The Basics
If your website isn’t properly optimized on-page, your
efforts off the website (link building, content marketing, social media)
probably won’t yield substantial results. Not that they won’t generate anything
at all, but more than half your efforts may end up going down the drain.
There’s no clear rule book that says: do X, Y, and Z in
on-page optimization and your rank will rise by A, B, or C. On-page
optimization is based on tests, analytics and errors. You learn more about it
by discovering what doesn’t work than what does.
But of all the things to keep in mind, there’s this: If you
don’t take care of your on-page SEO, you’re likely going to fall or stay
behind: in rankings, in conversions, and in ROI.
Why Confusion?
But first let’s clear this one up: Why the confusion about
on-page SEO? After all, there’s a ton of material available about it already.
Many experts have written well about it.
The changing demography of search engine algorithms has
altered the factors playing in to how one chooses to perform SEO. You can no
longer think in terms of keywords and inbound links alone. Similarly, you can
no longer think in terms of the meta and alt tags alone (yes, this includes the
title tag, too).
On-page SEO isn’t just about how your site is coded. It’s also
about how your site looks bare-bones (the robot view), and how your website
responds to different screens. It includes load times and authority. And with
the direction that Google is headed in 2013 and beyond, it’s clear that on-page
elements and off-page elements must line up and agree with each other in a
natural, clear, organic manner. That’s why we need to reevaluate on-page SEO a
little more carefully.
1. Meta Tag is Only First Step
We’ve known and used meta tags since their arrival. The meta
“keyword” tag is long-gone, as an SEO ranking factor, but a lot of heat has
been generated in discussions about the utility of meta description tags from
an SEO point-of-view.
More significantly than SEO ranking factors, is the fact
that meta description tags provide an opportunity to affect how your website is
displayed in search results. A great meta description tag can get your result
clicked before the guy ranking above you. It’s still good practice to use
keywords when you can, along with geographic identifiers (when applicable), but
first and foremost should be the intent to attract clicks from humans.
2. Canonical, Duplicate, Broken Links, etc.
Google’s robots have become very smart, to the point where
broken links and duplicate pages raise red flags faster than a bullet. That is
precisely why you’ll find canonical links (and their corresponding codes) to be
highly important.
Broken links and dupes aren’t just anti-SEO. They are
anti-user too. What’s your first reaction when you click on a link that just
shows a page error?
3. The Robot’s Point of View
Text remains the most important part of any website even
today. While Google does rank some videos and media higher than others for
certain keywords, well-formatted and content-rich websites still rule the roost.
To get a view of how your website looks to the crawlers, you
can disable the JavaScript and images (under Preferences/Settings of your
browser) and take a look at the resulting page.
Though not totally accurate, the result is pretty much how
your website looks to the crawler. Now, verify all the items on the following
checklist:
- Is
your logo showing up as text?
- Is
the navigation working correctly? Does it break?
- Is
the main content of your page showing up right after the navigation?
- Are
there any hidden elements that show up when JS is disabled?
- Is
the content formatted properly?
- Are
all other pieces of the page (ads, banner images, sign-up forms, link,
etc.) showing up after the main content?
The basic idea is to make sure the main content (the part
you want Google to note) comes as early as possible with the relevant titles
and descriptions in place.
4. Page Speed and size
Google has long noted the size and the average load times of
pages. This goes into the ranking algorithm by most counts and affects your
position in the SERPs. This means you can have pretty good content on your
website, but if the pages load slowly, Google is going to be wary of ranking
you higher than other websites that load faster.
Google is all for user satisfaction. They want to show their
users relevant results that are also easily accessible. If you have tons of JavaScript
snippets, widgets, and other elements that slow down the load times, Google
isn’t going to award you a high ranking.
5. Do Mobile
This is one of the most hotly discussed topics in online
marketing today. From mobile ads and local search to market trend in
desktop/tablet consumption, it’s clear that moving toward a mobile-optimized
site is the wave of the future.
When you think of a mobile/responsive website, how do you go
about it? Responsive as in CSS media queries, or entirely new domains like
“m.domain.com”? The former is recommended often because this keeps things in
the same domain (link juice, no duplication, etc.). It keeps things simpler.
6. Authors Rank
The author-meta gets a new lease on life with Google
promoting the AuthorRanks
metric. It’s a little more complex than that now, however. You will have to
enable rich snippets for your website, make sure your Google+ profile is filled
up, and link them up with your blog/website. AuthorRank has emerged as a very
important and tangible metric that affects page rank, and is one of the on-page
SEO tactics you should definitely do. Not only will it improve your rankings,
but it will also improve your click-through rate in the SERPs.
7. Design Least but not last
Hardcore SEO people regularly overlook the importance of
design.
Aesthetics and readability stem directly from the design of
a website. Google is good at figuring out what shows “above the fold” on
websites, and Google explicitly recommends that you place content above the
fold so your readers are treated to information rather than ads.
On-page SEO isn’t only about the meta code and the canonical
URL. It’s about how your website connects to the user and to the robot. It’s
about how you make sure your website is accessible and readable, and still has
enough information under the hood for the search engines to pick up easily.
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