Do You Have an On-Page SEO New Year's Resolution?
While some of our friends and family are thinking of losing weight, saving money, or getting a dog, your New Year's resolution might be to have better SERP rankings. If you read that last sentence and didn't even blink an eye, then this blog post might interest you. How many of these on-page SEO tools have you already implemented this year?
#1: Optimize Your Title
Proper on-page search engine optimization starts with the title. First of all, the title should be a generous length but not too long that it shows up clipped on search engine results. Make sure your title is catchy, gets to the point and contains some form of modifier (best, worst, longest, awesome, etc.). If scribing wicked titles isn't your strong suit, then why not try a fancy blog title generator?
Tip #1: Place the title tag at the very front of your title, or at least, the second word. The closer your focus keyword is to the first word, the better.
Tip #2: Make sure your title is wrapped in <h1> headings.
[caption id="attachment_1132" align="aligncenter" width="499"]
What epic name will your sire your blog post?[/caption]
#2: Dazzle Your Post with Optimized Multimedia
Not only do images, GIFs and videos jazzify your page, but they also help break up the text so your content is easier to scroll through. Plus, what post isn't improved by visual aids? Keep in mind that search engine crawlers can't see images and video like we can, so to improve your SEO, be sure to include your focus keyword in the file name and the alt text. Writing the alt text helps give web search crawlers something to index.
[caption id="attachment_1133" align="aligncenter" width="500"]
This is what web crawlers look like, right?[/caption]
#3: Don't Forget Internal and External Links
Including links in your content performs many functions and boosts your on-page SEO in many ways. External links help search engines index your content with relevant web pages and can even guarantee a few backlinks from reputable websites (for more on backlink earning, click
here). According to Moz, including
internal links in your content simplifies your website navigation and establishes site architecture and information hierarchy.
[caption id="attachment_1137" align="aligncenter" width="480"]
Need help with internal links? Click here.[/caption]
#4: Alter Your Keyword with Latent Semantic Indexing
Search engines are extremely smart organisms that understand various degrees of meaning. In other words, your focus keyword shouldn't be so rigid. Not everyone types in the same search terms as your focus keyword, so why shouldn't you use synonyms? Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is a mathematical method that links search terms and meaning. As there are many ways of searching for one thing, make your content seem more natural and less repetitive by using related search keywords.
Tip: Be sure to include your focus keyword in the first paragraph of your text.
#5: When it Comes to SEO, Size Matters
If you use the Yoast Wordpress plugin, you'll notice that writing less than 300 words gives you a red dot. Three hundred words can barely get a point across, let alone cross everything off your SEO list. While writing in the 300-350 word range is good for light, more humourous content, remember that the more you have to give to your reader, the more indexable your content is. Posts that are close to 1000 words gives your website authority and generally tend to rank higher.
#6: Write a Kick-Ass Meta Description for More Clicks
Yet another reason using the Yoast plugin is helpful. Meta descriptions are the short blurbs that appear under the post title on a search engine result page. First of all, including your focus keyword in the description will make the user's search terms appear in
bold (which is what you want). You should keep the meta description short but powerful, and try to keep everything 155 characters or less. Think about the meta description as your elevator pitch. Give it everything you've got and don't waste time with fluff.
#7: Fix Slow Load Times for Better On-Page SEO
Consider how long you wait for a page to load before you give up. Sure, our attention spans are stunted, and yes, our patience is wafer thin, but we might as well accept the way our brains are (d)evolving. In other words, make sure your load times are as fast as lightning. You might not know this, but Google will actually penalize your website for having slow load times. An easy way to ensure fast web page loads is by using a content delivery network (CDN), which you can learn more about here.
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Don't drive users crazy with your slow web pages.[/caption]
There are many more ways to boost your on-page search engine optimization. If you're interested in giving your web pages a real SEO boost, why not read
5 SEO Trends for 2017 That You Should Be Implementing Now. If your website is really struggling, and you want to give yourself the greatest gift of all, it seems like you could use professional help (no offence). Start 2017 off with a real bang and get the SEO help your website really needs.
Give us a shout to discuss your SEO New Year's Resolution.
