On-Page SEO is the often forgotten aspect to SEO and that's understandable – it’s not very fun. However, if you want to start a successful SEO campaign, you'll need to pay attention to on-page SEO, especially with regular Panda updates targeting on-page SEO.
Important On-Page SEO Factors:
Frequently updated content: Search engines no longer look for stagnant content – they want to keep their content “fresh.” One of the simplest ways to accomplish a freshly updated site is to have a blog with several blog posts per week. One blog post a day or every other day is fine and will accomplish the job.
Integrating Google Authorship: Google seems to be paying more attention to Authorship every single month. Integrating Google Authorship helps Google use the tool to curate your content and direct more authority to proven and credible authors in a given niche. It also has other benefits as well because it puts your headshot appear next to your content in search results (think CTR).
Heading Tags: Heading tags are not nearly as important as they used to be but they are still somewhat important to your success. Remember each page should have an H1 tag that includes your kw along with an H2 tag. Keep in mind; you’ll want to use your keywords naturally.
Alt tags: Once again, alt tags are not as important as they used to be but they still play a role in on-page SEO. Alt tags help visually impaired visitors navigate and determine what your images are for and what they mean. They also help your images rank for image searches.
On-page SEO and Design
Another important component of on-page SEO is your design. Having a clean design that is easy to navigate is essential for proper on-page SEO. Here are the basics to proper design for on-page SEO. We’ll discuss them in detail after the list. Your site should have:
* A clean design that is easy to navigate.
* A color scheme and font that is easy on the eyes.
* Minimal advertising that is unobtrusive.
* A mobile responsive design.
Having a clean design is essential for on-page SEO because it provides a better user experience and when a manual review comes around, you’ll be able to show you’re building a site for your users.
Likewise, balancing advertising with content is a delicate process but it that has been debated for a while now. Most people agree that advertising should be optimized for the best conversion percentage but this should not sacrifice user experience.
Mobile is the future and the Google Hummingbird update has made having a mobile responsible design more important. Many web developers now offer mobile designs and can code your current design to operate efficiently on mobile devices. If you haven’t begun to think about mobile, you should start now, because mobile is the next big thing.
In addition, if your site is based on mages, you should use mouse-overs to blend images with alt text so wen someone puts the cursor on an image, you can show specific CTAs to your users. These mouse-overs also make your images easy to index.
When it comes to on-page SEO, remember you’re building a site for your users not search engines.
Think about websites that you enjoy going too and take bits and pieces from their designs to create your own custom, creative design.
Make sure to pay attention to the technical portion of on-page SEO as well because they will enhance your search visibility to search engines, enabling you to rank better for your desired search terms.
or go back to last chapter:
