When one does a search on how to improve their search rankings for a particular post or page for their blog, they generally find: build backlinks. This is an invaluable strategy to earning google’s trust and building page rank, and while I definitely encourage everyone to spend some time implementing the various methods of building backlinks to their site, it is important not to overlook another, equally important, method of boosting SERPs.
On-Page SEO.
Everyone has heard of it, but not everyone understands what it does. While off-page SEO (link building) generates trust and page rank, on-page SEO is what informs google your site is worthy of high SERPs. It is a writing protocol that, when used informs search engines of your content. Think of it as a summary designed for google that highlights the important bits of your page. Got a post about corgis? Then you will want on-page SEO to let emphasize to google that it is indeed, about Corgis.
By doing this, you will be able to add more weight to your keyword selection, and boost SERPs , even if you don’t have any incoming links!
The Following is a Short Tutorial on Basic On-Page SEO
First Step to SEO: Select a Keyword
On-page SEO revolves around selecting one keyword or phrase that is searched often, but doesn’t have exorbitant amounts of competition. For example, naming the title of your post “How to Make Bagels” will have you competing with every other website page out there that mentions bagels.Making your keyword more specific and name it, say, “How to Make Blueberry Bagels” will reduce the competition and give you a realistic shot at getting ranked.
To get an idea of what is and isn’t a good keyword, take a look at the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Search some possible keywords and see what kind of opposition you’re up against.
Once you’ve picked a keyword, you’ll be ready to utilize on-page SEO mechanics.
Keyword Density
In order for Google to rank you for your keyword, it has to appear throughout your text. Try to incorporate it into what you write, and do so often. The official verdict on many times your keyword appears is anywhere between 3% – 5% of everything you write. You have to be careful though, for using it too much will cause Google to flag you for keyword stuffing, and not using it enough will dilute your SEO and lower your SERPs.
The following steps build off of your keyword density, so make sure you feature your targeted keyword frequently enough to really get the most out of this guide.
Incorporate Your Keyword Into H1 & H2 Tags
These tags are generally used to break up content and help you organize your posts, but Google uses these for SEO purposes when it crawls your site. To add these, simply put the or tags around the text you wish to make a headline.
Emphasis Tags
You’ve probably noticed that many bloggers emphasize words several times throughout their posts. They do this because Google also uses your and tags when deciding whether or not your content is relevant. Using these tags frequently will allow you to direct Google’s attention to certain parts of your text.
This, along with the next SEO tip, is actually my favorite in-text strategy. It’s very easy to boost your SERP ranking with these tags without incurring the wrath of your readers. Some people see it for what it is–SEO–but unless you spam it, most people won’t mind that you’ve employed and tags throughout your post.
Image Title and
Alt-Text
Pictures serve a greater purpose than adding visual context to readers. They can also inform Google and other crawlers what your content is about. Much like the emphasis tags, incorporating your keyword into the title and alt-text can help boost your SERPs.
Keep in mind when you fill in these sections, that viewers for whom your pictures fail to load will be using this information to get an idea of what the picture was about. Make sure it’s relevant to its context.
Insert Meta Tags
Meta tags are a lot like Alternate Text tags, in that readers don’t see them directly on your post. They serve a couple different functions, but are most important for telling Google directly what to expect when it visits your site. Those of you on wordpress can use the Simple Meta Tags plugin to easily customize meta tags for each individual post.
There are three different fields you are going to want to optimize.
Meta Title Tag
This tag is the most important. You want it to be short, keyword rich, and relevant to your post. It can be different from the post title, but it should still represent what a reader/google can expect to find if they come to your site.
Meta Description
There is talk that Google doesn’t use the information in this field to rank you, but it is useful nonetheless. The meta description acts as a summary or snippet of the content of your post. It is what organic traffic sees before clicking through to your blog. Shorter is not necessarily better for this tag, as what you type can affect clicks to your blog. My advice is to make it as informative as possible, yet succinct so it doesn’t get truncated before letting readers know what the post is about.
Meta Keywords
This tag is also very important. You can enter words related to the content of your post in this section. You want to include words that you wished to be indexed for, such as your keyword (obviously) and variations of it. I have read that Google only looks at the first 120 characters, so try to include the words you used most and possible variations of them. You can separate each word with a comma, if you want, but I have heard of some people getting better results by just leaving spaces.
Internal Linkage
Believe it or not, on-page is dependent upon your internal link structure. For example, by linking to my page featuring a corgi from a post about corgis, Google not only sees that I am linking to relevant content from my post, but also that the post I linked to is relevant as well. If you do this often and create a network of interlinking posts, you can generate a significant amount of page-rank which will, in-turn, boost your SERPs.
When you make links to other posts in your site, make sure they are set to dofollow and that they’re anchored to your keyword. The more your anchor text has to do with the posts you’re linking together, the more the more important it is to Google. Remember not to force it; make sure the reader gets what he/she expects when they follow that link.
Navigation
Implementing an interlinking network does more than just raise flags for Google’s robots. Improving the navigation also impacts your rankings. The easier it is for people to navigate your site (three clicks to any piece of content is the golden standard) the more weight Google puts on your SEO characteristics.
Hopefully, after reading this, you now have a better idea of how your on-page SEO strategies can affect SERPs.