“Search Engine Optimisation” or SEO is one of the most important aspects of online marketing. It is a process that helps your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), which can lead to more visitors and ultimately more revenue. In this beginner’s guide, we will discuss the basics of SEO and provide tips for improving your website’s ranking while potential customers search.
On-Page SEO Basics
With regards to SEO, on-page optimisation is the key. This means you should focus on optimising your website’s content, structure, and code for the best possible results. You need to keep a number of things in mind about these elements when improving your rankings.
The only way to fully optimise on-page SEO is to comprehend all of its nuances. This Beginner’s Guide to On-page SEO will provide answers to questions like:
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What is on-page SEO?
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Why is on-page SEO important?
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How to formulate your SEO content and produce high-quality content? And what are the factors to be considered when creating your content strategy?
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What would be the type of content that will work best for your business?
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How do you make titles/headers attractive to readers?
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What is the importance of research in writing explicit content?
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How to optimise your page for SEO? And what are the elements that will help you rank higher on Google?
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Does your content need to be organised differently for featured snippets?
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Lots more.
Let’s start on!
What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO, or on-site SEO, is the practice of optimising individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic. It involves optimising a page’s title tag, description, headings, images, and other elements that affect how a page appears in search engine results pages (SERPs). Optimising these elements helps you with your on-page SEO strategy.
The goal of on-page is to help search engines understand and index a page’s content so that it can be properly displayed in SERPs, which in turn means. By optimising the elements on a page, businesses can increase their chances of ranking higher for relevant keywords and phrases.
While there are numerous variables that affect a page’s position in SERPs, on-page SEO is one of the most crucial ones. The other important factor is off-page SEO. You may increase your chances of ranking higher on SERPs and attracting more targeted traffic to your website by optimising the content on it.
Why is On-page SEO Important?
On-page SEO is important because it can help improve your website’s ranking on SERPs. Optimising your website’s content, structure, and code can make it easier for Google or Bing to index your pages and understand your content. This can lead to higher rankings and earn relevant traffic from potential customers.
For one thing, it’s one of the on-page SEO factors that you can control. On-page SEO is all about making your website as search engine friendly as you can, as opposed to off-page SEO, which takes factors like social media engagement and backlinks into account.
This means creating high-quality content, using the right keywords, and making sure your website is well-coded and easy to navigate. There is more to SEO than ranking higher; check out our SEO checklist, which will guide you throughout the on-page SEO process.
It’s also important to remember that on-page is just one part of a successful digital marketing strategy.
Furthermore, on-site SEO helps Google understand what your website is about and how it can be helpful to users. When you optimise your website for better visibility, you’re essentially telling Google what your website is all about and why it’s worth ranking.
Consider it in this way: if you were trying to sell a product or service, would you rather have a well-designed and easy-to-use website or a website that’s hard to navigate and full of errors?
Of course, you’d want the first option. The same is true for Google. When they index websites, they’re looking for sites that are well-designed and full of high-quality content.
You must make sure your website satisfies these requirements if you want it to rank highly. And that’s where on-page comes in!
Formulating Your SEO Content
Once you have a basic understanding of on-page, it’s time to start formulating your content strategy. This means you need to decide what kind of content you will produce and how to promote it. Understanding the purpose of why the user is searching is important, and this is called “search intent”. There are a number of tips to consider when creating your content strategy, including your target audience, keywords you want to rank for, and your content marketing goals.
A content strategy is a plan for creating and promoting content that will help you achieve your business goals. It includes the type of content you will produce, the target audience you want to reach, and the methods you will use to promote your content.
Additionally, it is crucial for helping you focus your efforts and create content that will further your desired objectives. By developing a content plan, you can make sure that all of your material is in line with your objectives and that you are utilising the best promotional strategies. It goes without saying that you must conduct keyword research before beginning your content strategy. Keyword stuffing can harm your entire piece of content, so you must avoid it if you don’t want to face Google penalties.
