What is On-Page SEO: How to Improve Your Website Ranking?

what is onpage seo

What is On-Page SEO: How to Improve Your Website Ranking?

What is On-Page SEO? let’s find the answer.

SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is the process of improving your website’s visibility in search engines. One wrong move of SEO can damage your website ranking, while a strong move can rank you on the first page of search engines. SEO optimization, which is divided into two basic categories called On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO includes techniques that every website owner should be familiar with. Off-page SEO seeks to increase your traffic and conversions through strategies such as PR opportunities and backlinks. However, if the fundamentals of On-Page SEO are weak, your Off-Page SEO efforts will not produce the results you want. That’s why it’s important to master the components you need to focus on to improve your on-page SEO.

What is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is the key to improving your website ranking. It can be defined as optimizing websites with quality content and various methods called technical SEO to increase organic traffic.

On-page SEO, which helps search engines understand what a web page is about, making it easier to index the pages requires attention to countless details, from using the right titles to proper keyword placement, from website speed to mobile compatibility, from internal links to meta descriptions.

On-Page SEO, which is an integral part of SEO; Even if you rank on the first page of search engines, it should be considered as a process that should not be interrupted.

Why is On-Page SEO Important?

The increasing complexity of Google ranking algorithms strengthens the predictions that on-page SEO factors will become more important day by day.

Creating and publishing content on your website is not enough when it comes to high targets for SERP ranking and organic traffic. Search engine algorithms are on the way to being smarter, more intuitive than ever before. Considering that there are more than 49 billion web pages on Google and more than 2 million blog posts are published every day, waiting for your non-optimized content to be found can mean waiting forever. This is where On-Page SEO can change the picture.

Driven by the mission of creating the world’s smartest search engine, Google tries to list the most relevant search result for a query, while trying to suggest the most relevant web pages that “add value” and best answer the search’s query.

That’s why on-page SEO, which tries to ensure that your content is optimized for both people (your customers) and search engine bots; It is one of the most critical elements of digital marketing strategies. The right practices will allow search engines to best understand your content to rank the URLs most relevant to specific queries.

Depending on your business and current marketing strategies, search engine organic traffic can make up 90% of all traffic to your site. In other words, on-page SEO can get you ahead of 90% of your competitors.

On-Page Search Engine Optimization focuses on bringing targeted organic traffic. Every search query is made for a specific purpose and is for a specific need. If your content meets the search intent when accessed through organic search results, you’ll get the highest quality traffic possible. This type of traffic is traffic that brings in paying customers. Moreover, it is more cost-effective compared to paid tools like PPC. In the long run, you will get a traceable and measurable return on your SEO investment.

In order for search engines to instantly access your web pages and content, your site should be “search engine friendly” with on-page SEO methods. So your content can get in front of your ideal potential customers faster and more effectively.

On-Page SEO Techniques

SEO is simple in theory, but not in practice. Keywords are at the heart of SEO, but technical excellence and premium quality content are also needed to gain maximum visibility. We can list the popular on-page SEO components that have a direct or indirect effect on the success of your website and the tactics you can quickly implement as follows:

Mobile Compatibility

According to Google mobile search statistics, more than half of all search volume comes from smartphones. This means you always have to make sure your website is mobile-friendly.

In addition to looking at responsive design elements, Google also looks at the performance of your mobile page as a ranking factor. You can take advantage of accelerated mobile pages (AMP) to get fast loading times for mobile users. If you wish, what is AMP? How to Use Google AMP? Check out our article.

Website Speed

There’s no point in optimizing your content if your page load speeds are a problem. When a page takes more than a few seconds to load, you lose visitors. Here’s what you can do to make your site as fast as possible:

website speed

There’s no need in optimizing your content if your page load time is slow because when a page takes more than a few seconds to load, you lose visitors. Here’s what you can do to make your site as fast as possible:

  • Late loading pages may be due to Javascript and image file size. In this case, the focus should be on compressing images and optimizing the code.
  • Using a CDN (content delivery network) allows visitors to access your site’s data from the nearest server based on their geographic location, which means faster page load times.
  • If your site is slow, it may be a solution to increase your package by contacting your hosting provider, you can also consider non-shared hosting alternatives such as vds or dedicated server or cloud servers, which promise more performance depending on the size of your project.

