On-page SEO is perhaps the best SEO practice and the most crucial part for your site, which optimizes it to rank higher in the SERP. In addition, it ensures a high level of expertise, authenticity, and trustworthiness for your site.
Google uses several signals to rank a webpage, and many of these signals come from On-Page elements. Now, you can understand how crucial On-Page SEO is to improve search engine rankings and lead organic traffic for your website.
But, over the past few years, Google has released several updates to its search engine algorithm. Therefore, SEO experts and site owners worldwide have to modify their On-Page SEO tactics and restructure their sites.
That’s why to keep you up with the updates, here, in this guide, I’ve compiled a list of On-Page SEO ranking factors. So, let’s take a look at the essential On-Page elements that you should pay attention to boost your ranking and improve search traffic.
On-Page SEO Ranking Factors In 2021
As I said before, On-Page SEO can ensure your website’s top position in the SERP and reach potential traffic. But, it’s only possible if you have good knowledge about all the On-Page SEO ranking factors. So, here are the 15 crucial factors of On-Page SEO that you should consider improving your website.
1. EAT
EAT means Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, which Google raters use to evaluate the content of your website. Google raters explore all the information available on a website to establish EAT. In this way, Google finds out the high-quality content and rewards them with better rankings. Now, let’s have a look at each of these factors in detail.
Expertise:
Expertise implies relevancy, usefulness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness of your content. In SEO, expertise implies that you are an expert on a specific content topic.
In certain niches, it is essential to demonstrate your expertise. For example, your content is all about On-Page SEO tactics. So you have to be skilled enough to cover everything related to this topic. In this way, your audience can get the exact answer from your content. Otherwise, it can affect your site’s traffic.
People visit your website to get answers to their specific queries, so you have to be knowledgeable enough about the specific topic.
Authoritativeness:
When it comes to content or blogs, being an expert is excellent, but not enough to rank. Google also evaluates your authoritativeness by checking your website reviews, ratings, expert opinions, and backlinks.
Quality links from authoritative and relevant sites are the topmost ranking factory for your website. The more quality links you have, the more authoritative and reputed you are.
Besides, when people share your content widely and consistently across social media, that means your content is gaining authority. And this thing can be possible only when you create content in an authentic and informative way.
Trustworthiness:
Trustworthiness includes your website’s transparency, information accuracy, policies, and authenticity of the content. You can highlight the credentials of the website and content creators.
Having a distinct and transparent way to contact the website owners is an excellent way to show trustworthiness. Here are some other ways that can help you promote your trustworthiness-
- Associating your website with the physical location.
- Ensuring secure domain by correctly implementing HTTPS.
- Clearly accessible to the privacy policy, T&C page, refund, and return policies.
- While sharing knowledge, having an author biography, citing external sources, and linking to authority sites will be a good idea.
If you can achieve a high EAT ranking, then it won’t be that hard for you to get the top position on Google.
2. Keywords Research
A keyword is one of the most crucial factors and is the center of an effective SEO strategy. These are the terms that people use while searching for something on the search engine. So, before you start writing content, your first and main focus should be on targeting the right keyword for your site.
And, keyword research is the only way to figure out the most relevant keyword for your business. It is a process of analyzing, comparing, and prioritizing the most relevant and accurate keyword opportunities for your site.
According to a recent survey, 51% of marketers identified that keyword research as a high-impact SEO practice for driving traffic towards your site.
Suppose, you have a plumbing service site, so, you should focus on what your audiences are searching for related to your service on the internet. This way, you can address the reader’s interests, needs, search intent, and find the perfect keywords.
So, here’s how to do comprehensive keyword research-
Brainstorm Keyword Ideas:
The process of keyword research starts with identifying the seed keyword topics, which are the broad terms to describe relevant topics. Note that, seed keywords are not worth targeting, these are just seeds for your next steps which will help you in this process.
However, when you start searching keywords you’ll find thousands of keywords but not each one is worth to your site. This is where brainstorming the keyword topic helps you to narrow down the specific keywords. While brainstorming, make sure-
- Start with thinking about broad topics which are related to your business and searchers’ intent. Try to avoid terms that are too niche, and it doesn’t matter if they make more sense. If your site is all about selling coffee machines and equipment, then the following will be your seed keywords-
-
- Espresso
- Cappuccino
- Coffee, etc.
