On-Page SEO Factors – WebPro SEO
Title Tags
Title tag is the text that appears at the top of your browser window whenever you view a website. It is also seen as your site title in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) when users find it via a search query. Title tags, also referred to as Page Titles, help search engines to decide on the topical relevance of the page.
For best on-page SEO it’s essential to match the title tag and the page content by including the main keyword of the page into the title tag. Create short, clear and appealing title tags to attract attention of users and thus increase your site CTR (click-through-rates). Some people also include site’s name or site’s URL to help promote their brand.
Best title tags are those written for both users and search engines, and here are the guidelines to follow when creating your page titles:
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Include page’s main keyword into the title tag
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Use unique titles for every page
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Make the titles short and clear
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don’t stuff titles with keywords
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Use different title structure for different types of pages (i.e. homepage, category pages and article pages)
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Add site name or domain name for branding purposes
There are a number of title tag templates that you can use depending on the page type. We suggest the following scheme:
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Homepage Title: Site name | Main Keyword(s)
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Category Page Titles: Category Name | Main Keyword(s) | Site Name (or site URL)
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Article Page Titles: Article Title | Site Name (or site URL)
Bear in mind that title tags are the most effective time investment you can make in your on-page SEO.
Meta Tags
Meta tags – meta description and meta keywords – are used to tell the search engines what your site pages are about. Despite the fact that they lost their seo value due to past abuse, they are still very important to help search engines determine site’s topic and hence enhance its chances of ranking for the targeted keywords.
And last but not least – the meta description tag is seen in SERPs as the snippet (site’s description) and hence strongly influences the readiness of users to visit your site.
Meta Description Tag
- Keep it short – between 50 to 150 characters, up to 2 sentences.
- Use the main keyword of the page and its variations
- Make it unique for each page
- Make it clear and attractive, enticing search engine users to click on your URL
- Include site’s name (or brand name) to help with branding.
Meta Keywords Tag
Most SEO expert will tell you that meta keyword tag has no significance whatsoever, yet it certainly doesn’t hurt to have it in place and these tips will tell you how:
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Include only keywords relevant to the page topic
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Include only keywords used in the page content
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Use only a few keywords (up to 10 max), don’t stuff it
Keyword Usage
Effective keyword usage means matching the keywords with page content. Keyword usage is about how your keywords are utilized throughout the page text and ultimately determine the topical relevance of that page. On the one hand, writing your page content with only 1-2 keywords per page helps you stay laser-focused, and on the other hand, it allows you to write naturally, using keyword variations and related words (LSI).
All these helps search engines unambiguously determine topical relevance of your site and reward it with better rankings for the relevant keywords.
SEO Copywriting tips
Here is a summary of tips how to write your content to ensure proper keyword usage:
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Have a single topic per page
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1-2 keywords per page
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Write naturally to inform your users, not for search engines
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Have the page’s main keyword in the Title tags
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Use the page’s main keyword in Meta description
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Use the page’s main keyword in meta keywords
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Use the page’s main keyword and its variation in H1-H3 tags
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Use the main keyword evenly throughout the page
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Use the main keyword’s variations
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Use related terms or LSI
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Use fair keyword density (between 1-4%, whatever fits in naturally!)
Unique Content
- It has the same content as another web page (whether from your site or other site)
- Absence of content on website (empty pages with only menu, navigation, sidebars etc.)
- Site has orphaned pages - i.e. pages not linked to from anywhere (not even from within the site)
- Non-user-friendly URL structure (e.g., URLs containing search parameters like mysite.com/products.php?id=21&cat=4&page=13 – also called dynamic URL)
- modify their content
- add unique content to them or
- remove those pages completely
Other On-Site Factors
There is a number of other on-page factors that are strictly speaking beyond the on-page SEO, namely - sitemap, url structure and internal linking. These belong to site architecture and will be discussed elsewhere.
In reality, search engines may have dozens of factors they use to determine sites’ rankings. Despite that, however, following the on-page SEO techniques presented here should be sufficient to optimize your site content to the extent that warrants the best position in SERPs achievable without backlinks. To improve your site rankings further you need to start building backlinks, but that is a subject of another article.
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