On-page SEO is the backbone for the success of Off-Page SEO strategies. In part-1 of the on-page SEO checklist, the seven important to-dos to improve on-page SEO were discussed. It’s time to look at the other eight on-page SEO strategies.
15 To dos for On-Page SEO
8) SEO Friendly URLs-
The website URL structure needs to be perfect for maximum SEO benefit. It is often neglected by the most crucial part of on-page SEO.
Permanent links – A permalink or permanent link is the unique URL that you assign to your webpage. The name itself suggests that they are supposed to be permanent links. Therefore, it is not advisable to change URLs once the page is indexed in Google and is already on top positions. Changing the URL of the web page will affect the current ranking and lose the inbound links associated with that web page. If the URL is recently created and not indexed yet, it’s okay to change the URLs.
The ideal URL should be short, focused, and contain the target keywords in them. The Urls should use dashes ‘-‘ instead of underscores ‘_‘ to separate the different parts. Avoid using stop words in URLs like ‘the,’ ‘but’ ‘of’ etc. They add no value to the URL. Capitalization in URLs should be avoided as well.
SEO friendly URLs for a company website or eCommerce store-
Include category names in the URL. It makes it easy for both search engines and users to understand the webpage. A good URL for an eCommerce store is-
https://www.example.com/category /product-name/
SEO friendly URLs for a blog, news, or magazine website-
For Blogs, it is best to include only the post title in the URL with target keywords.
https://www.example.com/post-title/
For online magazines and blogs with multiple topics, it is best to add the topic in the URL.
https://www.example.com/topic/article-title/
For daily news websites, it is important to add the date of the published article. The SEO friendly URL, in this case, can be-
https://www.example.com/news-category/yyyy/mm/dd/news-title/
An HTML sitemap containing all important links to the website in the footer menu (can be on the header as well), also known as User Sitemap, represents your website structure. An updated sitemap makes navigating your website easier for search engines and users. If you have an eCommerce website, you can also include manufacture sitemap, brand sitemap, or category sitemap in your footer.
9) Microdata/Structured Data-
Google, along with Yandex, Bing, and Yahoo, support a set of schemas or schema vocabulary (available at Schema.org), which is a type of microdata that makes it easier for search engines to understand and interpret the content on your website more efficiently so they can serve best search results to users based on their search queries. According to Google schema, microdata is not a ranking signal. It enhances the rich snippets (displayed beneath the page title), which in return increases CTR (click-through rate) by providing relevant information to users in a prominent and visually appealing way.
You can check your schema markup here.
10) Keyword Rich Unique Content-
Content is the king. It has to be unique, informative, and engaging. Avoid copy-pasting. Duplicate content will kill your SEO efforts faster than anything else. The main motivation of people to visit and engage with your website is to find the information they are looking for, which is not available anywhere else.
Search engines like Google place a very high value on the content present on your website. It should be informative, original, easy to read and contain the right keywords. Make sure to use proper fonts and font size for effective user readability.
What is considered good content for SEO?
1) The content should ideally be between 1500 to 2000 words or at least a minimum of 800 words for best SEO results.
2) The content should not have been published anywhere else. It has to be original if you write content for an eCommerce website avoiding copy-pasting manufacturer product descriptions. If you have multiple websites and want to use the same content you own on another website, place a rel-canonical tag on the duplicate content pointing it at the original source.
3) Content can be anything from text, infographics, and videos to images. Ensure the text to code ratio is at minimum 10% (for ecommerce websites) and ideally 20% or more for content-based websites. Avoid using bulky images and videos. It is good practice to include text description with images and text transcripts for videos to balance text to code ratio.
4) It is crucial to post fresh content on the website frequently. Formulate a publishing strategy to maintain the frequency of fresh content on your website.
5) Include relevant keywords in the content. Google algorithms are well developed to understand the synonyms and intent of the keywords. Do not stuff the keywords in the content. If your keyword-stuffed content reads unnaturally to human eyes, it will look unnatural google as well. There is no optimum keyword density. It can be anything between 2 to 5%. You can target focus keywords, long-tail versions of focus keywords, and include their synonyms to make the content SEO friendly. Focus on content that is usable and solves the problems of website visitors. Write the content keeping the user experience in mind. Search engines will automatically reward you with a top ranking for writing helpful content for users.