- Once you have the seed keyword list, now it’s time to go deeper and search for their subtopics or categories. The subtopics must fit within your broad terms theme. For example, Cappuccino maker, espresso recipe, etc.
- Lastly, consider the products and services you are promoting to find the specific keyword. Such as espresso recipe at home.
Competitor Research:
To start your keyword research, the best way is to look for the terms your competitors are already ranking. The easiest way of doing this is, using Google, Bing, YouTube, Wikipedia, Reddit, Forums, etc.
Simply search with your seed keywords and see the relevant terms your competitors are using to reach organic traffics. This way, you will find plenty of unique keyword ideas and make your keyword list richer.
Use Keyword Research Tools:
Once you’re done with the listing, start using the keyword research tool. Everything we’ve discussed so far is enough to have tons of keyword ideas for your site. But, what will you do with the tons of keywords which are not worthy?
In this case, the keyword research tools come into play. These tools make this process a lot easier and help to discover keywords that are worth investing in. Keyword research tools work mostly in the same way, just put your seed keyword, and these tools will come up with the keyword ideas from their database.
Here are some best keyword research tools that you can get started with.
Analyzing Keywords:
After getting the most suitable keyword research tool, now the real work will start. While choosing the best terms for your site, you should use some metrics to narrow down and separate the best suitable keywords. In general, there are five keyword metrics that help to separate the wheat from the chaff. These are-
Search volume: This shows the average number of times a keyword gets searched per month. The more the MSV is, the more chances to gain traffic.
Click-Through Rate: It is the monthly average number of clicks on the search result for a particular keyword. Many people may search for a particular keyword, but not everyone will click through them.
Though, you should choose keywords with higher CTR, choosing search terms with low CTR might be worth it sometimes if the search volume is really high.
Traffic potential: When you rank for a particular keyword, it doesn’t mean you’re ranking for only that specific keyword. Your page will probably rank for other related keywords or synonyms, which we call LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing).
Ahrefs studies 3 million search queries and found that the average top ranking page ranks in the top 10 for almost 1,000 other keywords.
Therefore, estimating the search traffic only from a single term is not the right way. You should figure out the number of traffic the current top-ranking pages currently get.
Keyword Difficulty: Target keywords with low difficulty levels, if you’re a beginner or your site is new. When your site started to grow, you can focus on targeting more competitive stuff. There are several factors that work to determine how easy or hard the keyword will be to rank top. Such as-
- Number and quality of backlinks,
- Domain Rating,
- Content length, relevance, freshness,
- Use of the target keyword, synonyms, entities,
- Search intent, etc.
Long-Tail Keywords: When talking about low competitive keywords, the name of long-tail keywords automatically comes to our mind. If you want to target 100% low competitive keywords, you definitely need to target long-tail keywords. Usually, long-term keywords come in 4+ word phrases, which are least competitive and perfect targeting.
Keywords Trend: Lastly, see if your choosing keywords are growing upwards or falling slow. Google Trends is the best way to see the keyword’s trend. This tool shows the interest in that keyword over time. You should select keywords that are growing upward and quickly.
Targeting the Keyword:
Now, it’s time to target the keywords. For each keyword on your list, you need to create a separate page and content on your site. With two simple steps, you can do this, like-
- Identifying the parent topic, and
- Identifying the search intent.
You can easily find the parent topic using Keywords Explorer for each keyword. Even, you can find out whether you can rank for your targeted keyword while targeting the broader topic.
The next one is identifying the search intent. Figure out do they search with informational, or navigational, or commercial, or transactional terms? From here you can decide the content type, format, and angle.
3. Use URLs
URL is an address of your web page, which is an essential SEO best practice. Search engines use the URL of your web pages to understand what the content is all about. URL should be short and self-explanatory rather; it should interpret to the readers about your page concept. For example-
https://giantmarketers.com/seo-services-for-small-business/
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1303092,00.html
Now, from the above example, which URL can convey the page topic precisely? Obviously, the first one, right?
In the first example, it is very clear that this page covers content that is related to SEO services for small businesses. In contrast, we actually can’t even guess the topic of the second URL.
Therefore, it’s crucial to optimize your page URL to make it SEO-friendly. So, let’s see the following best practices that will help you in this process.
