How to optimise your content for SEO

It is no longer enough to simply cram keywords and key phrases into the content on a page and expect it to rank in search engine results. On-page optimisation is an ongoing process and it must be done correctly in order for it to gain the traction it deserves.

Page Titles

The must contain your main keywords in order to assist with ranking in organic search.  In addition, your page title must convince users to click on your link once it has ranked in organic search.

Headline <H1>

An H1 tag is the headline for your content. If you’re using a WordPress site, your H1 will default to your title.  Otherwise, use the H1 tag as a more descriptive headline for your content. It should match the page title as users will expect the headline to match the search engine results page (SERP) snippet.  Remember that you only must use an H1 tag only once per page.

Body Text

The body of your content is where you can really put your keyword list to work and expand on it to cover long-tail keywords and synonyms.

URL Structure

URL structure is important and frequently misunderstood. Your URL should not contain any underscores, capital letters and special characters.

Images and Alt attributes

Alt tags assist with giving your page a boost when it comes to rankings. As search engines are unable to see images, they rely on the file’s name as well as  alt tag in order to understand what it’s about.  Don’t stuff the image description with keywords; simply make a name that describes the picture.

External and Internal Links

Search engines crawl sites through links. This means that it’s essential to interlink content not only to help the search engine in its crawl but also to highlight keywords through the use of anchor text.

Meta Description 

A page’s meta description isn’t used directly in search engine ranking algorithms. However, because it appears in search results it plays a vital role in whether users will click the link or not. Ensure that your meta description captures the user’s attention and motivates them to click on your link. As Google places more significance on user engagement signals (including SERP click-through-rate), meta descriptions are becoming increasingly important.

Social Sharing Buttons

Google is slowly moving toward a ranking algorithm that relies less on links and more on factors such as social media shares. Social media’s impact on SEO simply cannot be ignored.

So, as you can see, on-page SEO involves the practice of optimising specific web pages so that your website can rank higher as well as earn more relevant traffic in search engines. The term ‘on-page’ refers to both the content as well as HTML source code of a page which can be optimised. This is as opposed to off-page SEO which refers to links in addition to other external signals.

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