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01 Apr, 2021
On-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Beginner’s Guide

By jack123 | SEO | 1 Comments

What On-Page SEO means and who is it for?

In this On-Page SEO: Complete Beginner’s Guide, I will try to explain the most important basic information you need to know about On Page SEO.

On Page SEO is the go to technique or practice used to optimize the structure of your website and its content to rank higher in the search engine results list.

Why is it important to optimize your On Page SEO?

Google ranks up your website and its content based on a bunch of criteria, and that’s why you need to optimize your content in order to achieve higher rankings in search engines.

When someone is searching for specific content, google will give back results that are most relevant to the user by looking at the content of your page. When looking at the content of any page, the search engine will look for keywords that match the search query. But there is a lot more to this than just keywords, of course, that’s why you need to make sure that your content is the most relevant to the topic.

What to know when creating SEO content.

First of all when you want to create SEO content you need to have a content in mind that google will rank up, and leave the advanced techniques for last. In order to do that you need to choose a theme that revolves around an important keyword and also keep in mind these four rules:

  • You need to be relevant.
  • Be meticulous.
  • Write distinctive.
  • Write clearly.
  • You need to be relevant

Being relevant might as well be the most important thing when it comes content building. That means when you are relevant you align your content with the search intent. If you fail to satisfy the user’s search, your content will most likely not be placed at the top of the list.

When it comes to search intent, google is the best at understanding it, so a good starting point would be to analyze the three highest ranked search results for search intent :

  1. Content types.
  2. Content format.
  3. Content angle.
  1. Content types usually falls in this category: products, blogs, categories, videos or landing pages. 

For example if you are looking for a new pair of shoes, your results are most definitely going to be shop sites, or online shops. So, to rank content using that keyword (referring to shoes) you won’t be successful creating a blog for example, when people are looking for shoes they usually don’t want to know how to make shoes but to buy a pair. This does not apply for every keyword though, in some cases things are not clear. For example if we are looking for “books” we will get results like: shops, blogs, libraries and so on. In this case it’s a 50/50 split between commerce and posts about the product, and you have a chance to rank high if you create a relevant enough post.

  1. Content format refers mostly to blogs posts, because they usually are reviews, how-to-dos, news and opinion posts.

For example searches like “how to instal X app” , will be guides on how to install that specific app. To have the best chance of ranking high with this kind of keywords you need to adapt and follow the examples, trying to write something different in a post for a “how to” guide won’t do you any good.

  1. Content angle is the main “convincing point” of your post.

 For example users who search for “physical exercises during quarantine” would most likely want to know how to exercise at home without special gym equipment.

For “new smartphones” users are surely looking for fresh and new results. 

  • Be meticulous

If you have content that broadly aligns with search intent it’s good for a start, but it won’t make the cut most of the time. To be worthy of a seat on the first page of a google search content posts needs to deliver, meaning to cover everything the user expects when he searches for something. If you got used to the three rules of search intent , or so called “ the three Cs”, content types, content format and content angle, then you most likely have an idea on what the searching users expect.

However if you are familiar with the three Cs you only have a broadly view of the subject. To know better what your content should contain and cover, you need to approach things more meticulously and analyze in detail the top ranking pages. Remember to be relevant when analyzing these high rank results. For example if you’re writing about “RPG games” you don’t want to analyze ecommerce sites and shops, you would need posts about reviews and opinions.

In order to be as accurate as possible when searching for sources of information from where to inspire your content, you need to:

Look for common subheadings, as these offer quick information about the content.

Look for subtopics among keyword rankings, according to some studies of 3,000,000 searches , pages that rank top 10 in the search list have around 1000 other relevant keywords beside the main one.

Look at the pages manually, the best way to be sure the page you’re looking to inspire from is appropriate for your subject, is to manually check and browse the page. Doing so, will make you 100% more likely to build adequate content.

  • Write distinctive

Giving searchers what they want it’s important, but it’s also important to be unique and put your secret ingredient in the content you’re building. Everything we talked about so far should set a winning formula for you, but there is always room for creativity.

  • Write clearly

No matter how advanced, relevant, and well thought out your content is, no one will read if it’s unclear. These rules will need to be applied in order to keep your article as clear as possible:

  • Use bullets.
  • Use descriptive subheadings.
  • Use images.
  • Use simple words.
  • Use short sentences and paragraphs.
  • Use a large font. 

How to optimize SEO content.

  1. Include your keyword in the title

Pages usually are wrapped in H1 tag, so you would want to include your keyword in the title for best results, when aiming to rank high.

  1. Use short descriptive URLs

Short URLs will help the user understand what the content of the page is about before entering.

  1. Optimise your title tag

Having a relevant title tag will up your chances to appear high in the search results.

The simplest way to create a title tag is usually to have it as your post or page title.

  1. Write a compelling meta description

Google usually shows a snippet of the page’s meta description.

Meta description is not a factor for ranking , but having a compelling description will lead to more clicks and traffic.

  1. Add internal and external links

When you link your post internally and externally to relevant pages, you help users navigate more easily and find more useful information. If you’re thinking that linking your page externally to other sites will hurt your SEO, you can rest assured that is not the case. In fact the Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, John Mueller, says:

 “Linking to other websites is a great way to provide value to your users. Often times, links help users to find out more, to check out your sources and to better understand how your content is relevant to the questions that they have.”

To wrap this up

If you follow through with the guide, your content will surely be optimized for SEO. Remember to align with the search intent, that’s the most important part, while the technical things are also important they are more like the cherry on top.

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jack123, author

Comments

  • SEO is not really that hard to understand if you know what you want to rank for. You need to know what keywords you are targeting and how you can optimize your website.

    Reply