Keep the URLs Short and Simple:
The main reason behind keeping the URLs short is Google truncates the lengthy ones in the SERPs. Also, longer URLs make google confused, while figuring out the topic of web pages of shorter ones is much easier.
This is why studies found a strong correlation between higher Google ranking and Short URLs. In addition, short URLs help Google to find and crawl all your web pages. Also, they have more chances of social shares.
Must Include the Keyword:
You should use the keyword in your URL for which you want to rank your page. In this way, that keyword can indicate to Google about the content and the page. In fact, Google stated that URLs with relevant words to the site’s content are much friendlier for the audience to navigate a site.
Use Hyphens In-Between Words:
Hyphens work as a word separator in every URL. They are the standard way to separate words and make it easy for search engines and readers to understand and read. For example-
As you can see from this example, it’s clear that “website SEO audit service” is four separate words. If you use this URL without any separator, it’ll look like “websiteseoauditservice.” It will be much tougher for the readers to understand exactly what the URL tries to imply.
Here are some other best practices that you can consider while optimizing URL-
- Stick with lowercase to be on the safe side.
- Avoid using dates, as it can make the URLs longer and make it harder to update the content.
- Go with HTTPS because it is the new standard that ensures site security.
- Do not use the whole blog post title in the URL.
Most CMS allows you to edit the URL slug, which is the part after domain and subfolders. So, you can simply change the URL in case of longer keywords. Remember, keeping the URL short is necessary to avoid truncation.
4. Title Tag
A title tag is an HTML element that serves a purpose for both SEO and search engines. When users search something on the search engines, the first thing that they see is the title tag. Actually, it is the head section that specifies the title of the webpage. For example-
When you use a clear and relevant title for your page, Google and the audience see it as a sign of a quality page. Title tags show up in browser tabs, and when someone searches out your page, generally, they look for the title tags.
Now you may understand the importance of a good title tag. Actually, a good title tag ensures maximum visibility, while a bad one can sink your page. So, let’s see how you can create and optimize an SEO-friendly title tag.
Title Tag Should Be Short and to the Point:
Short title tags are more easy to read, reach the audience, and search engines to crawl. Besides that, with a short title tag, there is no fear of cutting off. If your title tag is longer, Google will cut off the title.
Also, keep in mind that the title should be relevant so that the search engine and audience get a clear idea of the page. Your main focus should be making your title tag fit for the SERP and to the point.
By doing so, your reader can see the entire title and easily get what the content is all about. Google shows 60 characters of the title tag, so try to keep it in between 60 characters. To ensure the length, you can use the Title Tag Preview Tool from MOZ.
Incorporate the Target Keyword:
Make sure to add your target keyword in the title. This way, the search engine, and your audience can get an idea about your page. The placement of keywords should be natural, and make sure never to place it forcefully.
For the best result, you can place it close to the beginning of your title. It may have more impact on the search ranking.
Avoid Duplicates:
Google Search Central says that the title tag should be descriptive and distinct. Each web page of your website should have different title tags. So, never copy and paste your title tags.
Make it Unique and Catchy to Improve CTR:
I have said earlier that the title tag is the first thing your reader will see first. So, it should be catchy to convince them to click through it. You can improve CTR to make it stand out from the crowd. When your title tag gets more clicks, Google will take it as a positive signal. Remember, whatever you use, it should make sense to your content.
Best Practices:
When it comes to optimizing your title tag, you can follow these best practices.
- Using your Brand: Title tags are an ideal place to include your brand. But remember not to overdo it. For example- 8 Best Keyword Research Tools [2021] — Giant Marketers
- Make the H1 page Heading slightly different from the title tag.
- Preventing search engines from rewriting your title tags.
5. Meta Description
A meta description is an HTML attribute that will briefly describe the content of your webpage. It appears in the SERPs just below the title tag. Here is an example of meta descriptions.
A right and catchy meta description can lead to more clicks, which work effectively as a direct ranking factor. A study of Backlinko shows that pages with meta descriptions get 5.8% more clicks than those with missing meta descriptions.
So, here are the best practices for writing an SEO-friendly meta description.
