In this article on search-pilot I will be sharing with you 10 On-Page SEO techniques, these are the same techniques that I have used over the years.
I am Muogbo Elochukwu Chris the founder of Search-Pilot the place where marketers turn for SEO and Digital marketing tips and tutorials, today you are going to learn the 10 tactics that i use to optimize every page of my website. Keep reading and also let me know in the comment section which is your best technique, do well to let me know if you have any question I will be glad to help.
as at 2007 more than 1 decade ago, on page seo was a lot different back then because those days keywords stuffing was all the rage, people will always argue about what the best keywords identity was. Today thanks to google updates like hummingbird and rankbrain, on page seo is much complex but one thing that hasn’t changed is that there is a right and wrong way to optimize your content and in this article you will learn the right way, so without further ado let’s jump right in with technique number one
On-Page SEO techniques
1. Use super short URL
Dean Brain recently teamed up with some SEO software companies and they conducted largest ranking factor study ever in total they analyzed 1 million google search results and discovered that short URLs tend to rank better than long URL, fortunately it’s very easy to use short URLs on your website.
whenever you publish a new page, always make the URL short and sweet, for example in my article about search engine optimization, my URL is simply search-piot.com/what-is-search-engine-optimization.
speaking of URLs this will lead us to our next technique.
2. Include your target keyword in your URL
again this is really simple and easy but it can make a difference in your ranking,
When creating URLs for your content just make sure to include your target keyword in that URL. for example, the post in the image above I’m targeting the keyword benefits of on-Page SEO so I made the URL short and it also included my target keyword in the URL.
This takes us to our next technique
3. Use LSI keywords
LSI keywords are words and phrases that search engines use to understand what your content is all about, for example let’s say that you’re writing an article about the ‘Simpson’ how weird would it be if your content didn’t include terms like Homer Springfield and mr. Burn.
in the SEO world these closely related terms are called LSI keywords and when you include these LSI keywords in your article it helps Google understand your content topic, so how do you know which LSI keywords to use.
A simple strategy that I use is to search for the target keyword in Google then scroll to the bottom where Google shows you the searches related to section.
The terms in bold from the image above usually make great LSI keywords to sprinkle into your content with that been said, it’s time for us to look at our next tip.
4. Publish long content.
Remember that ranking factor study that I mentioned earlier, something very interesting was discovered in that study, something that goes against conventional wisdom in the SEO and content marketing world and that discovery was that longer content tends to outrank shorter content. In fact the research showed that the average result on Google’s first page was 1890 words.
why does longer content work better?
Longer content tends to contain more of those LSI keywords that we talked about earlier, when you write long in-depth content you naturally include more LSI keywords which makes Google happy, also Google may have an inherent preference for longer content. Remember Google wants to show their user the best result for a given keyword and if your Page provides someone with a comprehensive answer to what that person is looking for Google will want to rank you high up on the first page in fact my highest ranking content also tends to be my longest content.
for example this post about On-page element for SEO success is a whopping 2083 words and that’s one of the reasons that it ranks higher.
Now let’s dive right in with technique number five
5. Optimizing your title tag for click-through rate
Now you probably already know that you should include your target keyword in your title, that’s like On-page SEO 101. But what you may not know is that you should also optimize your title tag for click-through rate why because it’s a huge Google ranking factor right now, in fact a Google engineer recently gave a presentation where he confirmed that they used CTR as a ranking factor. In Other words if people search for a keyword and click on your result it sends a strong message to Google that you’re a great result for that search and they’ll likely give you a rankings boost.
How can you optimize your title tag for CTR?
Here are two quick tips that work great, first include numbers in your title.
Have you ever wondered why your local magazine rack flashes numbers on every single cover?
That’s because numbers grab attention, in fact a study by conductor found that headlines with numbers get 36% more clicks than headlines without a number.
Another simple way to boost your CTR is to add bracket and parentheses to your title.
When HubSpot recently analyzed three million headlines they discovered that brackets and parentheses boosted CTR by an average of 38%, so let’s say you had a title that originally look like this “benefits of on-page SEO” by changing your title tag to this “benefits of on-page SEO(updated)” you can significantly boost your Pages click through rate, this simple tactic works so well that I tend to use brackets or parentheses in almost every single title.
Okay we’re making a ton of progress because we are already on technique number six
6. Use external links
The guys that reboot online recently ran an interesting SEO study they made up a new keyword that had zero search results in Google then they created ten different websites that were optimized around that fake keyword five of the websites linked out to other websites and five of their websites had no external links.
What do you think happened the five sites that contained external links out ranked a hundred percent over the sites without external links.
So it’s clear that Google uses external links as an on-page ranking factor the question is how can you use them on your site it’s simple to include two to five links to authority resources in Every single article for example at search-pilot I generous link out to resources that help my readers out and these external links make a small but significant difference in my rankings. Now that we have tackled external links it’s time for me to show you how to use internal links
7. Use internal links
This one is insanely easy whenever you publish a new piece of content make sure to link back to two to four older pages on your site but not just any older pages, pages that you want to rank higher. Now this may sound like common sense but I’m always surprised at the amount of people that add more than ten internal links to random pages on their site, sure any internal link is better than none at all.
If you want to get the maximum benefit from your internal links you need to use them strategically which means only using two to four per page and linking only to pages that need a Boost, that’s all there is to it.
8. Create a mobile-friendly content
This is another major ranking factor for a page, how friendly it is for people viewing it on their mobile devices. This is called “mobile-friendliness”.
There is not much point in having great content if users are struggling to view it on their phones.
More than 50% of all online traffic is done on phones. As a result, Google now indexes websites based on their mobile pages, not their desktop pages anymore.
To have a “mobile-friendly” page, it needs to be easy to read and function properly. A common issue with a page developed for desktop first, is that when it gets adjusted for mobile that text or images become too small to see. Or other interactive elements don’t work, become hidden or broken, e.t.c.
There are tools that will show you how mobile friendly your page is. Once again, Google has a Mobile Friendly Test tool that you can use to check how mobile friendly your page is. If it rates poorly, you know you have some adjustments to make.
Okay now we only have three techniques left, Are you ready?
9. Maximize site speed
Site speed is one of the few ranking factors that Google has publicly confirmed and in my own testing I’ve found that a faster site gives you a slight edge,
How can you make your site load faster?
First invest in premium hosting, when it comes to your web host you get what you pay for, the boost and speed that a high-end host provides make it well worth the investment.
The second way to improve your site speed is to use a CDN, CDN deliver your site’s content closer to where your user lives which makes your site load much faster.
With that said, it’s time for our last tip which is to Include multimedia in your content.
10. Include multimedia in your content.
If you read my stuffs at search-pilot you’ll notice that it used a ton of screenshots videos and charts in my content. All of this multimedia makes my content more valuable to my reader and make no mistake user experience is something that Google directly measure, for example if your Page has a high bounce rate and a low time on site Google will drop your ranking, on the other hand if people stick to your content like superglue Google will want to show your content to more people and in my experience, using lots of multimedia helps people stay on your site longer.
CONCLUSION
The importance of on-page SEO can never be over emphasized and the techniques of on-page SEO must be applied step by step to maximize the benefits of on-page SEO and to ensure that your site rank high on google, based on the research carried out over the years results have shown that non of the techniques we discussed earlier is more important than the other, which implies that all the 10 tips mentioned above are very significant in on-page search engine optimization.
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Now it’s your turn.
Which on-page SEO technique from this content are you going to use first, are you itching to try LSI keywords or maybe you want to start publishing longer content. Either way let us know by leaving a comment below right now.
