In the fifth part of the series, it’s time for us to learn about On-page optimization in a greater depth. Previously, we had touched a bit on the topic of On-page optimization while discussing the terms and the underlying concepts related to it but that was just the “tip of the iceberg” as there is a huge scope of discussing possible in n-page optimization.
It is really very difficult to cover on-page optimization in just a single article, as there are lots and lots of techniques and concepts to be discussed in this topic. So, this and the next article to come up will discuss almost everything you need to know about On-page optimization.
Title and Headline Optimization
The first thing that should come up in on-page optimization is the Title and Headline Optimization. Both the search engine bots and the visitors are significantly attracted by a carefully composed, well-written and perfectly optimized Title and Headline. You obviously have your own creative license to experiment with it, but there are some best practices which can taste you sweeter results.
Using the Keyword in the Title and Headline
(Priority: High, Difficulty: Low)
(Image Source: freedomideas.com)
The Title tag is something which encloses the text to be presented at the top of browser windows and tabs. It is also shown when external sites link to you, but the most important fact is that it is shown up in the search engine results page which seems to be the first impression for the searchers.
After researching your target keyword, you need to place them (exactly or partially) at least once in the Title and Headline of your webpage as it has been experimentally found to hold a very strong signal to the engines. It primarily helps the search engines to understand the relevancy of the web page.
It has also been experimentally observed that the searcher who have just clicked on a link (from the search engine results page) would like to see the same thing as the headline of the document. So, try to use the same Title and Headline (text enclosed within H1 tags) for your document.
The Importance of Keyword Position
(Priority: Medium, Difficulty: Low)
It has been observed in many research that the position of the Title tag holds strong importance in the ranking algorithms. Therefore, it is always advisable to use your target keyword as close to the beginning of the Title as possible. Not only does it pass a stronger signal to the engines, but it also helps a lot to improve the CTR (Click-through Rate) of your page.
Sometimes it is also a good practice to use the brand name at the end of the title, if the brand name is influential enough to make a difference in the CTR. But using the brand power in the title is not known to pass any extra strong signal to the search engines about the relevancy of the page.
(Image Source: moz.com)
Exact vs. Partial Match Keyword Usage
(Priority: Medium, Difficulty: Medium)
There is a lot of speculation about the use of Exact or Partial match keyword in the Title and the Headline of your webpage. Using the Exact keyword was always thought to pass a strong signal to the engines but now-a-days the scenario has changed a lot as using a Partial Match of it proves to reflect better results.
There are some tests which show that the use of Partial match keywords perform well in the SERPs, while there are others who contradict by the argument of decreased CTR. So, it’s up to you to decide which way you want to go, but I would rather stick with Exact match keyword at least for the Titles and Headlines.
But always ensure that your Title looks very natural, because there are many who overly use the “exact match” keywords thereby making their page titles look very unnatural (written just for the sake of the search engines).
Keep the Length of the Title in Mind
(Priority: Low, Difficulty: Low)
Always try to keep the length of the Title short and sweet, just within 70 characters as the search results page cannot show anything more than that. If you are in the flow of writing more than that, then it would be truncated and shown as “…”. So, what’s the use of writing too long titles if you cannot show it to the searchers?
Moreover, the browser tabs also can’t afford to show the full titles, which again supports the idea of keeping titles short enough. Moreover there is also an additional benefit of having short Titles, which can be shown fully and perfectly when external sites link back to you.
So, be very mindful while framing each and every word of the Title as it has got a lot of importance in on-page SEO and also holds the key to improve your CTR.
URL Optimization
Another very important yet overlooked on-page optimization factor is the URL optimization. Many of us are lazy or reluctant enough to consider the importance of the URLs and follow the best practices to optimize properly.
Keep the URLs Clear and Meaningful
(Priority: Medium, Difficulty: Low)
(Image Source: thenetimpact.com)
Try to ensure that the URLs convey a clear and meaningful message, both to the users and the search engine bots about the webpage it belongs to. For example:
1)
2)
The first one is way better than the second one as it is clearly understandable what the first URL is trying to convey, while those random numbers in the second URL gives almost no idea of what the webpage actually contains.
So try to keep the URLs as clear and meaningful as possible, which will not only help the search engines decipher your page better, but will also help the real users understand where they are going to land.
Be Mindful About the Length of the URLs
(Priority: Low, Difficulty: Low)
Always try to keep the URLs short and precise. There is simply no reason to dump unnecessary words in the URL and make it too long. Though some people contradict by saying that long URLs are more descriptive and prove to be helpful to the users, but there are some strong enough reasons to avoid them too.
It really becomes difficult for other websites to link back to a page having an unnecessarily long URL. No one likes to reference or mention an ugly-looking, extremely long and jagged up URL from their page. The visitors also don’t like clicking on links which appears all messed up. So, it’s always a good practice to keep them short and simple.
Using the Keyword in the URL
(Priority: Medium, Difficulty: Low)
If possible try to include the keyword in the URL of your webpage, because not only does it help the search engines understand the relevancy of your webpage better, it also increases the probability of users clicking on your link.
Keep the URLs short and clean by only including words which your target audience is searching for. Also try to place the keywords as close to the beginning of the URL as possible, as it has been experimentally observed to pass a slightly stronger signal to the engines.
Meta Information Optimization
Let me first make it clear to you, that Google had officially announced in 2009 that they “do not” use Meta Information’s like Meta Keywords, Meta Descriptions in their ranking algorithm, but that doesn’t mean that you do not need to focus on these meta information’s ever again, as they have some other benefits too.
Write a Compelling Meta Description
(Priority: Low, Difficulty: Medium)
Though not directly beneficial in terms of SEO, still a well-written Meta Description can do wonders for you by improving your CTR drastically. Why not consider it as a free spot given by the search engines to advertise the link of your webpage and utilize it properly.
It’s a very simple yet important step in which a carefully-crafted Meta Description can help searchers understand if the page contains information that they are actually looking for.
Carefully Consider the Length of the Description
(Priority: Low, Difficult: Low)
Though it’s time for you to write a short yet attractive summary of your webpage, but that doesn’t essentially mean that you will go on dumping whatever comes in your mind. The search engines don’t allow more than 160 characters in this description, so it’s a “very short” summary, and you need to keep it in that way.
It’s always better to keep the description between 150-160 characters, as anything over 160 characters will get trimmed by the engines and replaced by “…”. So, what’s the point of writing stuffs that won’t show up to the visitors? So, it’s better to spend a few minutes to think and carefully craft each and every word of it.
Keyword Placement in the Meta Description
(Priority: Low, Difficulty: Low)
Though placing your target keyword in the Meta Description will not fetch you any direct SEO benefits, but it can still prove to be helpful in improving the CTR when the keywords will be highlighted (in bold) in the snippets of the SERPs.
At a glance, it gives the searchers an impression of finding what they were actually looking for and thereby improving the Click-Through Rate. There are no direct SEO benefits involved with this, but it’s a best practice which ensures that your page is “perfectly” optimized for the search engines.
With this, we come to an end of this article but not for the topic of “perfecting on-page optimization”. We would continue this topic adding even more spices to it as the most important parts of on-page optimization, i.e. Content /Body Optimization and Image Optimization are still left to be covered.
So, in the very next article of this series, we would cover the most important parts of on-page optimization and move ahead with our goal of achieving an almost perfect on-page optimized document.
