While so many put in much effort on building the authority of a domain through off-page optimization, on-page SEO is as well important for successful SEO. It entails all measures taken directly on web pages to boost your website ranking on search engines and drive organic traffic. This means it’s success is totally up to you. You get to decide the quality of the webpages and the audience you are focusing on. Whether it will drive visitors or not depends on you.
However, when it comes to on-page SEO, it is something you want to get right for search engines to understand your website and its relevance to searchers queries. They are smart yet simple techniques that produce the desired results. Here, we ask Raymond Halliwell, a digital marketing expert on-page SEO techniques that matters in 2021.
Content
Content is and always will be king. It is what makes a website credible to search engines and that is why it is very important. Your content has to be engaging and of high quality. This is what gets visitors glued to your site. Plus, focus on longer contents. Studies have proven that long content tends to rank higher and dominate the first page of search engines.
Title tag
The title tag is the title of the web page and the ones displayed on the search engine results pages (SERPs). The title tag should accurately describe the web page content when opened and that is why it is also another important factor you don’t want to take for granted. Keep it as simple as 65 characters or less and let your keyword be closer to the title tag as possible.
Headline
Even if the title is basic, headlines will make a huge difference in a content that is clickable. It is what highlights the nub of the sub matter, it is what arouses curiosity, it is what determines whether or not your target reader is going to read an article or not. So go ahead and give that compelling headline that your content deserves.
Multimedia
The saying images speak louder than words holds true in on-page SEO. They are attention grabbers, they rub easily on emotions and they can increase time spent on websites. “Have a variety of multimedia on your webpage- images, vidoes, infographics, podcasts or slide shows. Not only are you creating a visually stunning webpage, you are encouraging visitors to spend more time and even return, says Raymond Halliwell.
Keyword
Keywords are what peolle look for in search engine, you want your pages to pop up to target audience when they search for relevant information. Hence, research for your audience and the keywords they are using. Raymond Halliwell advises you to optimize your content with those keywords and don’t forget to include it in the first 100 words. While at it, focus on long-tail keywords that appeal to today’s internet users.
Internal links
Another powerful way to improve user engagement on your site is through internal linking. Add 2-3 links of relevant pages on your site. This will tell keep visitors navigate your site, keep them engaged longer, and informs Google that your pages are relevant and useful.
Outbound links
“One way to build your website traffic while still facilitating relationships with other businesses is through outbound links. It informs people and search engines about relevant useful content, Raymond Halliwell explains. One thing is pages with outbound links tend to outrank those without on SERP.
Mobile-friendliness
With billions of people using mobile phones to surf the internet in this age, this is one important aspect you don’t want to miss. You need to boost your site speed on smartphones as well. Use a fast web hosting service and make your pages mobile-friendly. Google and internet users love sites that are optimised for faster mobile loading speed.