4 Ways to Improve Your On-site SEO
On-site SEO is very important – it can mean the difference between page one rankings and page 8 rankings.
It really is that powerful, much to many marketers surprise. They think it’s all about links and contextual content, and they’re certainly not wrong but this should be complimented by very effective on-site optimisations.
An SEO Manchester Agency that I once worked with told me oh how they work with their clients to educate them about the importance of on-site SEO. They tell them that links are great votes, but if they’re voting for you on the topic of “Marketing” and then your website is on the topic of “Content Writing” then that’s not going to work as well as it could do. The on-site stuff should reflect what’s coming in to the site in terms of links.
Tips to Improve On-site SEO
There are many factors that Google take into consideration when they’re trying to work out how to rank your website in their index base on its relevancy – both from links and, more importantly, on-site factors.
Among the factors taken into consideration on-site are things such as titles and content headers which help Google to understand exactly what each page on a website is about – the title is the first indication with header tags going some way to confirm this before the content really puts the nail in the coffin and leaves nothing to doubt. Simple, right?
Here’s a few tips to help you to better your on-site SEO:
1) Titles Follow the Keyword Research
Before deciding what to place in your title, it’s important to perform a little keyword research using Google’s tool – it’s free to use and helps you to come up with a list of ideal search queries that people are searching for along with their average monthly search volumes.
You should use this list of keywords and work out which are most relevant to your business and its services or products and then stick it in your title along with a close variation to further increase the sites relevancy. This is very effective.
Got that? Cool, now let’s move on to your header tags.
2) Headers Follow the Titles
Once you’ve decided which keywords to use in your sites title, you are now ready to start writing some content which will be lead by good header tags. Your H1 (header 1) tag should almost always contain your most important, or largest keyword.
H2 (header 2) tags can be used after the H1 as a sub-piece of the H1. For instance, if your H1 were to be “Learn SEO Online” then your H2 tag could be something like “SEO Courses for Easy Online Learning” or something similar which would be followed by even more content. This really helps Google to understand the exact topic of a website and its contents which in-turn helps you to gain better rankings.
Got that? Cool, now let’s move on to your content.
3) Content Follows the Headers
As mentioned above, each header tag should be followed by some content.
Use a H1 tag, enter some content revolving around that and then use the H2 to drill into a more granular or specific topic that is directly related and is also a largely searched for keyword that you’re targeting. Follow this with more content, rinse and repeat. You can also bring H3 (header 3) tags into the mix to bring even more relevancy to the table although you need to ensure you have enough content – no SPAM!
4) Social Media Integration
Once your pages are as relevant as possible, you want the search engines to love them but you also want visitors to love them enough to share them on big social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr. This helps.
Hiring a good Social Media Management company will really help you to get this balance right and also provide you with a process for coming up with great titles for the shared content in order to drive the best possible CTR (click-through-rates) from these large social media platforms. Facebook and Twitter are the best for most businesses although for fashion and similar industries, Tumblr and Pinterest are winners in these markets.
Final Thoughts
SEO as a whole is quite confusing and hard to grasp for the majority of business owners, but if you simply take the time to play around with the tips mentioned here then it won’t take you long at all to become a master of on-site SEO.
Try not to over-use target keywords on your pages otherwise you could be the target of an over-optimisation penalty from Google – these do exist and so you really need to be careful otherwise you could easily destroy your businesses visibility online overnight. Remember that your sole purpose of building a website is for visitors and not search engines – keep this in mind at all times.
Try Lead Forensics to get the most from your SEO.