Write a Compelling Meta Description
A well-optimized meta description can improve CTR, perception about the content quality, and the website. So, you should put some effort while writing a meta description. You can use the following tips while writing a compelling description.
- Address the audience directly using positive words.
- Include the USPs that the reader will get from your content.
- Use CTA to draw your audience’s attention.
- Try to match the reader’s intention.
You can follow this formula to get a clear view of writing a meta description.
Stay Under 160 Character:
Generally, Google measures the meta description limit by pixel size, not by the characters. Here is a tip for you. Technically, Google truncates meta description at 920 pixels, which stays between 155-160 characters in most cases.
Thus, it’s best to keep your meta description between 155 and 160 characters. Your primary goal is to provide value and describe the reader’s benefit from the page. This you can easily keep in this character range.
Include Target Keyword:
You should mention the target keyword in the meta description to help your content get more clicks. This way, audiences find this content fit for their search query. So, place the keyword naturally, and it will result in an overall good user experience.
Avoid Duplicate Tags:
Make sure that each page of your website has a distinct and unique meta description. It is a good practice to add unique description meta tags for each of your pages.
Using Current Year:
Including the current year or month implies that the content is super time-sensitive. It is optional, but adding the year will be best if the content demands to be up-to-date. For example, readers who search for “SEO best practices” usually lookout for updated information as these practices update frequently.
So, you have to be more careful while providing any information and make sure that the content is up-to-date. Also, while adding a year, you should remember manually changing it every year and adding the recent updates.
6. Unique Content Writing
Content is what the audience or readers search for, and it is one of the main ranking factors of the webpage. Remember, your content gives the users a reason to visit your website.
When it comes to writing unique content, it includes relevancy, informative, clearness, and something that doesn’t regulate the same stuff that is already out there.
Your content should be optimized appropriately so that it can provide a proper solution to the searcher’s queries. Also, optimizing your content can help it to rank and lead to people finding it easily.
So, here are the best ways to make SEO content valuable.
Content Type:
At first, you should decide the content type. It can be a blog post, category, product review content, landing pages, etc. You should understand the user intent and then plan out the content. In this way, you can provide accurate information to your audience.
Content Structure:
Once you decide the content type, start preparing the content structure. It is an essential element of high-quality content. Look out for the common subheadings related to your topic. These will make the content easier to read and more scannable.
According to Semrush, content with H2+H3 tags performs higher in terms of traffic, backlinks, and shares. H2 and H3 tags make your content well-structured and less complex to understand. But remember not to overdo it.
Content Body:
The content body should be capable of retaining the audience. You should put all the latest information related to the specific topic and make it relevant and quality content.
Remember one thing; if your content can’t stand out on the audience’s needs, it can be a big disaster. Here are some things that your content body should contain.
- Placing the target keyword naturally inside the content body. Also, you have to ensure that you are providing information related to the keyword.
- Divide the content into several segments to keep the readers engaged. It’ll break the content into paragraphs and divide the long sentences into shorter ones, which helps more to engage readers.
- You can highlight the important ideas by making the font bold.
- Use bullets and numbers to convey a large amount of information concisely. It also increases the chances of getting a featured snippet.
- Add tables, diagrams, statistics, quotes, etc., to add more value to the content.
- Make sure to add LSIs to improve the content’s SEO potential.
- Keep your tone natural, consistent and engaging.
- Lastly, ensure that your content is unique. You can find out the percentage of similar sentences or words using tools like com, copyscape.com, etc.
All these tips will help your content be able to hold or engage the reader without making them bored. But, keep in mind, all these won’t work if you don’t provide authentic and relatable information.
Content Optimization:
Before publishing your content, you should give a final check to ensure the overall optimization of your content. You can use SEO writing tools like frase.io or SEMrush’s SEO Writing Assistant.
These tools will check the overall status and ensure that your text is structured perfectly with a targeted keyword and written in an SEO-friendly style. Also, you can check the text length and match the average word count with your competitor.
If you can do this process by yourself, then it’s absolutely fine. But, if you can’t, then you can hire professionals. They have dedicated expert content creators who know how to create and optimize content professionally, keeping SEO and targeted audience in mind.
7. Add Internal and External Links
Links are the HTML object which allows the audiences to navigate between pages on the web with a single click. John Mueller, a Search advocate of Google, says, linking other websites is a great way to provide value to the users.