11) Internal Links-
Create as many relevant internal linking as possible to pass on the SEO juice from one webpage to another. When Google crawls the website, it tends to follow internal links on web pages and crawl all the content interlinked with each other. It helps search engines quickly know about the presence of other web pages as well. This helps the undiscovered webpages get indexed in google search results. It is also a good idea for blog writers to create a cornerstone article and link all other relevant articles to the main article. You can tell search engines about your most important page (eg. cornerstone article) by sending more internal links towards it.
The other benefit of internal linking is that it increases the number of page visits and time each user spends on your website, which sends positive SEO signals to search engines. The user reading an article on your website might find it useful to read the related article.
As a caution, do not include a lot of internal links in the content. An unusual number of hyperlinks might look spammy to both users and search engines.
12) Image Optimization-
A picture is worth a thousand words. Choose the images for your website carefully. They should represent your brand well. Best practices for using SEO friendly images:
1) Use original images or buy their usage rights. Even if the image is listed free for reuse, you might have to credit the source to avoid future copyright issues.
2) Always compress the image before uploading. Banner sizes image of 1200*500 pixels should not exceed 150 KB. Lighter images lead to faster loading speed.
3) ALT tag is still important for images. Make sure to describe the image properly using the Alt tag.
4) The filenames for images need to be descriptive. Don’t name your image as ‘article2.jpg’ or ‘product34.jpg’. Instead, use filenames like ’15-SEO-tips.jpg’ or ‘apple-i-phone.jpg.’
5) For eCommerce websites and news blogs with lots of images on a single page, it is best to Use CDN (Content Delivery Network). CDN service stores a cached version of the images on a number of hosts and server, which speeds up the loading time of images and the webpage load faster.
13) Social Sharing Buttons-
Install the social sharing button on all your webpages. Make sure your content is easily sharable. Social media signal is an important factor in Google’s ranking algorithm. The more your webpage is shared across major social networking platforms the better it will rank on google. Choose the placement and color scheme of social media buttons so that they are easily visible. You can also display the number of share/like/follow count alongside the social sharing buttons. Ecommerce websites can incentivize social media sharing by providing discount coupons to customers to share the product page. If your website requires creating an account or login, make sure to provide a social media login option.
14) Reviews/Testimonials/Case Studies-
Reviews and testimonials by customers and clients provide credibility to your business and enhance the search appearance in SERPs. Google loves user-generated content. Make it easy for customers to leave reviews on your product/service pages. Display the reviews or testimonials on your webpages prominently. It helps you differentiate your business from competitors.
Create a dedicated review/testimonial page and link it to google reviews, Facebook reviews, or any other 3rd party review site where your business has positive reviews for prospective customers to see. Case studies give you an opportunity to showcase the problem-solving skills of your company. They can also be used to achieve a backlink by your clients.
15) Comment/Discussion section-
Google gives importance to user-generated content while determining website rank in search results. Choose the best comment/discussion plugin to ensure effective user engagement on your website. Disqus and Facebook comment plugins can be the possible options depending on the nature of your website. Facebook comment plugin is better suited for news and magazine blog websites.
A suitable comments section on the website is crucial to interact with customers and establish brand authority in the industry. From the SEO point of view, user-generated content is liked by search engines and carries high SEO value. The inbuilt comment section can be very resource-intensive in terms of server load. The posts that have lots of comments increase the load time of the webpage. The server load also increases if multiple users leave comments simultaneously. The third-party commenting system like Disqus and Facebook eases away that server load.
The comment section is generally not placed on product pages because it tends to dilute the Reviews and Question/Answer sections. Most of the eCommerce companies and marketplaces like Amazon do not have a comment section on their product page. It is not standard practice for eCommerce websites. Comment sections are primarily for the blog, news, and magazine article websites.
