You must be familiar with the basics of search engine optimization if you have a website. Every website has to be optimized according to Google’s algorithms to get ranked on Google SERP. On-page, Off-page, and technical optimizations are necessary for every website to improve ranking in the search engine results. In this article, we will discuss what is on-page SEO in digital marketing.
I am a digital marketing consultant and web content developer. I have been crafting SEO-optimized content for websites. This article mainly focuses on optimizing the website for better ranking in Google’s search results. Let’s understand what on-page SEO optimization is in digital marketing and the on-page SEO techniques.
What is On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is also called on-site SEO. The procedure involves making the website speed faster and mobile-friendly. Also, we make the URLs and the content easily readable, engaging, and user-friendly. In on-page SEO, we are doing internal optimizations of our website. It represents the changes we are making to the website to make it SEO-friendly. There are several tools available for on-page optimization of web pages.
Advantages of On-Page SEO
We must present quality and unique content with the right keyword strategy to get an audience attraction and good search engine ranking. On-page SEO helps make an overall website ranking strategy and is the backbone of every website. We optimize the elements of our website like meta title, meta description, internal links, external links, URL, etc. to make search engines better understand the content of the website. Search engines use these parameters to check the page’s relevancy before showing it on search results. Thus we can get more traffic and conversions with the right on-page SEO strategy.
On-Page SEO Key parameters
Several parameters decide the ranking of a website like:
- High-quality unique and relevant content
- Primary keyword (focus keyphrase)
- Title tag or meta title
- Meta description
- Header tags
- Images with alt tags
- Internal links
- External links
- Readability
- Avoid plagiarism
- URL optimization
- Social share
Let us understand these parameters one by one.
High Quality Unique and Relevant Content
Writing quality and relevant content is a crucial parameter for on-page SEO. Content should be well-written, relevant to your niche, and informative to attract users to your site. It should be able to answer user’s queries. Engaging and well-defined content can improve your page’s search engine rankings.
Primary Keyword (Focus Keyphrase)
Your content should have primary keywords (in this case “what is on-page SEO in digital marketing”). Always use long-tail keywords as they are easy to rank. You can use keyword research tools to find keywords relevant to your niche. The density of the primary keyword should be between 1-2%. That means a blog with 2000 words should have a primary keyword with a maximum of 40 words. Now, most bloggers get confused with the keyword density. I’ll make it clear to you. For a 2000-word blog, the total words of the primary keyword should be 40. If the focus keyword is 3 words, it should come 13 times in the blog and not 40 times. The same should be applied to secondary keywords.
Title tag or Meta Title
The title tag is one of the important elements of an on-page SEO strategy. It is a clickable headline that appears in the search engine results whenever a user makes a query. Therefore, the meta title should be descriptive, attractive, engaging, and relevant to the content. You must include the primary keyword at the beginning of the meta title. The word length of the meta title should be limited to 60 characters.
Meta Description
The meta description is a summary of a specific web page content in the form of an HTML attribute that appears in search results below the meta title. The meta description should be written in such a way that the user is encouraged to click on the web page. Include the primary keyword in the meta description also. The ideal length of the meta description is 160 characters.
Header Tags (H1-H6)
By header tags, we mean headings and subheadings of the web page content. Headings are described as H1, H2, H3 up to H6. Use the H1 tag for the main heading with the primary keyword. Similarly use H2 and H3 tags for the subheadings with secondary keywords. H4-H6 tags though not that important can be used for the rest of the content. Don’t forget to use seed keywords or their synonyms in H2 and H3 headings. Separating the content with header tags enables search engines to understand the content structure which helps search engine rankings.
Images With Alt Tags
Images and videos are a vital part of the web page content. A blog is incomplete without images. They help break the text and make it more appealing thus increasing user engagement and time spent on the website. However, the images must be SEO-optimized to increase search engine rankings. Use high-quality and low-file-size images in your blog. Using bigger file-size images can slow down the speed of your website.
The appropriate file size for images should be between 100kb to 250 kb. Use alt tags for the images. An alt tag is the text used to define an image. Since search engines can’t read images, an alt tag helps search engines understand what an image is about. You can also use primary keywords in the alt tags. Videos are equally important for the blog.
Internal Links
Links that redirect a user to other pages within the same website are called internal links. Use internal links in your website to keep the user staying for a longer time and decrease the bounce rate and hence improve the ranking. A minimum of 3 internal links should be given on a specific page, the more the better. Internal links also guide the bots in navigating the website and increasing the crawl budget. The crawl budget is the maximum amount of data fetched by the Google bots in a single visit to the website.
External Links
The links that redirect the user and the bots to other websites are called external or outbound links. External links are an essential component of an SEO strategy. The usual practice is to use external links to reputed sites with high Domain authority. This increases your site’s credibility and enhances user experience and search engine ranking. External links help to develop a strategy to acquire quality links from popular sites thus increasing your site’s authority.
Readability
Content readability has a direct impact on SEO. Write the content in such a way that your target audience can easily digest it. Break the content into paragraphs. Small paragraphs (up to 5 lines) with transition words make good content. Use passive voice wherever required. Content with a high readability score is preferred by Google too.
Avoid Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the malpractice of copying content from other sources and showing it as yours. This can be text, image, or any other form. Plagiarism is a direct violation of Google’s parameters. Google has developed several powerful algorithms which can easily detect plagiarised content.
Plagiarism in any form will lead to serious negative consequences. Your website may be penalized and de-ranked if it has copied content. Also, you may face legal action from the original content creator. You can damage your reputation, and lose traffic and subsequently revenue. So, it is advisable to keep the blog content plagiarism-free. There is a set limit for plagiarism (20% maximum). You can use the tools to check your content for plagiarism.
URL Optimization
URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or the slug of your website pages is also an important ranking factor. You must organize URLs in a way that site visitors can know what a page is about. Usually, focus keywords are used in the URLs. Clean organized and SEO-optimized URLs with target keywords increase the SEO score of a website and rank well in SERP’s. Also, specify the category of the page or post in the URL. See the example below.
www.yoursite.com/category/post name.
www.yoursite.com/page name.
Social Share
After optimizing a web page or post with the above parameters, the next important task is to share the content over social media. The majority of users spend significant time on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Sharing the content on these platforms can improve your website’s rankings.
Conclusion
On-page SEO plays a vital role in the growth of any business. If we focus on different on-page SEO parameters, we can improve our website’s exposure and credibility to a considerable extent. Without ON-page SEO you can’t make your presence on digital platforms.
Author
I am a content marketer and content strategist. I have been writing Articles for the websites for the past six years. I love writing a lot. All my articles are SEO-optimized and rank on Google’s SERP. If you find this article helpful, please do like and comment me if want me to write further on any of the topics of your interest.
Thanks
Vijay kumar
