The Complete Guide To On-Page SEO For Beginners (2022)
“The future of SEO is here: understanding and marketing to specific and defined audiences through search engines.” — Adam Audette
Does On-page SEO, play a role in ranking your site on google?
Yes, Google still considers on-page SEO as an essential part that can increase your ranking on google.
Most people think that only by putting some keyword there and here on your page and You are done with on-page SEO.
But that is not the case on-page SEO has so much more than just keyword optimization. Although, the keyword is still an essential part of on-page SEO.
Before diving deep into the complete guide on-page SEO.
First, let’s learn what is on-page and why it is important.
What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your website for SEO to increase your ranking on google.
On-page SEO is something that you can do by yourself on your site, not on other sites (like backlinks), to increase your traffic.
Why on-page SEO is important
On-page SEO still plays a big role in ranking your site on google, because google still uses some of the old-school stuff to rank websites.
For example, putting keywords on your page can help Google know what your page is about, Which can help them rank your site.
Google also sees some of the on-page SEO things to identify if this site will rank on page one or not. Google doesn’t say it directly.
But Google prefers mobile-friendly sites for ranking on Google, which is also a factor of on-page SEO.
It’s crucial to know that Google also prefers a site that optimized their site with on-page SEO for ranking on google.
There are many things in this complete guide to on-page SEO that will make a significant positive difference in your search engine ranking.
Let’s learn in this complete guide to on-page SEO for increasing your traffic and ranking on google.
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Keyword research
Keyword research is a process of finding words that users are searching for on Google. Keyword research is the first step of on-page SEO.
There are many tools you can use for keyword research. It could be free or paid.
No matter what industry you have, if you don’t target the right keyword for your website.
Then you might not even do the basic SEO required to get on top in ranking.
There are different types of keywords, A short tail keyword has 1 or 2 words and, the long-tail keyword has 2 or more words.
You have to target long-tail keywords because this keyword can help you understand what users want.
Which can help you provide them with what they want.
But if you target short-tail keywords, For example like iPhone. Then probably, you don’t know what the user wants.
If they want to buy an iPhone, then what iPhone model do they want?
You don’t know what the user wants are through the short tail keyword. So it doesn’t make sense to rank your site on these keywords.
Because let says if you rank for the term iPhone, then some people will come to your site for review.
But you have a product page, then they will be disappointed and never come back, which gives Google an indication that people don’t like your site.
So your site may go down in ranking. It is only one example many different types of users come to your site with the term iPhone.
Some people want different models of iPhone, some want to see a review of iPhone 11 or other models, but they come to your site and will go disappointed because you don’t provide them what they want.
So it’s always better to target a specific audience, for example, for the term iPhone 11 reviews Because you know that these users want to see only iPhone 11 reviews they don’t want to buy yet.
So when you target this keyword and rank your page with this long-tail keyword.
You have a better chance to satisfy the audience if you provide them with a good review of the iPhone 11.
Long-tail keyword helps you identify, exactly what users’ wants are and it also helps you satisfy your audience because you know what they want to know.
There are hundreds of keywords you will find through keyword tools. How do you know what keyword can rank your site and give you hundreds of traffic?
You have to find a keyword that has these three qualities. If you find any keyword in your industry that has these three qualities. Then make sure you target that keyword. Let’s see what these qualities are.
1. High volume
volume means How many people are searching for that keyword. Make sure you target keywords which at least have 100 or more volume.
The higher the volume, the more traffic you will get. But don’t just look at this because you find many keywords that have high volume. Remember, you also need to find other two qualities in your target keyword.
2. High CTR(Click through rate)
It means how much people are paying to Google to rank on that keyword. The higher CTR, the more valuable keyword is.
Because if people are paying more money to just rank on that keyword, Then it means this keyword is valuable.
3. Low SEO Difficulty
If you don’t find this quality in a keyword and find the other two qualities in a keyword. Then don’t pick that keyword if you have a small website.
Because finding low SEO difficulty is key to ranking on google. Because low SEO difficulty means not many people with high domain authority sites are ranking for that keyword. Which means you can easily rank on that keyword.
Having low SEO difficulty is crucial in your target keyword. Because if you don’t have a low SEO difficulty keyword.
Then you don’t rank in that keyword, Even if it has high CTR and high volume. You have to find keywords that have all these three qualities.
Some of the free keyword research tools are:
- Ahrefs keyword generator
- Uber suggests ( three searches a day)
- Google trends
Some of the ways to find your target keyword:
- Look at the keywords your competitor’s targets. ( Use keyword everywhere extension to get your competitor’s keywords).
- Take advantage of Google Suggest. Type iPhone 11 and, it gives you a long-tail keyword about iPhone 11.
- Check out the “People also ask” section on Google
Include your keyword in the heading:
Putting your target keyword in the heading is one of the most important and easiest things to optimize your site for SEO.