Bluehost provides the fastest hosting packages

Clean URL

Google has made it clear that URLs help them better understand what a page is about. Proper use of URLs can also help improve click-through rates.

So how can you optimize your URLs?

  • Making sure they are relevant to the content on the page
  • By adding your primary keyword to your URL (helps both search engines and users understand the content of a page)
  • By placing the keyword as far left in the URL as possible
  • Keep it concise (Google often shows URLs in search results. If a page URL is a long string of random letters and numbers, it won’t help people understand your page. The better they understand your page’s purpose, the more likely they are to click the search result Also, short URLs are easy to share and remember).
  • Using a hyphen between words (A hyphen makes URLs more readable).

Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Each page has a title tag in the form of a clickable link that appears as a title in search results. The meta description, on the other hand, is a brief summary of the page that appears under the title tag in search results. Both are much more functional than you might imagine.

The title tag is a direct ranking factor, meta descriptions are not a direct ranking factor. However, both are very important as they help search engines and users understand the purpose of a page.

Title tags and meta descriptions play an important role in the click-through rate when a site is listed in search results. When both the title and meta description are optimized, the Click Through Rate (CTR) will increase, which whispers to Google that your content is valuable. Higher CTR means higher ranking.

One of the important steps of your on-page SEO is, to control the meta title and meta description of each page.

  • Put your primary keyword near the beginning of the title tag.
  • Keep the title tag around 55 or 60 characters so it doesn’t show up halfway through search results (WordPress plugins like Yoast guide the length of your meta tags).
  • Avoid capital letters in your title tags.
  • Give each page a unique title so Google doesn’t think you have duplicate pages.
  • Write clear, engaging headlines that users will want to click on.
  • Add your primary keyword to your meta description (this keyword is in bold in the Search results list).
  • Limit the meta description to 155 characters.
  • Build your meta description so it accurately describes the page (think of it like Ad text and be sure to prompt clicks).

Internal links are arguably one of the most neglected tactics in SEO. While it’s an underused strategy, internal links help Google crawl your site, understand the relationship between pages.

Also, internal links allow you to reveal old content and increase your chances of getting backlinks. Redirecting all your links to your homepage is not SEO-friendly. Internal links spanning the pages of your site increase the usability of your website by making your content touch each other. It causes users to find your relevant content and stay on your site longer. It reduces the bounce rate and improves the conversion rate.

  • Have 5 or more internal links on each content page.
  • Optimize your anchor text (Describing the target link and using which keyword you want the linked page to rank for is important).
  • Scan your old content and add links to recently published content.
  • Link extensively to pages that convert well.
  • It’s also important to link from authoritative pages like your homepage.

User experience

While on-page SEO is thought to be about search engines, it is also about users. Considering the search intent, avoid stuffing your content with keywords, creating long, comprehensive, relevant content, every step you take in the name of on-page SEO contributes to the user experience on your page.

User experience is measured by a set of signals that show how users perceive their interaction experience with a page. Signals also include criteria such as page speed and mobile compatibility.

Techniques for a user experience that also improve the wait time on your page; It can include anything that makes your content easier to read, from referencing relevant content to digestible paragraphs, adding bullet points to a summary. For example, to improve the user experience, you should check for broken links and improve your navigation hierarchy to present needed information quickly.

If you consider on-site SEO elements such as semantic SEO and user intent, you will naturally optimize your site for user experience. Because the purpose of a search engine is to provide users with relevant and high-quality content. This means that what’s good for users is also good for SEO.

Titles

You should ensure that you use appropriate title tags for a consistent information hierarchy in articles. It is recommended to have an H1 containing only the main keyword on each of your pages, and subheadings such as H2, H3 containing main keyword variations.

Using multiple title tags (H2, H3..) on your pages helps users grasp the content quickly, which improves the overall user experience.

Also, subheadings help Google understand the content of a page. When creating titles, you should make sure to use your primary keyword in at least one or two H2 titles. It is recommended that you try to re-add the primary keyword in H3 or other titles if it is relevant and makes sense. Adding long-tail keywords to some titles will also work to reinforce signals to Google about the broad topic.

Contents

Google wants to show high-quality content that satisfies their search intent, completely and efficiently solving the searcher’s problem. Your content needs to provide value to searchers and be better than any other page Google has.