Relevance
Every topic you cover should be relevant to the search intent of your keywords. Your content should match search intent. This means you need to do your keyword research and make sure that you are targeting the right keywords with your content.
One of the best ways to produce relevant content is to focus on your target audience. You can produce content that is pertinent to your target audience’s requirements and interests when you are aware of who they are. You may also use this information to determine the keywords you want to rank for.
By doing keyword research, you can identify the relevant terms that align with your topic. You can gather all the keywords that are related to your main keyword and appear in different SERPs for those keywords. There are tools on the market that you can use for free. Some tools are paid, but they offer great benefits.
The best way to promote relevant content is by using a variety of methods, including social media, email marketing, and paid advertising. By using these methods of promotion, you can reach a larger audience and increase your chances of exposure. Potential customers will see your content.
Content-Type
Not all content is created equal. To rank higher in SERPs, you need to produce high-quality content that is relevant to your target audience and the keywords you are targeting. This type of content is known as “SEO content.”
There are a number of different content types you can use, including blog posts, articles, landing pages, listicles, or videos. Each type of content has its own strengths and weaknesses, so you need to choose the type that will work best for your business.
You can identify the type of content that you want to target by looking at the top 10 of the SERP. For example, if we have the keyword “sunscreen,” the SERP will show you blog posts about the best sunscreens on the market. That is your hint to creating a blog post-type of content.
Content Format
Different keywords require different content formats. You can rank well with the help of various content types for different keywords.
Mostly, the content format applies to blog posts. There are different types of blog posts, like interviews, lists, guest blogging, how-to guides, etc. For example, with the query “reset apple ID”, the SERP is full of How-to blog posts telling you how to reset your Apple ID step-by-step.
Here are other guides on what content format is appropriate per keyword:
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How-to articles for informational keywords
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Service Pages for keywords related to products or services
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Opinion pieces for controversial or debatable keywords
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Listicles for interesting and fun keywords
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Podcasts and webinars for long-tail keywords
Content Angle
A content angle is how you make your titles attractive to readers. The content (or marketing) angle represents the distinctive viewpoint or position of your brand. This is the lure that gets the reader to click on your article.
Let’s say, for example, you want to create content with the best smartphone on the market. For people searching, they will always click on what’s latest. In this example, you might want to add a year to your title to make it more attractive to searchers. Furthermore, if you’re targeting a specific place, you should add the name of the place to your title.
There are a number of different content angles you can use, including:
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Entertainment: Use catchy headlines and interesting topics to draw in readers.
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Education: Teach your audience something new and valuable.
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Inspiration: Offer your readers a dose of inspiration to help them achieve their goals.
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Motivation: Help your readers stay motivated and productive.
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Persuasion: Convince your readers to take action on a certain topic or idea.
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Problem/Solution: Offer your readers a solution to a common problem.
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How-To: Edify your audience on how to do something new and useful.
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Reviews: Review products or services and give your honest opinion.
Details
When it comes to SEO, details are important. The more details you can provide in your content, the better because each detail provides value and helps your readers learn more about the topic at hand.
To provide details in your content, you need to do your research and know everything about the topic you are writing about. You can use this information to provide in-depth coverage of the topic and a compelling piece to read.
You should also include images, videos, infographics, and other types of multimedia in your content. This will help keep your readers engaged and help you rank higher in search engine rankings.
In order to produce relevant, high-quality content that will help you rank higher in SERPs, you need to consider the three C’s of search intent: content type, content format, and content angle. By considering these three factors, you can produce content that is not only relevant to your audience and the keywords you are targeting, but also engaging and visually appealing.
Find subtopic opportunities
When creating content, it’s important to consider how you can target your audience. One way is to find subtopic opportunities among the ranking keywords, including:
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Using Google’s autocomplete feature
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Checking the related keywords section of Google AdWords
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Checking the Google SERPs’ “Searches related to” section
Personally, I recommend doing in-depth research on your niche. You can find different topic opportunities that you can cover in your content. For example, you want to discuss the topic “Fishing”. First, I will identify and scan my competitors’ SERPs and see their subtopics. After scanning and analysing, I can now draft my content outline. I can probably discuss ice fishing, fly fishing, and so on as my subtopics.
