On-Page SEO techniques are vital to a website’s presence in search results. Many good techniques are often overlooked because they are outside ordinary methods.
Title and keyword optimization are a great starting point for SEO improvements. However, there are many other ways to increase your website’s on-page optimization without using black hat or deceptive techniques that could result in search engine penalties.
The following list includes 5 on-page SEO techniques to consider.
1. Internal Links
Creating new content, including blog posts, articles, and time sensitive documents, two or three times a week has its advantages. Search engines can see that your site is updated often, which means that you are providing fresh content for your users. But to keep readers on your site, internal links are key to decreasing bounce-rate and boosting time-on-page.
- Refer to new and old content by adding internal links via hyperlinks and bookmarks.
- Cross reference older documents in new posts to keep users engaged and content visible. One way to accomplish this goal is to add a “You might also like:” section to the end of your post or page to link related articles within a site.
- One link that is often overlooked is a link to the About Us page via various posts and pages. This practice will give readers an opportunity to get to know the website owners and build trust.
One plugin that makes this almost seamless is No Sweat WP Internal Links Lite, which will help make sure the process is not overdone.
Be wary of broken links. Any maintenance checklist should include periodic checks for broken links, which will send red flags to search engine crawlers.
2. Clean out Root Folders
Many website owners, administrators, and optimizers forget old files. “Out of sight, out of mind.” However, search engine web crawlers can see all files and folders in a site’s directory. With only a few seconds on each site, maximizing the effectiveness of that crawl is imperative to the site’s rank.
Clean out root folders. Storing files in designated directories helps to keep site owners organized. Store the following files together:
- Different versions of the same content (also called duplicate content)
- Trial files
- Site backup
- Temp files
- Media files
Only specific files should be crawled. To tell crawlers not to look at files or directories, modify the robot.txt file. Anything marked as “Disallow” will be ignored.
Tools such as Xenu’s File Sleuth can help site owners find unused or old files. Running Xenu for the first time can be exhausting, but once it becomes part of a scheduled maintenance task, it will not take very long.
3. Loading Speeds
Almost everything discussed here affects loading speeds to one extent or another. There is nothing more critical than site access and searchers won’t wait. Users click off slow loading sites within seconds and click on the next entry on the search engine results page. Mobile loading speeds should also be considered.
Use GTMetrix and/or Google’s PageSpeed Insights to measure website-loading speed and get insights about why the page is slow and recommendations regarding fixes. While the average user might be able to correct some site issues, sometimes a website’s design is the problem. A skilled web designer will be able to help with a website redesign.
4. Streamline Code
This is NOT a task for the average user and should NOT be attempted without first completing a backup of the entire site.
If a website has been online for a long time, there are likely errors in code and redundant code that should be removed. This will make the site more efficient and tell search engine crawlers that the site is regularly maintained.
After a thorough backup remove:
- superfluous code
- any unused code
- unused comments in the code that do not have a purpose
- meta-keyword tags
After completing these tasks, test everything to ensure nothing went awry; the worst that can happen is that the backup will have to be used.
5. Latent Semantic Indexing
Some say the most important factors in on-page SEO are not merely keywords, but also the surrounding:
- Text.
- Synonyms.
- Relevant text.
- “Proof” terms.
Google’s Hummingbird algorithm analyzes the text to see what the content relates to overall. The technical verbiage for this is Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), which is not important to remember, as long as it is effectively applied to your content.
Remember to:
- Use Internal Links
- Clean out Root Folders
- Check & Fix Loading Speed Problems
- Remove Redundant and Unneeded Code to Correct Errors
- Use Latent Semantic Indexing
While these five tips can help a site’s position in a search engine results page, the most important factor of on-page SEO is quality content. Be thoughtful and strategic, and don’t forget a call to action to convert viewers into customers.
Not sure where to start? A great place to begin is a free marketing analysis. CourseVector is happy to evaluate your SEO and provide a plan for improvement.
Recommendations for other articles pertaining to SEO:
How to Structure URLs for SEO & 5 More Tips on Structuring URLs for SEO
How to Convert Landing Page Visits to Cash or Contacts
