If you have done research on SEO and search engines, you have seen the word on-page SEO many times. What is On -Page SEO? We will be sharing how to do on-site SEO and current on-page SEO techniques. After following this guide, you will be able to easily optimize your own websites or those of your customers.
What is On-Page SEO?
On-page SEO is an SEO technique that will help search engine bots understand what your page is about . Optimizing features such as meta title and description, title tags, internal links within the site will help you rank higher in search engines.
Why Should On-Site SEO Work Be Done?
When we do SEO for an article or page, we follow a certain set of methods to rank higher in the search engine. Google no longer only considers the on-page SEO score when ranking an article. It also takes into account social media signals (shares, likes, tweets, follows), backlinks, domain authority, and many other on- and off-site metrics.
With on-page SEO, our goal is to optimize an article or page in a natural but smart way so that search engines can easily select the target keyword and bring in targeted visitors to our website.
A lot has changed in the last few years after algorithm updates. While off-page SEO is important, on-page SEO should not be neglected. In particular, the golden rule still applies: “Content is king.”
We also recommend you to review the following articles about writing SEO compatible content.
How To Do On-Page SEO? Internal SEO Settings
On -site SEO , which is the first step of SEO studies , consists of various factors. If you have a site using WordPress infrastructure , you can easily make your internal SEO settings with plugins such as Rank Math SEO plugin, All in One SEO or Yoast SEO . If you are using a different system other than WordPress, let's examine the main issues to be considered within the scope of on-site SEO below.
1. Meta Title
Meta title is the most important SEO factor on the page. This is because the more engaging and optimized your headline is, the more people will click it. Generally, the more clicks your post gets, the higher your page value will be.
You should try to use the targeted keyword or keyword phrase at the beginning of the title (H1) tag, but if that's not possible, make sure it's in the title.
You should also not repeat the same keyword more than once in the title tag as you think it will help the article rank higher in search engines. This can hurt your ranking.
And keep the title length under 60 characters .
2. Page Permalink Structure
Making sure your URL is displayed correctly is an important metric on the page. You should use your target keyword in the URL and do not include special characters, symbols, brackets, commas, etc. in the URL. You should avoid using it.
Use hyphens to differentiate strings in your URL structure. These are called permalinks and are supported by most web browsers.
Changing the URL of a website or redirecting several URLs to a unique URL is a good practice for 301 redirects. However, for internal linking , it's best to link directly to the target URL, rather than linking to URLs that then redirect to redirected URLs. So you can avoid such errors when you remove the redirect.
3. Title Tags
You should use heading tags to highlight the main heading, subheadings, and key points. In WordPress the title tag H1 is set automatically. You no longer need to use H1 tags anywhere in the article. Also make sure to use title tags in chronological order like H1, H2, H3, H4
4. Keyword Density
Although we say that the keyword density should be limited to an average of 4-5 percent compared to the article, this rate may differ for each keyword. But as Matt Cutts explains, there is no real magic formula.
Our advice is to use semantically related words to help the search engine learn more about your content. Use your main keyword once in the first paragraph and again in the last paragraph. In addition, use it in the content that makes sense, without disturbing the integrity of the meaning.
5. Meta Descriptions
You should add a unique and relevant meta description to each page and blog post. You should also use your target keyword in the meta description. While search engines take keywords into consideration, it is also important for users to click on the post. You need to write reasonably meaningful and user-friendly meta descriptions about your post. Keep the description length under 140 characters .
Regarding meta keywords, Google has made it clear that they are not interested in these keywords. But some search engines like Bing may still be of some interest.
6. Visual Uses
In order to better present the subject in the content on your website, you should definitely include images. But don't help search engines understand what the images are about. For this, you should use HTML alt texts in your images.
Instead of IMG123 in the filename, you must give an image-related name. For example, assuming we have a white Iphone 8, this filename; It should be “white_iphone_8″. The tag should be alt=”White Iphone 8″, title=”White Iphone 8”.
Image optimization helps a lot in driving traffic from image searches. Keywords in the image title and alt text make your blog post more focused and targeted. Thus, you can appear in the visual search results and increase your SERP performance by attracting traffic from here.
For more detailed information about image optimization, we recommend you to review our article below.
There is another very important issue that should be considered in your visual use. Large images can slow down your site, and slow loading can cause your website to lag behind in Google rankings. Therefore, you may consider applying the following items.
- Compress images,
- Use a caching plugin,
- use a CDN,
- Enable browser caching .
You can also enable delaying images with the lazy load method to improve the user experience and make your pages load faster . You can review the article below about the use of lazy load.
7. Words Per Article
A good text or article should have an average of 600 words. Pages with less content may lag behind in Google. Blog posts with few words generally do not perform well in search engines. Because they are often seen as "less informative". Of course, there are exceptions, but for a general knowledge-based blog, it is in your best interest to create articles of at least 600 words . When writing an article, always keep your target audience in mind and make sure they benefit from your article. However, do not limit yourself to a particular character,
Not every page needs extensive text. However, shorter articles can put you at a disadvantage if competitive sites have better and more comprehensive content on the same topic. So set priorities for your most important pages and keywords and write helpful, explanatory, guide articles.