So, you can link to some internal and external resources that are related to your content. This can be helpful for the readers to find out more information in a detailed way. So, let’s have a look at the types of links and their use.
Internal Linking:
Internal links imply the hyperlinks that are related to specific domains on other pages. To improve ranking, you can add internal links to high-priority pages of your site. Check out the following image to see the best example of internal linking.
See, they add lots of internal links to several pages of their site. Each link is related to the content, and when you click through them, you will get more detailed information about them.
External Linking:
External linking is also known as outbound linking, which is exactly the opposite of inbound linking. Here, you will add other pages links to your page, and by clicking those links, the reader will directly go to the pages.
You can link specific words to provide in-depth knowledge about that word or line to add an external link. It helps to increase the quality of your content. Also, it will imply that you do proper research and provide information from reliable sources. But remember, you should only add those links that are related to your topic and come from authority sites.
8. Image Optimization
Adding related images in the content makes it more presentable to the readers. This thing can lead to more traffic and a better user experience as the reader can understand the content much better. Optimizing images properly with descriptive titles and alt text can help you to make valuable SEO content.
According to Website Builder Expert, “in 2021, image and video optimization came out on top as the most recommended strategy to increase website’s speed and increase UX.”
Here, I’ll break down how to optimize your images.
Image Selection:
Select unique and relevant images that will complement your content. Your image should explain what your text defines. So that your reader can understand what the content conveys by seeing the image.
Resize Your Images:
Images with larger dimensions and higher resolution can slow down the page load. Therefore, you should keep the size of your image 950/450. Also, ensure choosing the right file format from PNG, JPEG, GIF, SVG, etc.
Choosing the Right Compression Rate:
If you compress an image too much, the file size will be small, and image quality will become poor. In contrast, if you keep the image with a low compression rate, the image quality will become higher, and the file size will become huge.
So, you have to experiment with the compression rates and file types to find out what works best. The best and easy method is using image optimization tools like JPEG Mini, Pixlr, etc.
Optimize Image File Names:
Optimizing file names is important for ranking in image search results. To get the most SEO power, you have to name the image file with descriptive keywords and relevant file names before uploading. You can place the target keyword at the beginning and use hyphens to separate the words.
Use Alt Tags:
Alt tags are usually known as alt description, alt attributes, and alt text. This tag is used within an HTML code to describe the function and appearance of an image. Search engine crawlers find it helpful to index the image, as alt tags offer a better image description or context to them.
Even when an image file can’t load properly, alt text is still displayed in the place of that image. The best alt tag example is,
<img src=”kwe.png” alt=”Moz Keyword Explorer tool for SEO keyword research”>
Here’s how to create a good alt tag.
- Describe the image specifically to convey the meaning, and it should be placed within the CSS, not HTML.
- Keep the text short, and it is advisable to keep it at around 125 characters.
- Include your target keyword in the alt tag of at least one image on the web page. It’s another opportunity to signal search engines that your page is highly relevant to this specific search query.
- Do not use an image as text, and avoid including “image of,” “picture of,” etc., in the alt tags.
Include Caption:
Image captions are the words placed beneath the images with a brief description of the image. It may not directly impact SEO, but you can use it to enhance the user experience. Image caption improves the overall presentation of your content. However, your content credibility may get damaged with search engines without image caption, and the bounce rate could increase.
9. Header Tags
Header tags are HTML elements that range in H1-H6. They indicate headings and subheadings of your content. These tags serve an essential function for the users and your SEO. Though header tags aren’t as critically important for site ranking, they indirectly impact your ranking.
With header tags, your content becomes much presentable and easier for the readers to read. In addition, they offer keyword-rich context for the search engines about your content. So, let’s have a look at how to use header tags in your content.
Use Headers to Ensure Structure:
Basically, header tags work as a structure and context for your content. Each header tag gives an idea of information about the paragraph to the readers. Let’s see how they work from the following-
- Use H1 to introduce the content topic or title.
- H2 will describe the main topics of the content, which you will cover in sections.
- H3 to H6 works as subsequent headers, which are used on additional sun-headings within each section. They organize the content by allowing you to add more details without causing unwieldy chunks of text.