Find subheadings alike
Once you’ve identified a few subtopic opportunities, the next step is to find related subheadings that you can use in your content.
One way to do this is by using the Google search operator “site:”. This operator allows you to search for websites that contain a certain keyword or phrase.
For example, if you want to find subheadings for the keyword “SEO,” you can use the following search string:
site:aemorph.com “SEO”
This will return a list of pages from aemorph.com that contain the phrase “SEO”. This method can help you find what you’re looking for.
Analyse the competitors
The first step is to analyse the competitor’s website. There are many ways or criteria to do this, but some key things to look for include:
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The title tags of their pages
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The meta descriptions of their pages
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The keyword density of their pages
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The alt tags of their images
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The anchor text of their links
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The structure of their sitemaps
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The robots.txt file
All of these factors will give you insights into how your competitor is optimising their website.
Once you have a good understanding, you can start to implement similar strategies on your own site. A solid foundation for creating a superb and long-lasting website structure is laid by a good competitive SEO analysis.
Analyse the SERP
When you’re trying to improve your on-page SEO, it’s important to analyse the SERP for your chosen keywords. Knowing what content is already available will help you understand how to make your own content more appealing to readers. Here are a few things to look for when you’re analysing the SERP:
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The ranking of the pages for your keywords
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The number of results for your keywords
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The competition for your keywords (based on the number of results and the ranking of the pages)
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The content types that are ranking well for your keywords
By analysing the SERP, you can get a good idea of what it will take to rank well for your target keywords. If you see that the top-ranking pages are all blog posts, then you know that you need to create a great blog post if you want to rank well for those keywords. If you see that the top-ranking pages are all product pages, then you know that you need to create a great product page if you want to rank well for those keywords.
Through SERP analysis, you can also understand what content you should avoid. If you see that the top-ranking pages are all thin, low-quality articles, then you know it’s not worth your time to create a similar article. Instead, you should focus on creating high-quality content that will stand out from the rest.
So, next time you try to improve your on-page SEO, take some time to analyse the SERP for your keywords. This will give you a good idea of what content you should create and how you can make it more competitive.
Outstanding Content
Making outstanding content is not only about having something different to say but also about saying it better than anyone else. In order to make your content stand out, you need to be able to capture and articulate your unique perspectives on the subject matter.
One way to develop this skill is by writing regularly. As you write more, the better you’ll get at distilling your thoughts into clear, concise prose. Another way to improve your writing is by reading widely and exposing yourself to different styles of writing. The more variety you’re exposed to, the easier it will be for you to find your own voice.
Once you’ve found your voice, the next step is to make sure that your content is optimised. This entails selecting the appropriate keywords and phrases and organising your articles such that they are simple to read and understand.
Writing excellent content and optimising it are two skills you should be able to master if you want your SEO strategy to be successful.
Comprehensive Content
Comprehensive content involves more than just choosing the proper keywords. It’s also about delivering information in a way that is easy for your audience to understand. Keep your audience in mind at all times when developing content. Write for them, not for the search engines. If your content is difficult to understand, it will also be difficult to get ranked, so make sure your content is well-written and clear to understand.
In addition, your content must also be interesting and informative, or else no one will read it. As a result, Google won’t rank it since Google wants to provide their users with content that satisfies all their needs on a single page.
Optimising Your SEO Content
One of the most important aspects of on-page SEO is optimising your content. This means making sure that your content is relevant to your keywords and provides value to your audience.
Title Optimisation
One of the most essential on-page SEO components is the title tags. They tell search engines what your page is about, and they are a major factor in determining how your page ranks in SERPs.
However, optimising your title tags might be challenging. In addition to making sure your title tags are clear and make sense to people, you want to make sure your keyword is also included.