8. Add Schema (Structured Data)
Schemas (structured data) are a local SEO technique you can use to outrank your competitors . By adding schema (Structured data), you help the search engine learn more about your content.
For example, having your phone number and email address in the footer is definitely valuable to your visitors, Using structured data, you can give context to relevance.
9. Internal Binding
A smart internal link structure of your web pages is the basis for good usability and proper indexing of your content by search engines. Each page should be easily accessible with a few clicks and should also be linked to other content-related pages or the most important main areas of the website. Usually this structure is used for your site's menu links, footer links, or search result lists, etc. created using items such as In addition, you can provide links to relevant pages directly in the page text so that the reader can directly access more content on specific topics.
Linking blog posts together helps your blog readers spend more time on your blog. When linking, try using a keyword as anchor text , but be careful not to overdo it.
Internal links to the original post show search engines that you are providing more information than is shown in the content. However, make sure your linked pages are relevant and necessary .
Internal linking plays an important role in search engine optimization. The link structure should be as natural and user-friendly as possible. If a page has more than 400 links, search engines may not follow all the links on the page. It's best to use the nofollow attribute to avoid pages with too many links. (Legal notices, data privacy, terms of use pages, etc.)
10. External Binding
In addition to linking to your own blog posts, it's a great idea to link to external websites as well. Again, you should only do this if the information on the external website relates to the information in your post. External links to other websites are generally positive and consistent with the concept of interconnection in the worldwide web. You can create additional value for your visitors if you supplement your texts with external links to websites with relevant topics. Search engines consider these links a sign of the quality of good content.
One thing we recommend you start doing is adding videos to your blog posts. Videos not only increase the amount of media in your posts, they also make your posts much more informative and content-rich.
In addition to links to other sites related to your article, you can also link to websites and profiles in social networks with which you communicate. In particular, it would be great to link to your Youtube channel or videos or embed them in your article. Youtube SEO explains what you need to do about it. However, you should be aware that all external links , linked content, may change or be removed, usually without notice to you.
When linking to external websites, you should only link to trusted websites. And if you have doubts about the authority or popularity of a website, you can use a nofollow tag when linking out. You should use dofollow links for trusted websites and nofollow links for less reliable ones.
11. Proper Use of Breadcrumb
Breadcrumbs are links that enable visitors and search engine bots to understand the layout of your website and act accordingly. For example; In e-commerce sites, a redirect such as Men's Clothing > Men's Shoes > Men's Boots will make your website more organized and search engines will be able to categorize your website easily. It is one of the most important steps in improving the user experience.
For more information on the use of breadcrumb, you can review the article below.
12. Fixing 404 Error
If your website has pages with 404 errors , visitors cannot see the content of this page they visit. This error occurs due to many reasons such as page URL change, plugins change, tag and category change. You can remove erroneous 404 pages with various tools or methods. 404 errors are difficult to identify on large sites. You have to use the right tools for this. 404 error negatively affects the user experience and leads to negative ratings from search engines.
You can use the following analysis tools to detect 404 faulty pages.
Best On-Page SEO Tools
There are several popular on page SEO tools that will help you analyze the best result for your query. Some of these tools compare your page with the top pages and give you some data to improve on-page SEO. Some of these tools are;
- SEMRush
- Ahrefs
- Moz
- Page Optimizer Pro
Using any of these SEO tools will help you optimize your article for on-site SEO needs. The work to be done within the scope of on-site SEO is examined under these headings.
On-Page SEO Checklist
Here's a checklist you can use to make sure you're doing everything possible to rank higher in search engines ;
- Keyword usage in the title,
- Keyword usage in permalink,
- Keyword usage in first 100 words, first paragraphs,
- Keyword usage in the image alt tag,
- Use of relevant keywords in the content,
- Use of relevant keyword phrase in H2 or H3.
On-Page SEO Ranking Factors
- Add multimedia such as video, slideshow.
- Perform keyword gap analysis using the on-page SEO tools mentioned above .
- Optimize images before uploading.
- Optimize page load speed.
- Create a meta title of less than 60 characters.
- Create a meta description of less than 140 characters.
- Include internal links to related articles.
- Support it with outbound links to relevant quality sites.
Other Ranking Factors;
- Make sure to add an avatar for your social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter.
- Add social sharing buttons at the beginning or end of your blog pages.
- Include relevant articles at the end of your articles to reduce website bounce rate.
Actions that should not be done;
- Do not put multiple H1 tags (There should only be one H1 per page).
- Do not repeat the same H2 and H3 tags.
- Do not fill in the keywords field in the meta tags.
Optimization Tips;
- Use your keyword in the post title.
- Use long-tail keywords.
- Content length should be based on research.
- Ask users to take action at the end of the blog post (comment etc.)
After the June and July 2021 Google core updates, ranking factors and signals in Google search engines began to focus more on user search intent and page experience . If you have lost ranking in search engine results after these dates, we recommend that you review the article below.
After completing the on-page SEO work on your website, you can also review the following SEO topics to focus on different parts of SEO and develop different studies.
The top-ranked sites are the most informative, the most engaging, and the most useful. So try to create content that readers love, and then search engines will love you too.
We have come to the end of our On Page SEO or On Page SEO article. If this article was useful for you, we would be glad if you share it on social media. If you have any questions about on-site SEO, feel free to comment.
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