The ultimate goal of SEO is to stimulate more relevant traffic to your site by optimizing your web page to rank higher in search engine results. This means that understanding how search engines rank should be one of the most compelling subjects for anyone with a website and an intended audience. Adapting a successful SEO strategy means focusing on adapting the best tactics that will allow your page to be seen by the people who want to see it. The internet never stops changing and it’s user base is continually growing so there are always new things to be learned about SEO. Below are the tried and true most useful on page SEO tactics to incorporate into your marketing strategy with the goal of launching your page towards the top of Google’s search results.
STREAMLINE YOUR TITLE AND CONTENT –
Imagine reading the title of this blog “An All Encompassing Guide to Understanding On Page SEO” and finding out that the body of the content was actually a restaurant review. Not only would you feel confused and mislead but you’d be off this site faster than the click of a mouse! You don’t want to fool visitors of your site because this will only increase your bounce rate— when users quickly leave your site— and it will show sites like Google that your content isn’t relevant to the people using their search engine. Ideally your title should include keywords that are important and relevant to the content on the page and make sure that your title is no longer than 60 characters as Google cuts off at 60. Make your titles relevant to the topics that you write about to ensure you’re gaining the readership who will appreciate your content. You can use Moz’s preview tool (https://moz.com/blog/new-title-tag-guidelines-preview-tool) to visualize what your title tag will look like to a search engine user.
USE APPLICABLE HEADER TAGS-
HTML Header tags are simple enough to understand. These tags allow Google to grasp the main ideas of longer posts. Header tags rank in importance from <H1> to <H6> in a hierarchy. But remember you don’t need to use all 6 of the headers on your page but also don’t skip levels <H1> to <H3> with out an <H2> in-between. <H1> tags are by far the most important and according to Google should be used only once per keyword targeted page. <H2> are the subheadings for the <H1> tag. They are important and can be used multiple times per page, and <H3> follows. The rest of the tags are not typically used on modern day web pages, and the focus should be kept on the first three. Keep in mind that your tags shouldn’t be too “spammy” and should be as applicable as possible to the content you are providing to users.
-THEY’RE NOT CALLED KEYWORDS FOR NOTHING-
Keywords are words and phrases that can bring an increase in traffic to your website and this is the key to success. Choose keywords by putting yourself in the shoes of your viewer… What would you Google? If you optimize your page with keywords, people looking up certain phrases on Google will have a better chance of finding your website. You should always use your keyword at the very start of your content to highlight that your page is truly focused on the topic of your target keyword. Use your Keyword in the page’s URL as well. There are tons of great tools paid and unpaid to track keywords like Ahrefs https://ahrefs.com and blogspot’s keyword tool
-META DESCRIPTION-
The meta description is what readers are using to gauge interest in your webpage, so writing a pertinent meta description is extremely important to gaining traffic to your website. The meta description is also important because it’s what search engines use to figure out what you’re writing about and the audience they should show your page to. Ideally the title, meta description and on page keywords should compliment each other. When all three of these factors work together search engines can understand what your page is about and who to show it to. You should really want to create a flow within these three categories to make your SEO strategy as seamless as possible. Keep in mind that the new changes to the Google SERPS allows for 170 characters in your description, but other search engines may truncate descriptions longer than the traditional 150-160 characters.
-THE INS AND OUTS OF LINKING-
There are two types of links that are central to SEO: Inbound and Outbound. Typically Inbound links are other webpages that link to your web page, but you can link between information on your own site as well. Include inbound links to your other relevant pages to create a flow through your webpage. This not only highlights other knowledge that you can share on topics but it also allows you to promote your own content! And who better to promote yourself than well.. yourself! Outbound links are great within blog posts because the internet has a plethora of information including authoritative links that Google trusts. Including outbound links to tools, infographics, videos and beyond can make the user’s experience positive and memorable while they’re on your website. For Example, nibbler http://nibbler.silktide.com/ and Mysite Auditor http://mysiteauditor.com/ are really great tools that give you a lot of information in regards to links in and out of your page, SEO information and beyond — I highly recommend trying these out. Linking out to other bloggers in the same field as you often times leads to them sharing your content within their social media circles landing you more site visits.
-SOCIAL SHARING BUTTONS-
Don’t forget to add your social media sharing buttons on your blog. The more social media shares the more clicks to your site you’ll get. http://www.addthis.com/
SEO is a vital step in content marketing. You may very well have great content, but without any optimization you won’t be able to reach your target audience. SEO and content creation are like beginnings and ends— you can’t have one without the other.
Here are some other paid tools and software to look into and test out if you’re serious about improving your SEO.
Majestic https://majestic.com/
Market Samurai http://www.marketsamurai.com/