When creating your title tag, keep it short and concise. It should be between 50 and 60 characters long; anything longer will be cut off in SERPs. Have your title tag readable and relevant to the topic that you are discussing. Lastly, make your title tag unique. This helps Google or Bing understand each page and makes it more likely that people will find the specific page they’re looking for.
URL Optimisation
Optimising the URL of a website is one aspect of SEO. Search engines will find it simpler to understand and index your material if your URLs are optimised. This may improve the position of your website in the SERPs.
Long, complex URLs are less effective for SEO than short, concise ones. Users are also more inclined to click on them. When constructing them, try to make your URLs brief and pertinent to the information on the page. In order to properly represent the content of the page, you also need to use keywords similar when constructing title tags. As a result, search engines will be able to comprehend and index your material more readily.
Meta Description Optimisation
Meta descriptions are a crucial component of optimising your website for search engines. Furthermore, it helps increase click-through rates (CTR), which means you get more traffic. A meta description is a one-or two-sentence summary that appears in a web browser’s SERP and summarises the information on the page. If your website doesn’t currently have a meta description, you should think about adding one since, unlike title tags, meta descriptions will only be shown if they contain at least 140 characters or more.
Image Optimisation
Image optimisation is one of the most essential factors when it comes to optimising web pages. You can optimise images by using the correct file name, alt text, and description.
The file name is the name of the image file. The alt text is the text that appears when an image can’t be displayed. Both texts should be keyword-rich and accurately describe the image. The description is the longer text that appears below an image. This can further explain what the image is about and why it’s important to the page.
In addition, all of these factors help search engines understand what an image is and how it relates to the rest of the page. It helps them determine if a page is relevant to a user’s search query and should be ranked accordingly.
Link Optimisation
Link optimisation is one of the most important but often overlooked aspects of SEO. In order to rank your website higher on the search results page, you need to invest in link building and make sure that your site’s links are as effective as possible. This means optimising them for both Google and users. There are two main types of links, namely internal and external, that you need to focus on.
Internal links
Internal links, also known as on-page SEO, are a great way to improve your site’s ranking. Internal links are the hyperlinks that lead from one page to another on your website. Having more internal links will help you rank higher on Google because it shows a lot of relevant content on your website.
When creating internal links, you want to make sure that you are using the right keywords and that the internal linking makes sense in the context of the article. For example, if you are writing about dogs, you would not want to link to a page about cats. That would not make sense, and it would not be helpful to the readers.
Internal links are also a great way to keep readers on your site longer. If you have a lot of relevant content, readers will be more likely to click on your links and explore your site.
External links
External links, or backlinks, are links on a page that lead to a different page on a different website. When Google crawls the web, it will follow these links to index the other pages that are linked. This can help your website’s SEO because it will increase the number of pages that are indexed by search engines.
To get the most benefit from external links, it’s important to link to high-quality and relevant websites when doing link building. You should also ensure that your website’s internal linking is strong so that Google can easily index all the pages on your website.
Advanced On-Page SEO
This article’s main point is on sophisticated on-page SEO and how to best optimise your page. You will discover the various on-page SEO strategies that may be utilised to rank highly on the search results page, as well as how search engines operate.
Featured Snippets
Featured snippets are a great way to get your website noticed. They show up at the top of the search results and can help increase your website’s traffic. Featured snippets can be in the form of tables, paragraphs, lists, or even videos.
There are a few things that you can do to make sure your website is eligible for a featured snippet:
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The website is properly optimised;
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Its content is well-written and informative; and
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The website is mobile-friendly.
By implementing these tips, you’ll be well on your way to getting a featured snippet for your website.
Schema Markup
Schema markup is a form of code, also called microdata, that you can add to your web pages in order to provide search engines with more information about your content. This can help improve your ranking in search results and make it easier for users to find the information they’re looking for on your site.
Linkable or Link Snippets/Link Magnet
A linkable snippet is just a section of material that attracts other websites’ attention sufficiently for them to want to link to it. Make sure your material is well-written, engaging, and helpful if you want to develop a linkable snippet. Additionally, you must make sure that it is simple to find and link to.
