So you have decided to focus on the SEO of your website in order to start seeing more high-converting organic traffic. You have established that you need to fix the technical aspects of your website, start adding content, and build backlinks (off-page SEO). Is that all? Clearly not. You are missing the on-page SEO aspect. The question is do you know everything you need to about on-page SEO or should you invest in On-Page SEO Services?
What are On-Page SEO Services?
In the above scenario, you are absolutely correct on what needs to be done although you are missing one aspect in many cases when it comes to optimizing your site for the search engines. As an SEO Consulting company, we put quite a bit of weight on the on-page SEO service aspect in our engagements. These services focus on all things related to the on-page or on-site SEO in order to improve the visibility of your site by optimizing for targeting keywords.
What is On-Page SEO?
“On-page SEO (also known as “on-site SEO”) is the practice of optimizing web page content for search engines and users. Common on-page SEO practices include optimizing title tags, content, internal links, and URLs” backlinko.com.
It is important to note that optimizing the different aspects of your website should be done following proper keyword research. Many times we find clients who have optimized their site for what they thought were their relevant keywords only to find out that once we spend the time doing keyword research all their efforts and SEO Strategy were for naught because the keyword that they were targeting has no search engine traffic. The use of keywords that have a high volume of searches and a lower keyword difficulty paired with the proper keyword density can result in high traffic volumes.
All of our SEO services start out with a technical SEO Audit (off-page) as well as keyword research done by our SEO experts in order to properly work on the on-page SEO in order to see the best results. Remember Search Engine Optimization is not just about driving traffic but also seeing results. That being said we want to make sure that we are focusing on target keywords that drive people who are looking for what you are selling, which will improve your conversion rates and ROI.
Key Elements of On-Page SEO
There are quite a few elements that are considered when looking at on-page SEO but some of them carry more weight than others when it comes to sending the proper ranking signals to the major search engines. When trying to improve your search rankings and online visibility focusing on optimization is key. On-page SEO still is one of the more important ranking factors.
Page Title (aka SEO Title)
The page title is the first thing that the search engines see. When optimizing your website it is important to properly structure your page title so that you are letting the search engines know what you would like the page you are working on to rank for.
The structure of the page title is important. Although this goes back and forth depending on how Google is feeling the general rule is that you have 55 characters to get your point across when it comes to your desired keywords. The first position in the page title should be your target keyword followed by a secondary keyword that you would like to focus on.
Note: Many companies make the mistake of leading with their Brand Name when it comes to page titles, which can result in a high amount of branded searches. This somewhat goes against the idea of Search Engine Optimization as your goal really should be to target high-converting, and high-demand keywords that are not branded, meaning they do not mention your brand. If someone is searching for your brand they should be able to find you.
Header Tags
Properly marking up your content with Header Tags is another way of letting the search engines know what your goal is when it comes to ranking the target page. The proper use of header tags can send signals to the search engines to help them better understand what the contents of the page are about.
It is important to note that a lot of the search engine spider doesn’t spend their whole day reading every bit of content that you put on your website. They basically skim the pages looking at the headers for guidance. Opportunely you would have a strong H1 tag, in many cases this is the title of the page itself (depending on the platform that your website is built on i.e. wordpress, hubspot, etc.) It is also important to, whenever possible, have this be different than the SEO Title or Title Tag)
From there you would mark up the rest of the document with H2, H3, H4, etc. will help the search engines effectively skim your webpage and understand what the content is about. The easier it is for the crawler to understand your content the better results you should have in the search engine rankings.
Remembering to add the proper header tags to your quality content is another on of the on-page ranking factors so make sure you take the time to understand.
Content-Length
There has been a lot of chatter in the SEO world when it comes to content length and it has been said that it isn’t one of the major ranking factors but many SEOs have their doubts that this is true. One thing that we know is true is that the search engines now put much more weight on the search algorithms to website owners putting out quality content that answers the search query.
As a rule of thumb, it is important to look at the keyword rankings to find out who is ranking for the target keyword and understand how many relevant links (off-page) and how many words that content has to get a baseline for what you should target if you want to own the top spot for your target keyword.
Using tools such as SEMRush and AHREFS you can easily see these details and formulate a plan in regards to writing your blog posts or core page content.
Once you see who is ranking ahead of you, you can analyze that page or post to see what it will take to get you up to the top 3.
Internal Links
Internal linking is a great way to not only full authority throughout your website it also acts as a guide to your readers who will want to see more of your content and give them an opportunity to read more through those links.
According to MOZ, “Internal Links are most useful for establishing site architecture and spreading link equity“. The site structure again allows the search engine spider to crawl through your site and understand who your target market should be. Therefore, making it possible for your site to be ranked in the proper places and drive qualified leads to the site itself.
In the first paragraph of the content, there is a link (seen in pink) that would take a reader some else on the site.
It is a best practice where possible to have an internal link within the first paragraph of your relevant content. Make sure that it is natural and not too overdone because that can turn off the reader and have a negative effect on the content quality.
Start today to get your On-Page SEO dialed in.
We hope that you have found this article to be informative and you are motivated to update your site’s on-page SEO. If for some reason you don’t know where to start and would like to help get on it. CadenceSEO’s On-Page SEO Services would be a great solution to fill your needs. These services are just a small part of our service offerings as we offer all things SEO such as Technical SEO Consulting, Link Building, Content Marketing, and much more!
Our engagements are extremely affordable and our SEO Strategies are effective. Get in touch with us today and our SEO Experts would love to help you get your website on the path to massive amounts of organic search traffic.
