On-Page SEO Factors – Optimizing On-Page Factors

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On-Page SEO Factors – WebPro SEO

As more and more value is being given by search engines to incoming links, on-page SEO alone can’t guarantee your site high rankings especially for high-competition terms, but it’s still among the most important ranking factors when it comes to low- or even medium-competitive keywords, and you can see the benefits of smart on-page SEO factors almost immediately.
 
Effective on-page SEO improves site’s usability and search-engine friendliness. It also determines how your site is indexed by the search engines helping them decide what your site is about. Finally, on-page SEO describes your site in search engine results, helping users to decide whether they want to visit it. All in all, by creating your site narrowly-focused and having your on-page SEO spot on, you can greatly help your site rankings.

There are 4 main on-page SEO factors to consider when doing your on-page SEO, and these are Title Tags, Meta Tags, Keyword Usage and Content Uniqueness. Let’s explain each of these in more details.

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:

  • Include page’s main keyword into the title tag

  • Use unique titles for every page

  • Make the titles short and clear

  • don’t stuff titles with keywords

  • Use different title structure for different types of pages (i.e. homepage, category pages and article pages)

  • 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:

  • Homepage Title: Site name | Main Keyword(s)

  • Category Page Titles: Category Name | Main Keyword(s) | Site Name (or site URL)

  • 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

Meta description tag doesn’t have a direct effect on site rankings, yet it’s the second important (after title) tag in the on-page SEO efforts. Use the tips below when composing the pages’ meta descriptions:
  • 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:

  • Include only keywords relevant to the page topic

  • Include only keywords used in the page content

  • 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:

  • Have a single topic per page

  • 1-2 keywords per page

  • Write naturally to inform your users, not for search engines

  • Have the page’s main keyword in the Title tags

  • Use the page’s main keyword in Meta description

  • Use the page’s main keyword in meta keywords

  • Use the page’s main keyword and its variation in H1-H3 tags

  • Use the main keyword evenly throughout the page

  • Use the main keyword’s variations

  • Use related terms or LSI

  • Use fair keyword density (between 1-4%, whatever fits in naturally!)

Unique Content

Google has two index databases – main index and supplemental index. Main index contains all the web pages you can find by performing a search – they are the ones displayed in SERPs. Supplemental index content, on the contrary, is by default hidden from search engine users, and therefore is bound to oblivion.

There are 4 main reasons why a webpage can get into the supplemental index:
  • 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)

While the latter two are to do with site architecture and outside the scope of this article, the first two factors can be handled by improving on-page SEO. Namely, if you find pages with duplicate content on your site, you should do one of the following things:
  • modify their content
  • add unique content to them or
  • remove those pages completely
Having duplicate content on your site, whether copied from other sites or simply duplicate pages featuring the same article (e.g., category pages and archive pages on blogs) cause search engines to penalize the site by putting these pages into supplemental index. This in turn may badly affect overall site rankings including the unique content pages. Therefore, to ensure your site may get high and stable rankings, you should find and remove all the duplicate pages on it as soon as possible.

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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SEO Optimized Content – Writing SEO Optimized Website Content

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SEO Optimized Content - WebPro SEO

SEO Optimized Content

In this article we are going to discuss how to create SEO optimized content by tying in your keywords with specific pages of your site while at the same time creating content for your users. This in turn means presenting content that provides your audience with maximum benefit and tightly focuses on the specific queries your visitors type in to find your site via search engines.

Search Engine’s View

The search engines consider a webpage relevant to the entered query if the page content is tightly focused around that specific keyword. Apparently, this is what users are looking for too. So from the search engine point of view it pays to optimize your site landing pages for one or maximum two keywords.
 
By doing this you help your audience to find what they are looking for quicker without the need to use site menu or search function. As a result, your user experience is improved which is reflected in their on-site behavior - they stay on your site longer and come back for more. That is, in turn, accounted for by search engines that offer your site better rankings.
 
Not only the inner pages tightly-focused around specific keywords receive better rankings, but in addition their high relevance also earns them natural backlinks from other webmasters and consequently boosts their rankings further.
 
When targeting long-tail keywords with low competition it’s best to match a dedicated page to a single keyword as this helps the page rank easier, and by having lots of such single-focused pages your site can enjoy tons of organic traffic without many or even any backlinks.

