your website).
- Reduced bandwidth usage – Faster loading times means less bandwidth is used by your site. If you use a paid CDN service, this can lead to significant cost savings.
Why are optimized images so important?
Images often account for most of the downloaded bytes on a page, and that means they are a major factor in total page weight. Optimizing them can often yield some of the largest byte savings and performance improvements for your website: the fewer bytes the browser has to download, the less competition there is for the client’s bandwidth, and the faster the browser can download and render content on the screen.
Good luck!
Do you have any questions or concerns we didn’t address above? Please let us know in the comments below! We would love to hear from you! # on-page SEO
AND AS ALWAYS, HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!
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It’s hard to find knowledgeable people on this topic, but you sound like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks
Gralion, thank you for the sweet reply.