On-page SEO is a tricky topic to tackle. While most marketers seem to focus on off-page aspects of SEO (notably, backlinks), truth is that good on-page SEO should be prioritized as you plan your internet marketing strategy. This problem is compounded by the fact that on-page SEO standards change every few years. What used to work in 2013 doesn’t have the same impact today.
To help you get on-page ranking factors right, we’ve taken a look at three tips to boost on-page SEO in 2016 and beyond.
- Make Your Content Shine
Your content is the biggest factor in your on-page SEO success. Whether you have enough H1, H2, and H3 tags is moot point (and an easy problem to fix). What’s more important in 2016 is whether your content is useful, fresh and valuable enough to readers.
The truth is that only high-quality content matters today. Search engines prioritize fresh and unique content – especially if it is informative in nature. Itsy-bitsy posts of 150-200 words do not work anymore. Each post should be well-researched, have at least 700 words, and should be actually useful for the readers.
Visual content is on the rise as well. High quality images, infographics and videos can make your content more popular. They also add more ‘tag diversity’ to your pages. A search engine spider might not be able to ‘see’ images or videos, but it can figure out whether you have multimedia content on a page (thanks to ‘img’ tags, for example).
- Let the Page Title and Description be your Showstoppers
Have you ever been to live gigs? They start with their best songs to attract the audience. In a fashion show, they hire best-known models to be their showstoppers – because well liked faces attract more audience.
Let your Page Title be as interesting as you can make it. When people will search for a particular keyword, it is your Page Title that will prompt them to read the description below – and tempt them to click it.
Your page title should ideally have 70 characters, contain the main keyword (preferably as the first word), and of course be unique enough to attract the readers.
Page description or meta descriptions should be unique, informative and fresh. It should not be more than 155 characters and it should summarize your content in an intelligent manner. Be wary of using generalized descriptions for all your pages – it makes for dull reading for your audience.
- Flex your domain name muscle
When it comes to the digital world, your domain name is the equivalent of your main street address. While the impact of keywords in domain name has gone down substantially over the years, your name still has a big role to play in your rankings. Everything from the age of the name to the number of links pointing to it have a role to play in your SEO.
Here are few quick tips on what kind of domain name can be good for you:
- Choose a name that is short, simple and easy to remember. As the experts say, it should roll off the tongue easily.
- .com extension is always easiest to remember. You can also try other popular extensions like .edu or .org – according to the purpose of your website. If your business or blog is country-specific, extensions like co.nz or co.au may work for you too.
- Preferably, try to get a domain name that has the name of your company, business or brand.
- Older domains are better than freshly registered ones, but do make sure that the domain doesn’t have any ‘bad history’ (i.e. wasn’t used for spamming).
The key to on-page SEO success in 2016 is to create content for your readers, not for Google. Focus on providing valuable, informative advice to your readers through in-depth content and visuals on trustworthy domain names, and you’ll never have to worry about on-page SEO again.
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