Let’s see an example of arranging or structuring header tags-
Breaking Up Text:
Remember, content that is well scannable is better readable, and only the readable content performs well in search engines. According to a study, only 16% of readers read the whole article word-by-word.
The rest of the readers just scan. The same study shows that scannable content is 58% more likely to perform well for readers. And to make the content scannable, nothing can work as the header tags, as they break the text and make them concise.
Include Keyword:
You should include the target keyword in an H2 header tag. To gather context for your web page, Google pays attention to them. But that doesn’t mean you overdo it, so, without being spammy, be judicious. Naturally, include the keyword and make it readable for the users.
Keep them Consistent:
Consistent use of header tags provides the finest details to the content that readers find much impressive. Treat the header tags as the mini title for every section. Keep in mind, the more nicely you can present your content, the more you can engage the audience to your site.
10. Content Audit
You should focus on auditing the existing content along with creating new ones. Auditing the existing content is essential as it can evaluate your content condition. Through a proper content audit, you can determine if the content is achieving its goal and gaining ROI or not.
Besides that, auditing can identify the content gap, accuracy, and what type of content will work for you. Content audits are a must, and they should be done regularly to establish a strong SEO strategy. To begin the content audit, you should-
Define your Objectives:
Actually, the content audit is a time-consuming process. Thus, at first, you have to define your objectives and goals.
Decide what you are looking for. Do you want to improve your SEO results, or audience engagement, or conversion rate?
Once determining the goals, match them with content metrics. You will find 4 categories of content marketing metrics, like-
- SEO Metrics
- User Behavior Metrics
- Engagement Metrics, and
- Sales metrics.
Take the Content’s Inventory:
Now, decide what type of content you are going to audit and create an inventory of URLs and metrics of that. To collect the inventory, you can use the SEMrush Content audit tool, SEO Audit Tool by Contentlook, Hemingway, etc.
After collecting the data, sort them out by setting up some criteria using a spreadsheet or online tool. You have to track this frequently. The content audit sheet may look like the following image.
Data Collection and Analyze Process:
It’s a very complicated and lengthy process, as you have to collect the data from several sources and manually add them to the spreadsheet. Here, you can do one thing to save time by using the above-mentioned content audit tool, and they will do the rest for you. Then start to assess each content using the collected data and metrics.
Draw Up An Action Plan:
Now, it’s time to improve the content, and to do that, you should draw up an action plan. You should prioritize your actions depending on your goals. Then, according to the priority list, start implementing your action plan. Such as rewrite, expand, structure your content, update CTA’s, add videos, images, optimize meta, internal linking, etc.
Content Marketing Strategy:
You should track the success and failure to find out what works for you and expand upon it. Reviewing the content marketing strategy is a must at least once a year. Since what works for you today may not work tomorrow. Therefore, it’s better to be prepared and focus on consistent adjustment also.
We know these things are really time-consuming and a bit complex. To save time, you can get the auditing done by hiring experts.
11. Boost Page Speed
Page speed refers to how fast your content page loads. It is one of the core signals that the Google algorithm uses to rank a page. According to a study, if a page takes more than 3 seconds to load, about 50% of the audience will abandon it.
This percentage gets higher when it comes to mobile users. Almost 73% of mobile users abandon a page if it takes too much time to load. Keep in mind, your user wants information, and they want it right now.
So, to increase the page speed, you can do the following.
Enable Compression:
To reduce the size of your CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files, you can use a file compression software called Gzip, CSSNano, Uglify JS, and HTMLMinifier. Use this software only for those files that are larger than 150 bytes.
Optimizing your Code:
Optimizing your codes includes removing unnecessary spaces, commas, code comments, formatting, unused code, and other characters. This thing works drastically to improve the page speed.
Minimize Redirects:
Your visitors have to wait until the HTTP request-response cycle completes when a page redirects to another page. For example,
“Giantmarketers.com →www.giantmarketers.com →m.giantmarketers.com→ m.giantmarketers.com/home,”.
If your mobile redirect pattern seems like the above example, then for each of those two extra redirects, your page will load slower.
Leverage Browser Caching:
Usually, browsers cache information like images, JavaScript files, stylesheets, etc. In this way, when a visitor revisits a page, the browser doesn’t require reloading the entire page again. So, you can use a tool like GTmetrix to see the expiration date set of your site’s cache. After that, you can set the “expires” header for how long you want the information to be cached.
