Do you want your website to rank high on the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages)? If so, you must add value to your website for visitors. A high ranking improves your website’s visibility, increasing traffic and revenue. However, you must have good SEO practices in Adelaide to rank high on the SERPs. Off-page and on-page SEO are among the factors that Google considers when ranking websites. In this blog, you will learn everything about on-page SEO to ensure your website ranks highly.
What is On-Page SEO?
On-page SEO involves optimisation strategies implemented within a website to help search engines identify its potential for higher ranking. Proper on-page SEO will ensure your website ranks highly for relevant keywords and attracts the targeted audience. On-page SEO practices include optimising your content, metadata, images, and page speed. Relevance is one vital factor that determines your position on SERPs. If your website content is irrelevant to the question entered by users, your web page will not show on Google 99% of the time. You must ensure your content is relevant before optimising other elements.
On-Page SEO Factors to Consider
Here are some on-page SEO factors that can impact your search engine rankings;
1. Optimise Your Content
Have you come across the phrase “Content is King?” Although the SEO industry changes constantly, content is a significant deciding factor when ranking websites. However, defining content quality depends on many factors. Some websites have high-quality content but fail to make it on Google’s first results page. This is because the content was written without proper audience research. Identify the most searched queries and create your content around these topics. Conduct keyword research to find the most searched query strings, and use the keywords in your content to rank high on the SERPS.
2. Optimise Your URL Structure
URLs are the building blocks of any website. All discussions about internal links, site structure, and link juice have URLs at their core. An excellent URL should provide a picture to users and search engines of what the web page is about. As such, SEO experts recommend making your URLs as short as possible and including a keyword. However, your URL may be longer if the title is lengthy. The best practice is to use the target keyword at the beginning of the URL and remove unnecessary text or numbers.
3. Images
Web users have a short attention span and are easily distracted while reading content. Fortunately, you can use images as a digital marketing and communication tool. Additionally, you will garner more organic traffic through Google Image Search. Optimising images is an effective on-page SEO technique. However, you must use images related to the theme at the recommended size and ensure you optimise the Alt text.
4. Internal Linking
A successful website should provide a hierarchy for each section within the site. The hierarchy allows users and search engines to navigate your website and get relevant information. Internal links give this hierarchy since they are hyperlinks from one page to another. You can place the links using text, images, documents, or videos. Internal linking within your website passes link juice from one page to another.
On-Page SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Are you creating high-quality content but not ranking well on the SERPs? Here are some on-page mistakes you may be making.
1. Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is a significant mistake that website owners make. Your industry has many businesses like yours striving to produce unique content to help them develop authority. As such, you must create unique and high-quality content to stand out. Most people make duplicate content mistakes when applying category or product listing filters. Please use the “conical tag” to avoid this mistake.
2. No Sitemap
A sitemap is an XML file (eXtensible Markup Language) designed to store and transport data. A sitemap feeds search engines with essential data about your website. As such, you must ensure your sitemap only contains pages that add value to your site. A sitemap allows Google spiders to crawl your website easily, increasing your ranking.
3. No Header Tags
Header tags organise your content and help search engines understand the parts of your page that are more important. You can also use header tags to prioritise the content on your web pages. However, misusing the header tags can lead to significant mistakes. So, ensure your primary header tag is unique and contains relevant keywords on the page. Also, remember to use keywords in your subheadings.
4. Slow Load Times
Google considers page load times when ranking websites. Your website will drop in ranking if it takes a long time to load on desktops and mobile devices. Please use Google’s PageSpeed to analyse your website’s loading speeds. The tool will also give reasons for slow load times and how to resolve the issue.
Conclusion
In summary, on-page SEO is extremely important. If you are looking to improve your page rankings in the SERPs, then you now know that you’ll need to continually update these metrics in line with the latest trends and suggestions from Google.