We can list the popular techniques used in SEO compatible articles as follows:

  • Aim for at least 2000 words. Clearly state the problem and solution by writing short and persuasive introductions in your essays.
  • Avoid long sentences and wide paragraphs.
  • Divide the article into sections no longer than 300 words with subheadings.
  • Place the target SEO keyword naturally throughout the page.
  • Prepare the content according to the search intent (search intent).
  • Use hyperlinked phrases to get people to move down the text.
  • Combine stories and emotions to engage readers.
  • Create content such as guides, guides, checklists, and FAQs that explain popular concepts, tools, and concepts in your industry.
  • If your content is very short or specific, you can add videos to reduce bounce rates.

What is an SEO Compatible Article? By reading this article, you can get tips to help you settle on the first page.

Keywords

If you can guess what’s driving users to perform the relevant search when using keywords, you’ll be millions of light-years ahead.

The more specific a search query is, the more informed the user is. When potential customers are ready to make a purchasing decision, they tend to use more specific search terms. That’s why it’s recommended to use long-tail keywords that have a low search volume, have the potential to generate a ton of traffic, and make it easier for you to rank. For this, you can search for your main keyword in Google and look in the “Searches related to …” section and take advantage of the autocomplete in the search box.

  • Try to use your target keyword within the first 100 words. This not only tells Google the main topic of your page, but also gives users an indication that they are in the right place.
  • Use variations of your keyword for Semantic (Semantic) search and place all keywords naturally.
  • You also need to consider the keyword density on your pages. Most SEO experts state that the ideal keyword density is around 1-2%. This means it would be appropriate for your keyword to appear one to two times every 100 words.

Legibility

Text readability is not a direct ranking factor. However, a highly readable text is easier for Google and users to digest. Create articles that are easy to review, as most people will read your content on mobile devices. Pay special attention to the font, font size, line height, and line length. These will determine how your text will look visually and will have a huge impact on readability. Also to make your text more readable:

  • Divide the page into reviewable sections.
  • Use multiple headings and subheadings.
  • Avoid large blocks of text.
  • Use bulleted lists.
  • Take advantage of supporting images.
  • Use clear, actionable, short sentences.
  • Aim for 2-4 sentences for each paragraph.
  • Write using simple conversational language.
  • You can use plugins like Yoast that show the readability score of your content.

Visual Optimization

Images need descriptive filenames of hyphen-separated words to optimize for SEO. You should also add appropriate descriptions to the image alt tags with the keywords included in the article. Alt text helps search engines understand the image.

It is also important to optimize the file size so that it loads quickly while maintaining image quality. Large images have a negative impact on page load time, and this hurts your chances of ranking high in Google.

Up-To-Date

News articles, trends, and periodicals have a limited lifespan. You can bring trends and newsworthy events to your blog from time to time to see a spike in traffic, but remember that always fresh content will continue to have value years after it is published.

It is also recommended that you constantly try to post new content. Each piece of content is a brand new opportunity for you to be noticed by your ideal potential customers.

Improve it by identifying poor-performing content and adding more subtitles, images, data. In this way, updating and re-broadcasting old broadcasts will revive the traffic.

Warning

White hat SEO is a user-focused ethical approach that involves creating content that adds value. It is the use of techniques related to creating high-quality content for your site visitors and optimizing the user experience as possible while making strategic tweaks.

Unethical and known as black hat SEO practices, on the other hand, damage your website ranking when noticed by Google. Black hat SEO is search engine rules-breaking tactics that involve repeating keywords or phrases too often to look unnatural and hidden redirects to improve rankings quickly. Gray hat SEO is a term used for situations where White and Black Hat SEO tactics are applied together.

As we mentioned above, Google searches for pages that best answer the searcher’s query. So, black hat or gray hat approaches can cause you to get hurt on the way to your destination.

If you wish, what is Black Hat SEO that we are talking about ways to get rid of Black Hat SEO? You can read our article.

summary

On-page SEO is all about optimizing your website titles, URLs, meta descriptions, and content to improve your ranking in organic search results.

On-page SEO is not a one-time job as search engines prioritize up-to-date information. Therefore, what is On-Page SEO in the face of mysterious Google algorithms that are constantly changing? It is recommended that you continue your research and focus on providing the best possible user experience.

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