Matching Keywords to Pages

 To match keywords to pages you can follow this simple strategy:

  • Home page uses 1 to 3 of the most generic (‘theme’) keywords pertinent to your niche; they are usually highest traffic keywords as well
     
  • Match your primary keywords reflecting the major subtopics on your site to the Category pages, one per page;
     
  • Match your secondary keywords to internal pages with articles discussing specific issues/topics within a category; max 2-3 keywords per page.

The easiest way to do that is to split the full keyword list you composed while doing keyword research into 3 groups – homepage keywords, category keywords and article keywords. Here, using single and plural versions of the same keyword doesn’t smear page focus, so it’s safe to count single and plural forms as one keyword.

SEO Copywriting

Contrary to the common belief, SEO copywriting is not a trick to please search engines by using a specific keyword density and including a certain number of its variations. In fact, SEO copywriting is first and foremost targeted at the readers and looks to maximize their experience by providing narrowly-focused, informative content useful to the audience. If your articles provide this, they will automatically be loved by search engines!

What are the benefits of using the SEO copywriting approach?

·         First of all, tightly-focused content allows you to include keyword variations and LSI (related terms) naturally and easily

·         Narrowly-focused informative content often serves as a link bait, allowing you to get free backlinks form other webmasters reducing your backlinking efforts

And the good news is that you don’t need any special skill to become proficient at SEO copywriting. All that’s required is that you write naturally and clearly about one topic at a time.

However, if you struggle with copywriting in general, you can surely outsource the process of content creation provided you ask the copywriter to stick to the following guidelines:

  • Write on 1 topic per article with only 1 keyword
     
  • Write naturally without keyword stuffing and provide the reader with helpful information related to their query (keyword)
     
  • Make sure they use quality, rich language and engaging style.

Finally, if you have a new site then once your content is ready, you can upload it and schedule for publishing straight away.

What if You Have an Existing Website?

However, if you have an existing website, you need to go through your site pages and find all chunks and pieces unrelated or poorly related to the primary keywords of those pages. Once found – remove, rearrange, or rewrite those paragraphs following the guidelines given above for a new site (1-2 keywords per article, narrow-focused, natural and informative).

If you did your keyword research properly, rewriting or even tweaking selected paragraphs should do the job. If that, however, seems difficult, you may need to replace the existing articles with the new ones written with SEO copywriting in mind.

 

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Competitive Analysis – How to Evaluate Your Competition

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Competitive Analysis - WebPro SEO

Competitive Analysis Overview

The idea behind competitive analysis is threefold:

  • To find out who your main competitors are (in your niche and on your selected keywords);

  • Find out what they are doing to rank high?

  • Indentify ways to beat them.

Generally, to outperform your competitors in search engine rankings you have to prove to search engines that your site’s information is more relevant and precise with regard to a specific search term than that provided by the competing websites. To accomplish that, you first need to thoroughly study your competitors in order to discover what helps them to rank, and then come up with a strategy to beat them.

In this article we will discuss various approaches and tools you could use to achieve the desired goals.

Targeting Micro Niches

To determine the list of your competitors to later on analyze their strengths and take on the best strategies from them, you first need to do keyword research and come up with the ultimate list of your keywords. At the next step you should split your keyword list into 3-5 sub-groups depending on how big your list is.

Each subgroup should be based around one of your primary keywords, each of which would be targeting a specific sub-niche or category on your site. Once done, find your top 5 competitors for all the keywords you are planning to rank for in each of the subgroups.

Indentifying Your Competitors

You find top 5 websites competing with you on each of the keywords across the 3 main search engines – Google, Yahoo and Bing, - and to do that you need to use a score system. The score system should assign a certain number of points to each site based on how well it ranks on a particular keyword on each of the 3 search engines.  You repeat this procedure for every keyword in each subgroup.
 
Performing these calculations and then calculating the cumulative score for each of the keywords will show you who the most powerful competitors are in each of your subgroups (categories). You should then carefully look into their on-page SEO (title tags and meta tags, URL structure, internal linking, and keyword usage in headings, subheadings, image alt tags and the website texts) and off-page SEO (link building profile – who links to them and with what anchor texts; are these in-context links or stand alone links; how good is the on-page SEO (in particular, keyword usage) of those donor sites).

Building On Your Competitor Strengths

When analyzing your competitor websites you should be looking for couple of things – how difficult it would be to outperform them and what steps you need to take to accomplish that. Adopting the strongest search engine ranking factors from your competitors in terms of both on-page SEO and backlinking is what really should help you to come up with a winning strategy.

 

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