In the history of search engine optimization (SEO), the content ranked in an engine has typically come down to two key drivers: relevancy and authority built through content on your website. This involved:
1. Picking the best keywords around which to base each of your pages.
2. Making it clear to engines that your page revolves around those keywords.
When you are optimizing your content, focus your copy on specific keywords that match what people are searching for in an engine. Seems simple right? Wrong. Our very first on page SEO tip for you is to really take time to think about what your target users might be searching for and make sure those keywords are on the page. This requires you to sit down and develop buyer personas, but the likelihood of reaching those users as they go to Google, Yahoo and Bing.
I could spend hours writing about how sites used to implement on-page optimization “the old way.” However, your time is valuable and so is mine. So, I’d like to use our time together today to discuss “the new way” and to offer you some helpful on-page SEO tips. Marketing strategies should still be based on keywords. But rather than littering them throughout every aspect of your page, think about the value you want each page to provide. Use a diverse set of related keywords to help your rank for a variety of long-tail keywords.
Examples of Keyword Variation:
- Hyper-links v.hyper link
- Marketing for Philadelphia v. marketing in Philadelphia
Lateral keywords would include those like:
- Dental provider v. dentist
- SEO v. search marketing
The core components of on-page SEO include, but are not limited to: meta tags, title tags, meta description, content and localization. Our next major tip for today is to make sure to implement each of these components for your site. I will do my best to define each of these, in short.
Meta tags
The official data tag for each web page that is found between the open and closing head tags in the HTML code.
Title tags
An HTML tag which contains a sentence of text describing the contents of its associated webpage.
Meta descriptions
What appears on SERPs describing the content of each page being linked to.
TIP: meta descriptions generally run about 160 characters. Don’t only use those characters well, but stick to that limit so that when the description appears in Google its not to cut off with ellipses.
Content
This is what the engine bots need to associate your page with a set of keywords and/or phrases.
Localization
Be sure to optimize your location easily and quickly with the following tools: Google Places, Bing Local, Yahoo Local Listings.
I know this is a quick overview, but I would be glad to explain further how these important pieces of on-page SEO can help your business rank higher in SERPs. If you’re viewing this blog and would like more information regarding these strategies, please feel free to contact me. I would love to hear more about your business!
