What do you think about On-Page SEO?
In a world full of constant innovation, many industries have realized the necessity of a strong online presence.
In fact, many businesses have realized their online presence has been more important to the success of their efforts than a physical storefront. From this realization, more and more businesses are now competing for the attention of their target market online. This is where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) comes into play.
SEO is the process by which we can determine how highly your website ultimately ranks in search engines. The higher your rank the sooner your target market can find you when they search for something relevant to your business, you can refer to these results as the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
Regardless of your skill level or familiarity with SEO, here are 3 principles to keep in mind as you create, revamp, or optimize your website (to help on-page SEO or SEO directly affected by edits to your website) whether you do it yourself or have skilled professionals do it for you.
Principle #1: Structure
Principle #1: StructureOne key aspect of how search engines look at a website is through how that website’s information is structured.
But what do we mean by that?
What is the hierarchy of information on your website, do we care more about this product or this service, and how do we distinguish between them in terms of importance? These are key considerations to keep in mind when organizing your website.
Through sitemaps, header tags, and keywords, search engines can more easily index (or take inventory of) what is most important and what to show in search results that will get your target market to your website.
Principle #2: Faster is Better When It comes to web page load times
When it comes to SEO, another key consideration is how fast does your website load? This is important because the faster your website loads, the faster search engine bots can index your website content, images, and all other information.
In 2020, SEMrush conducted a study on how website speed, SEO, content, and schema affect search engine rankings. The study found that, while webpage load speeds didn’t guarantee a webpage the #1 spot in search engine results, those webpages that fell in or around the Google industry standards (load in under 3 seconds, fewer than 50 requests, and a page size under 500 KB) consistently fell within the top 10 results.
This isn’t a hard and fast rule across every industry, but it’s also worth noting that webpage load speeds will always affect your traffic, conversions, and bounce rates.
Often, website visitors will associate a slow-loading page with errors, viruses, or scam sites (all of which damage brand trust). Others may simply get tired of having to wait, so regardless of how beautiful or innovative your landing page is, they don’t want to stick around to see it. Load speeds are an important aspect of on-page SEO and overall customer experience.
There are several things to consider when you are trying to achieve optimal load times for your web pages.
Are your images too big in terms of file size, if so that will put more strain on your website and cause it to load slower? This is where image optimization comes into play. Having smaller file sizes, while still having high-quality images will help your SEO efforts.
Principle #3: Content is King
Content is extremely important in all of your SEO efforts. The structure of your website content is very important, but let’s not forget the quality of a website’s content is priceless. Depending on the industry and the content writer, some may think that less is more when it comes to word count, and others think that writing dissertation-length content on their landing pages will create upward mobility in terms of search engine rankings. The tough truth is: neither of these strategies are true on their own.
And content isn’t just comprised of the words on your landing page: it’s also the videos, tweets, reviews, case studies, ebooks, and other assets that help tell the story of your brand.
One term to keep in mind is E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness).
This term does not just apply to SEO, but the quality of your website and its content in general. The overall principle can be broken down by answering a few questions:
How can you position yourself as an expert in your industry through your content? Do you conduct your own studies, partner with industry leaders, have a unique perspective or innovative insights regarding your business’s focus areas?
Can you position yourself as an authority through link building and having your content in other reputable places on the internet? The brands and resources you choose to share on your website and other business spaces say a lot about your brand and its mission, vision, and values.
And lastly, can you position yourself as trustworthy through testimonials and reviews? Have you satisfied current and past customers? It’s important for the success of your brand that you have people who are willing to talk about their experiences with your products and services, and that they have positive things to say about those interactions.
If your website can do all of this with unique content, then you are definitely on the right track to ranking competitively in your industry to your target market! Really try to keep original and relevant content on your website as much as possible, this will only help your efforts and help your market find you easier.
Each one of these principles has a wealth of depth to them and specific technical know-how will be vital to implementing these principles perfectly, but hopefully, now you have a better general understanding of the overarching principles of what will be a formula for good SEO!
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