List of On-page SEO techniques and strategies — 2018

When you talk about on-page SEO, most common methods are meta tags and keywords density.

We created a checklist of advanced on-page SEO techniques, which will help you to improve your website performance in search engines like Google.

What is On-Page SEO?

First thing first. On-page SEO means optimizing your web pages to rank higher in the search result. When they rank high in the search result, you get more traffic to your web pages. On-page SEO focus on content and HTML code which can be optimized.

You need to optimize your page in such a way, that it is more relevant to your user’s query. So, when Google serves the page in results, you get more and more visitors. And if they like your content, they will share and link to your content which is a bonus.

List of On-page SEO techniques and strategies

1. Site Speed

Google has said this in past, that page loading speed is an SEO ranking signal. You can boost your site speed by using a CDN, compressing images, and switching to faster hosting.

According to a campaign ran by Google, called #MobileMadness, when they asked users What do they dislike the most when browsing the web on your mobile device? Almost half of 570 respondents said their top frustration was waiting for slow pages to load.

Look at your site and see if there is anything slowing down the speed.

• Leverage Browser Caching
• Optimize Plugins & Images
• Use GZIP Compression
• Switch to Faster Hosting
• Clean Up HTML & CSS Coding
• Eliminate Ads
• Minimize Redirects

Here is a list of tools which can provide performance tips and feedback on page speed, along with suggested fixes.

• Page Speed Insights
• GTMetrix
• Pingdom Website Speed Test
• Mobile Website Speed Testing Tool

2. Content is still the King in 2018

In 1996, Bill Gates wrote an essay titled “Content is King”, which was published on the Microsoft website. Here are few lines from the essay.

Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.

Your content decides the importance of your page in a search result. Remember, Google’s primary focus is to serve most relevant information to users. If your page does not offer any information about what user is looking for, it is hard to rank on first or even on next few pages.

3. Mobile-Friendly (Responsive) Website

This is a well-known fact now. Google started pushing down the sites in their search result, which is not mobile friendly. If you are still not aware of this, you must read this article about mobile friendliness. Make sure you have a responsive website or a separate website for your mobile phone visitors.

4. Use SEO-Friendly URLs

According to Google, they give importance to first three to four words in your URL. So keep your URL short. Include your targeted keyword in your URL.

Rand Fishkin of Moz said more folders can “create a perception of depth for both engines and users, as well as making edits to the URL string considerably more complex.”

Avoid,

bad URL domain.com/p=111

Long URL domain.com/5/11/2017/tag/seo/on-page-seo-factors

5. Start page title with keyword

Keep our keyword closed to the beginning. If possible, start your title with your keyword. We know, the title is one of the most important ranking factors, so make sure you use your keyword in title wisely. Here is an example.

6. Title in an H1 tag

Mostly CMS like WordPress does it automatically. But still double check it, in case your theme is overwriting this setting. H1 tag is a strong signal and you should take care of that. Check this video by Matt Cutts.

7. Subheadings in H2 tags

At least one subheading should contain your targeted keyword. Make sure your wrap your subheading in an H2 tag.

8. Add keyword in first 100 words or first paragraph

Make sure your keyword appears in the first paragraph, or in first 100 words. This will give an idea to your visitor about the page and its content. Also, do it for your user, not for just search engine.

9. Optimize your images

How do you name your images before uploading them? Or do you even make changes to the image name? Do you know that your image name tells more about the image to Google? Make sure you add your keyword logically in your image file name. An image cute-cat.jpg makes more sense than abcd1234.jpg.

10. Outbound link

When you link to an external source, it is called outbound link. Making an outbound link is easy. It provides more information to Search engine about your page. Make sure you chose your outbound link wisely.

11. Internal Linking

Use internal linking where ever it is relevant and logical. Recommended number of internal links are 2–3 links per 300 words. But it can be more or less depending on the content length and the relativeness of the link.

Don’t do it compulsorily. Do internal linking naturally. If you need an example, look to any page of Wikipedia.

12. Keep an eye on Google Algorithm Update

There was a time, where it was easy to rank higher using spammy, keyword stuffing. Then, Google released Panda algorithm in 2011, and it changed everything. It mainly focuses on content quality. If you have good content you can expect to rank higher. Panda algorithm is now a part of Core algorithm, and Google is updating it regularly.

As you know, Google is pushing Artificial intelligence everywhere. SEO marketers are now trying to figure out how to deal with Google Rankbrain. The machine learning system was implemented in 2015 and is now the third highest ranking factor.

13. Improve Dwell Time

Dwell time is “time spent on your webpage”. Its a metric that calculates user engagement, SERP Click through rate and session duration.

Dwell time, as Moz’s Dr. Peter J. Meyers explains it, “is an amalgam of bounce rate and time-on-site metrics”. Since it is not an accessible metric, we can only speculate as to the precise formula used to determine the dwell time number.

14. Optimize your content for RankBrain

There are many factors which Google considers before ranking a page in search result. Out of these factors, we know at-least three factors that affects your ranking. They are

1. Content
2. Links pointing to your site.
3. RankBrain

Google RankBrain is Artificial Intelligence system, which is a part of Google core algorithm. In 2015, Google stated that RankBrain was being used to process 15% of queries the system had never encountered before. By 2016, Google was applying RankBrain to all queries.

15. Monitor Google Search Console closely

Google search console does most of the jobs to keep your website healthy and to track any issue that might affect your website ranking in search engine.

Here are few things to check on regularly basis

1. Check if you have any crawl error and fix them.
2. Check if your sitemap have any error.
3. Find keywords for which your website ranks
4. Check for any security issue
5. Check for AMP issue.

Conclusion

In short, SEO is an ongoing process, and you must keep is up to date, based on new changes done by search engines.

These on-page SEO techniques will help you to improve performance of your website in search engine.

Originally published at meshrepublic.com on July 25, 2018.