Re On Page Optimization
If you’re running a blog you should be very aware of the importance of SEO. On this blog, SEO accounts for just over 50% of my overall traffic. Meaning over 50% of all my traffic comes from the search engines, mainly Google.
Unfortunately, most bloggers and webmasters don’t know jack about SEO. It’s real simple: good on-page optimization and lots of high quality backlinks = top search engine rankings.
Since the evolution of link building, people have forgotten about the importance of on-page optimization. So I decided to write a post breaking down 7 key on-page SEO tips:
1. Keyword Research
Before you begin writing a blog post, you should find a keyword to target. When you target a keyword and follow the rest of these tips; Google should place you somewhere in the top 10 pages of its search results. Maybe page 1, maybe page 10 or even higher. In order to get to page 1, you need to focus on the other half of the equation: backlinks.
However, you can actually get top rankings from on-page SEO alone. It depends on the SEO competition and the authority of your domain. Anyways…
Before starting your post, head over to the Google Keyword Tool and find a term to target. You should of course research the keywords and make sure they’re not too competitive. (You can do so with the help of Traffic Travis or Market Samurai)
2. Crafting The Perfect Title
It’s amazing how no one really talks about this in terms of SEO importance. In most SEO type trainings etc, you get told the higher up in the search engines you rank, the more clicks you will get. You may have come across the Google heat map before, but if you haven’t… It’s a heat map of the Google search results showing the distribution of all clicks in percentages.
It shows like 40% for #1, 20% for #2 and so on in a descending order according to the “overall statistics for all searches”. But – in many cases it can be 10% of clicks go to #1 and 50% go to #3. There is the element of people generally don’t scroll down below the fold. But if you can rank #2 to #4, you can get more traffic than the dude sitting in the number 1 spot.
How? A great title.
If you write this ultra cool, interesting and almost hypnotic title you’ll capture far more traffic than normal. You need to put yourself in the searchers position and think “what do they really want”. From there you can craft a title that truly speaks to the searchers. Remember the keyword must be in the title though!
3. Post Slug
The post slug is the URL that comes after your domain. For example:
Workwithdavidwood.com/this-is-the-post-slug/
From within WordPress if that’s what you’re using, you can easily customize your post slug. Its right under the title field at the very top, you can’t miss it. It’s important that you put your post keyword at the very beginning of your slug – Google likes it.
I’ve found it to be really effective using solely the keyword as the slug. Like for this post, it would be workwithdavidwood.com/search-engine-optimization-tips/ if that was my keyword.
4. H1, H2 & H3 Tags
Headers are an important part of SEO, they really make a difference. There are just 3 header tags you need to pay attention to: h1, h2 and h3 tags. Here’s an example of how you should use headers in your blog posts. For this example we’re using SEO Tips as the keyword:
Title: SEO Tips For Better Search Engine Rankings
Intro
Header 1: Introduction To SEO Tips
Header 2: Why You Need To Use SEO Tips
Header 3: SEO Tips Conclusion
Outro
End
That’s exactly how you should be using header tags. Write sub-headlines for your blog posts and in them incorporate your main keyword. Just make sure you use the header tags.
5. Image Alt Tag
Google is incapable of admiring a great image so you need to tell Google and the other search engines what your image is about. To do so, you can input an image alt tag. Within WordPress when you come to the page where you’re inserting an image, there is a field for “Image Alt Tag”. Just input your main keyword and you’ll reap the benefits later.
6. Interlinking
No need to explain this, by internally linking to your other posts and pages, you’ll help evenly distribute the flow of Page Rank around your site. It’s good for SEO – let’s leave it at that.
7. Meta Info
I personally use the All In One SEO plugin to handle my meta info. Basically you have the meta title, description and keywords. Using the AIOS plugin you can input the meta info of your post on the edit page. Whatever you put in the meta information, will show up in the search engines. You need to put your title in there as discussed above. Then you need to enter a description which incorporates your main keyword once or twice. In the keywords, enter your main keyword first followed by any others related.
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