Don’t believe me? Google John Mueller confirmed the importance of headings
And when it comes to text on a page, a heading is a really strong signal telling us this part of the page is about this topic.
John Mueller, Search Advocate Google
Meta description
It is not proven, putting a target keyword in a meta description can increase your traffic. But optimizing your meta description still doesn’t take much hard work.
Make sure you write a unique and creative meta description. So your audience reads it and understands what the audience will see on your page.
Include your target keyword earlier and in last on your page content
Always put your target keyword earlier and in the last section of your page content because when google crawls your website, they will instantly notice your target keyword in the earlier and the last of your page content.
So they know what keyword you target, which can increase the chances of ranking your site on that keyword.
Internal and external linking
Internal and external linking still works effectively to increase your traffic and ranking in google if you do them rightly.
Internal linking is when you link to other pages of the same website. External linking is when you like to a page that is on a different website.
External linking
Most people have a misconception that if they do external linking, then it will not give any benefit to them, It only benefits those to who we linked.
But you also get some of the benefits, let say you created content about fitness and, you find that you don’t talk about certain topics in your blog in much detail as other websites do.
So if you find a website that has high domain authority, which means Google trusts that site. And you link to these sites.
Then it also benefits you because google will think that you link to other trusted pages. Then they may trust your site more than before, it is a long-term process.
But make sure you link to content that provides value to your audience and comes from a trustable site that means they have high domain authority.
Internal linking
Most people know that internal linking can help them increase their website traffic. They overdo internal linking because of getting more traffic.
But if you overdo it, it can result in a decrease in traffic. Always make sure when you link to other pages.
If they provide relevant and valuable information to your audience? which your audience needs and, only 4 to 6 internal links on a page are enough.
But always remind yourself when you link to other pages on your site. If they are relevant to the topic, your audience is interested?
Optimize your images
Optimizing your images for SEO can give you a lot of traffic. Because if you optimize your images for a keyword and it comes on the first page. Then people will most likely click on that image.
If it’s informative and valuable, Then people may give you a backlink. That can increase your traffic and ranking on google.
Putting target keyword in alt image text
Google algorithm doesn’t understand what is in an image until you provide them with alt image text.
You have to provide alt image text, so Google understands what is in your image and ranks your image according to that keyword, which you put in alt image text.
So make sure you put your target keyword in your alt image text as well. don’t put your target keyword where it doesn’t relate to images.
Dont try to put a lot of keywords in your alt image text. It is keyword stuffing and, Google may penalize your site if you do that. Just put your target keyword into your alt image text to optimize for SEO.
Rename the file name of your image and put your target keyword
It is also essential to put your target keyword, not just in alt image text. But also the same target keyword in your file image name.
So google can clearly understand what is in the image and rank your image on google.
Compress image sizes
Compressing your image sizes without compromising on quality is extremely important. Because if you upload an image that has a 20 MB image size.
It can slow down your website speed which means google and the audience will not like your site, which results in lower ranking and traffic.
There are many tools to compress your images size without compromising quality, such as TinyPNG.
If you’re on WordPress, You can use the TinyPNG plugin or any other plugins that can compress your images without compromising quality.
User Engagement
Increasing your user engagement is the most important thing to do on-page SEO.
Because when people come to your site and go back instantly. Then Google sees that as a negative impression which can affect your SEO ranking.
So make sure you focus on how users interact with your site and how you can increase that user engagement by making your site load fast and creating unique content than anyone else.
Speed up your website
One of the main reasons most people will go back instantly and not engage with your site is the slow loading speed.
In today’s world, if you don’t have a website that loads fast. You are making a big mistake. You can see your website speed with google page speed insights.
It can give you data about how fast your website is loading on desktop or mobile. If your website speed is slow, Then it can provide a solution to speed up your website.
Valuable Content
If you want to increase your user engagement, you have to provide content which your audience can’t find anywhere else.
If you find a topic and notice that many people are not talking about that topic.
You can create content that can stand out from everyone else and provide more valuable information to the audience.
You have to provide something which nobody is providing to increase your user engagement.
Ask yourself how you can provide something different to your audience?
Conclusion
On-page SEO plays a big role in your overall SEO strategy. Because there are so many things. You can do to make your website valuable and effective for the audience.
The main purpose of doing on-page SEO is to provide value to your audience in the most effective way and, if you did that, you get hundreds of traffic and sales into your website.
There are no tricky things you need to do to get organic traffic. Instead, it’s a simple thing that makes a big difference.
Which is to provide value to your audience in the most effective way on your website so they will always come back to you.
You have to know how you can differ from any other sites which are in your industry. What you can do differently, So you can stand out in this internet world.
On-page SEO, the purpose is not just to get the ranking on google. Instead, provide value to your audience, which can help you get rank on google. Because Google only likes your site when your audience likes your website.
So focused on your audience, If your audience will be satisfied with you. Google will surely give you a ranking on top pages.
“Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first.” –Wendy Piersall
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