Did you know as many as 56 percent of businesses don’t include SEO optimized pages as part of their digital marketing strategy?
If you fall into this category, this needs to change.
Why? As many as 51 percent of all website traffic is generated using organic search — that’s over half!
So, if you’re not giving SEO the care and attention it deserves, you could be missing out on valuable customers. Luckily for you, we explain everything you need to know here in this article.
Let’s dive in!
What’s On-Page SEO?
Before we delve into why you need on-page SEO, here’s a brief explanation as to what it is.
In short, on-page SEO is the optimization of all the following (on each web page):
- The content (both your copy and images)
- HTML source code
- Technical set-up
- Your site’s user-friendliness
You should note: Best practices relating to on-page SEO frequently change. So, make it your mission to keep up to date with all the latest SEO news. That way you’ll stay ahead of the game!
Is On-Page SEO Hard to Do?
You’ll be pleased to hear if you own your own website, you have full control over the background tech and quality of your content.
Here are a few things to focus on:
The Standard of Coding
First things first, ensure you’re not doing anything to block search engines crawlers from indexing your site.
If you’re using WordPress, that’s great! It’s one of the most SEO-friendly platforms on the market. You can access plugins that help you handle technical aspects of SEO, like the issue we’ve just highlighted.
Top Tip: Download the free Yoast SEO plugin. This usually solves most technical SEO issues, without you even doing anything!
Publish Incredible Content
We don’t need to tell you; people come to your site because you have the info they need.
So, are you doing anything about that?
Solution: publish excellent content- it really is as simple as that.
If you’re unsure where to begin, below is a list of content formats. You should experiment to see what your audience likes the most:
- Long form content: By this, we mean how-to guides, extensive reviews, reports on industry news, etc.
- Infographics: with text explaining the imagery
- Videos: with a text transcription of the video
Search engines read the copy on your site, to help them work out where they should rank your page.
Top Tip: Ensure the writing on your website contains the correct keywords, use them in such a way they look natural. The last thing you want is to look as though you’re keyword stuffing- that’s a big no-no,
Not to mention, your copy should always be easy to read and provide something of value. If you manage to do all that — you shouldn’t go too far wrong!
Find out more about the benefits of on-page SEO, and get a better understanding of why it’s worth the time and effort!
A User-Friendly Website
Visitors should be able to navigate your website with ease. So, it’s imperative your web design provides users with access to the content they need and fast.
You could have the best-looking website in the world, but if it isn’t user-friendly, it’ll negatively impact your SEO.
What’s General SEO? (AKA Off-Page SEO)
Off-page SEO refers to links that point back to your site (that’s in addition to other external signals that communicate to search engines your site’s reliability)
So, the more relevant links you get back to your site, the higher you’ll eventually rank on Google’s search results. Simple right?
“How?” we hear you cry.
Two words: Guest. Blogging.
Research the most popular and authoritative blogs in your niche and reach out to them. There’s a good chance they’ll accept guest posts.
Remember — it’s essential you’re allowed to link back to your site. Otherwise, it’s of little use to you. So, don’t forget to mention this while negotiating the terms of your work.
If they refuse, move onto another blog.
The Key: Combine Both Off-Page and On-Page SEO Techniques
Each and every SEO strategy should focus on getting your web pages as high up the rankings as possible. This means providing Google with what it wants to see- which as we’ve just said is a mixture of on-page and off-page SEO optimization.
So, the best bet is starting with on-page SEO optimization. Once you’ve mastered this, your off-page SEO techniques are far more likely to be successful.
This makes sense right? If you’re trying to promote a poor-quality site, building links pointing back to it will be more of a challenge! Who’s going to share a link to a web page when it looks like something pulled out the ’90s? Or, if the content is dull?
Answer: No one.
So, fix your on-page SEO and then focus on link building strategies. Capiche? This should save you a lot of time in the long run!
Did You Learn Something About SEO Optimized Sites?
We hope this article taught you something new about SEO optimized web content.
Here at Ranking Check, we provide visitors with a handy tool which allows you to see where you rank on popular search engines. Just plug in your domain name and we’ll generate a keyword ranking report.
This works wonders for helping you to improve your SEO strategy. Enjoy!