SEO is the continuing method of improving your website rankings in search engine results pages aimed at generating multiple traffic streams to your website. It is a strategy that involves not just one, but several techniques including on page SEO, which are designed to make your website highly visible to search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing and grab the attention of Internet users.
What is On Page SEO?
On page SEO is the process of arranging your website’s text and content so that its pages are easily found by search engine crawlers whenever an Internet user searches for keywords or phrases that match what appears on your website. It is a natural method that is increasingly challenging as the web page population continues to grow.
Keyword research
: On page SEO depends primarily on intelligent keyword choices. Most online buying activity starts with a keyword search in a search engine like Google or Yahoo. Keywords are words or combination of words that an Internet user types into the search field of a search engine to find websites that cater to their specific needs. Knowing what keywords your target market or audience frequently uses to find businesses should therefore be your first step in SEO.
While there are online keyword suggestion tools you can use for choosing the right keywords, SEO experts strongly recommend using these automated tools only after conducting your own brainstorming.
A good starting point would be to ask what problem or problems your product or service can solve. Put yourself in the shoes of your target market or audience and ask the relevant questions about the problem. Internet users type different words or combination of phrases in search engines, some of which include questions about a problem or issue. Focus on the needs of your potential client to come up with the best set of keywords for on page SEO.
It takes skill and experience to conduct effective keyword research, something that is best left for SEO experts to take care of.
After coming up with a list of keywords relevant to your website and products or services, it’s time to use them on your page.
- In title tag: Search engines like Google put much weight on keywords found in the title tag of your website. It’s not just enough to add the keywords to your title tag; you also need to use those keyword phrases in an intelligent manner so that your title appeals as well to your intended reader.
- In domain name: Domain names containing relevant keywords rank quite well in Google. This is why generic domain names have become scarce and sell well in the resellers market.
- In body text: Use keywords in the portion of your website that is visible to your target audience. This is also known as your site’s content which can take the form of articles or blog posts. The appearance of keywords should make sense to the reader and be kept to a minimum because search engine crawlers are programmed to detect overuse and lower a site’s ranking as a result.
When providing keyword rich articles or blog entries, use only original, relevant and useful content. SEO content writing is both an art and a skill that is best left to an expert article writer.
Other portions where you can add keywords to increase site visibility include the anchor tags, description meta tag, and page URL.
Site age: Google also takes a look at the age of your site or when it first went live on the Internet. This may be affected, however, by changes in site ownership. This is also why aging a domain adds to its resale value.
Site history: A lot of the visitor activities on your website are visible to search engine crawlers. Click through rates, bounces, duration of stay, number of views and bookmarks are some of the data that Google uses to rank a page accordingly. Improve your site history with online tools such as Sexy bookmarks, effective ads, and by feeding it fresh content regularly.
Internal links: Again, taking the keywords you obtain from careful research, you link them to target web pages in your site. Google displays the internal links as indented listings which rank well in its search engine results pages. You may have to adjust keywords appearing in previous articles to match those in your target web page.
TLD extension: Your site’s top level domain extension which may appear as ‘.com’, ‘.org’, ‘.info’ or ‘.net’ carry different weights in Google’s search criteria with the ‘com’ extension apparently preferred. For businesses that target local clients, a geographical domain extension also boosts search rankings.
On page SEO is still the most natural way to get good search rankings in Google and other popular search engines. While anyone can implement DIY SEO using popular techniques previously mentioned, you’ll want to leave the process to an expert because the growing number of websites and pages on the Internet make search engine visibility increasingly difficult.
If customers can’t find your website you need help? Just ask