Use CDNs:
CDNs mean content distribution networks, which are networks of servers. The CDNs are used for distributing the load of delivering content. With this, the copies of your website are stored at multiple geographically diverse data centers. It helps the users to have reliable and faster access to your website.
Optimize Images:
Make sure that you are using images in the right file format and well compressed for the web. For graphics with less than 16 colors, PNGs work better, while JPEGs are good for photographs. You can also use CSS sprites for creating a template for frequently used images of your site.
CSS sprites will combine all your site images into one large image that will load at once. Also, it will show the only sections that you want to show to the users. In this way, you can save loading time by not making the readers wait for multiple images to load.
12. Mobile-Friendly
It implies your site’s usability and flexibility on mobile devices. It is a big ranking factor as more than 50.71% of traffic comes from mobile devices. The good thing is that about 40% of online transactions occur through mobile devices.
In fact, almost 61% of users contact the local business that has a mobile-optimized site. So, it’s a must for you to focus on building a mobile-friendly website to reach more traffic.
Here are some tips to optimize your site as mobile-friendly-
Using Tools:
Use this mobile-friendly test tool to ensure that your site is ideal for mobile users. Input your website URL and click on search, then it will show whether it is mobile-friendly or not.
Integrate Responsive Design:
It is crucial to create a mobile-friendly website, as it ensures your website is ready to adapt to any device a user uses. With this, the audience can conveniently browse and scroll through your page with an accurate view. So, you should-
- Scale your images for mobile users
- Keeping easy to view navigation menu
- Make the CTA visible
Ensure readable Fonts:
Since some mobile screens are smaller, you should keep the font readable on these devices. You can choose a bolder font or make the font more prominent so that it can be easily legible on any size’s mobile screen.
Pop-Ups:
To a certain action, pop-ups work much effectively to draw your reader’s attention. It can be a sign-up pop-up to receive emails, download free content, etc. However, if the popup takes up the entire mobile screen and the user can’t find a way to escape it, they may become frustrated. So, when using pop-ups, be careful and use them sparingly or on parts of your page where they make sense.
Create Mobile Content:
You should focus on making easily digestible content and navigate on mobile phones. Keeping the paragraphs and sentences concise makes it easy to read. You can write short but attention-grabbing headlines. Break up the content into chunks so that the white space can separate the paragraphs.
Create a Separate Mobile URL:
When optimizing for mobile, you can create a different mobile URL. It will create a parallel site for mobile users that will create a custom user experience. A typical mobile URL looks like
“m.giantmarketers.com” or “giantmarketers.com/mobile”
So, when the readers enter your content through a mobile URL, they can see the mobile version of your page.
Optimize for Local Search:
Using the phrase “near me” has increased 3X over the past 2 years. Therefore, optimizing your site for local searches becomes essential for mobile SEO. It will help your site appear for relevant local search queries. You can claim it using Google my Business. Also, you can use local keywords; it will help your site to appear more in local search results.
13. Optimize for Featured Snippets
Featured snippets are the specific snippets to queries that appear at Google’s top search results. The most common types of featured snippets are definitions, lists, steps, tables, etc. The content of featured snippets is automatically pulled out from the web pages in Google’s index. These are an opportunity to get more clicks from the users. So, let’s find out how to optimize your content for feature snippets.
The Definition:
You need to include a short (40-60 words) definition or snippet of text on your content. Then Google will directly use it in the featured snippet. Keep in mind that your definition should be objective and never include an opinion on the topic. As an example, you can see the following image.
Here, the answer to what is no-follow links sounds like a clear-cut definition. So, your definition for the featured snippet should be distinct, clear, and to the point.
Table:
Google does not collect data from various parts of your page to present the table form. Rather, they scrap tables that already exist. So, you can optimize your content for featured snippets by including a lot of data in the form of tables.
Then, depending on your site setup, you can code these tables. But, as long as your HTML uses the <tr> tag for presenting the data in a table, Google can easily read your table.
Ordered List:
The easiest way to present the lists or steps for the featured snippet is to lay out the page. In this way, Google can easily identify specific list items. You should wrap every step or list item in H2 or H3 tags and present them as a subheader.