Linkable snippets are a crucial component of on-page SEO and can assist you in obtaining valuable inbound links from high-quality websites. Developing linkable snippets should be one of your top priorities if you want to improve your on-page SEO.
Page Speed
Page speed is one of the most important ranking factors for SEO. According to Google, the speed of the page is an important factor in their algorithm, and slow pages may be penalised.
There are a number of things you can do to improve the speed of the page, including optimising images, minifying code, and using a content delivery network.
Although it can be difficult, speeding up your page is worthwhile. Faster pages result in improved rankings, and improved rankings result in increased traffic. Therefore, start by concentrating on the speed of your page if you want to improve your SEO.
On-Page SEO Tools
There are a lot of on-page SEO tools available and accessible, and each has strengths and weaknesses of its own. You need to know what each tool does and how it can benefit your website in order to select the best one for it.
Ahrefs
To do on-page SEO effectively, it is important to use tools that help evaluate your website and track your progress. Ahrefs is a popular SEO tool that can be used for both on-page and off-page SEO.
Ahrefs allows you to see how your website performs in terms of ranking and organic traffic. It provides insights into the keywords that are ranking for and your website’s backlinks.
Using Ahrefs can help you improve your on-page SEO by identifying areas where you need to make changes or improvements. Also, Ahrefs is the best when it comes to keyword research.
SurferSEO
SurferSEO is a tool that can be used to help content strategists and writers formulate their content, like articles and blog posts. It provides information on how well a page is optimised for certain keywords and how competitive those keywords are. This information can be used to help writers choose the right keywords to target and to help them determine whether their content is likely to rank well for those keywords.
SurferSEO can be a valuable tool for any content writer or strategist who wants to ensure their content is as effective as possible. So, if you’re looking to get the most out of your content, SurferSEO is a tool you should definitely check out.
Detailed SEO Extension
The Detailed SEO extension is a Chrome extension that helps you improve your website’s SEO. It checks your website’s headings, meta descriptions, title tags, and other things to make sure they are all correct and optimised. It also gives you feedback on how to improve your website’s SEO.
This extension is very useful in daily analysis, by providing relevant insights in just one click. This is easy to use and gives you all the information you need about your website’s SEO. I would highly recommend this SEO tool to anyone who wants to improve their website’s SEO.
Yoast SEO
The WordPress plugin Yoast SEO was developed by Joost de Valk. It is a plugin that aids in website optimization. Yoast SEO also gives you a readability score, so you can make your material easier to understand. Both the free and paid versions of Yoast SEO are accessible. More features are available in the premium version than in the free version.
Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog is an SEO audit tool that helps you analyse and scan your website. It crawls your website and finds any potential errors or issues that need to be fixed. This will improve your website’s ranking in search results and help you attract more visitors.
To use Screaming Frog, simply enter your website’s URL and select “Start.” The app will then crawl your website and provide you with a report. This report will show any errors or issues, and you can fix the errors and review them. Then, resubmit your website for crawling.
PageSpeed Insights
Page Speed Insights is an ideal tool that helps measure the site speed of a website. It works by analysing the page and giving feedback on ways to improve the speed of your page. The app also provides data on how well the page is performing currently.
Page Speed Insights is available as a Chrome extension and as a website. The app is free to use.
To use Page Speed Insights, simply go to the website and enter the URL of the page you want to test. The app will then analyse the page and give you a report on how to improve page speed. The report will also include data on the current performance of the page.
Conclusion
For content strategy, on-page SEO is crucial. You may increase traffic to your content and the visibility of your website by having high-quality content and an overall optimised website. It’s essential to make sure you are using all of the techniques available to you for improving your on-page SEO. So why are you still waiting? Optimise your pages right away!
Please feel free to leave a comment below if you have any queries regarding how to optimise on-page SEO. We would be delighted to assist!