To make a list clear to Google, you can also include texts like “Step #1: or Step 1” in every subheading. While creating the list, remember to keep them consistent.
14. User Engagement
User engagement implies visitors’ time on your site, appreciating your content, conversion rate, and sharing rate. The higher you can engage the user, the more loyal your audience becomes. So, when it comes to website visits, you will see several types of user engagement. Such as-
- Reading and absorbing content,
- Visitors comments and discussions,
- Social shares,
- Watching videos and viewing images.
There are some tactics you can follow to make your site a step ahead. So, let’s figure out the best way to increase user engagement on your website.
De-Clutter the Layout:
If your layout consists of too many things, it can confuse the user. So, it will be better to keep it simple and include only those things that make sense. Look out for the menu, and it should be easily visible to anyone for quick figuring out. Make sure using plenty of white space to make the content is readable.
Streamline the Navigation of Your Site:
You can provide a simple navigation menu, organize the blog post categories and page for easy access. Including a search box is the best way for visitors to find what they are looking for instantly. Remember, a webpage that is too difficult to navigate can raise the bounce rate.
Lengthen the Text:
A study shows that pages with 1000-2500 words experienced the highest user engagement. That doesn’t mean you should fluff your content to expand the text. You should ensure quality and provide appropriate information to the content. By doing so, you can satisfy your visitors and keep them engaged.
Add a Chat Box:
You can add a chat box to your homepage. It will help the visitors to get help whenever they face any issue. To induce more comfort, you can add a photo and name to the chatbox. When there is no one to respond to the live chat inquiries, make sure notifying the visitors.
Avoid Displaying Too Many Ads:
Displaying too many ads interrupts the readers while reading the content, which makes them irritated. Also, autoplaying videos can embarrass people when they are on public transport or in any crowded area.
According to a report, around 82% of people close a web page because of video ads. This same report shows that about 73% of people dislike pop-ups ads. So, to engage the readers, try to avoid inputting too many ads and pop-ups.
Building a User Engagement Strategy:
Here are some hidden gems that you can apply to boost interaction with visitors. These are-
- Gathering Email addresses for further interaction with the users.
- Releasing surveys, questionnaires, contests, and polls to get improvement ideas.
- Analyze the data, test, and tweak your website to boost engagement across your website’s every page.
Track the User Engagement metrics:
To do this, you can use Google Analytics. Then start tracking the engagement, page views, bounce rates, average spending time on site, return visits, conversions, etc. Also, you can see the visitor’s real-time analytics. Once finding the areas that are hampering your user engagement, start improving them.
15. NLP Optimization
NLP, which refers to Natural Language Processing, is one of the main ranking factors. You can expect your content to rank top and maintain the top position for a long time, NLP optimization of your content is a must.
In 2021, optimizing content with NLP has become more important than before. Therefore, when we perform on-page SEO on our content, we need to concentrate on implementing NLP to improve search ranking.
All the above factors that I’ve discussed till now will help you to optimize your content for NLP. So, to make sure that your component is SEO-friendly, you can use some tools once you are done with the writing.
All the following tools will help you to optimize your content for NLP, make the content rank high, and satisfy the searchers’ intent.
After completing each content, it is a must to use any one of these five tools to make sure your content is well-optimized. Also, you can determine how well you can outrank your competitor on the SERP.
Conclusion
If you want to secure the top position of your webpage in the SERP along with improving the rate of traffic and conversions, you have to go for on-page SEO optimization. From the above discussion, it is clear that on-page SEO is undoubtedly essential for the growth of your site.
If you can utilize these factors properly, getting a secure place on the SERP will become much easier. To accurately implement all the factors, getting professional On-Page SEO help will be a wise decision.
Giant Marketers helps businesses to grow with on-page SEO by its on-page experts for many years. Our SEO professionals know all the best practices and strategies that help your business to rise.
To know more about our on-page services, you can Contact Us. Lastly, don’t forget to share your thoughts about this guide or your queries in the comment section below.
Masum Billah Bhuiyan, the founder of Giant Marketers, is a name synonymous with digital marketing innovation and entrepreneurial success. Born and raised in Bangladesh, Masum was always passionate about technology and business. As a young man, he had a strong desire to make a difference in the world and was drawn to the rapidly growing field of digital marketing.