On Page SEO

A lot of webmasters think that on page SEO is an afterthought, or not a very important aspect of search engine optimization. The best way to explain the importance of on page optimization is fitting an object into a hole. Building links to a website without first doing proper on page SEO is the equivalent of forcing a square object into a circular hole. With enough force (links) it’s certainly possible to hammer that square into the hole. However much easier and cleaner would be turning that square into a circle and just placing it into the hole.

On page SEO is not about just sprinkling your content with a couple different keywords and adding an h1 tag here or there. On page SEO should start with the very simple concept of: “Does my website DESERVE to rank #1 for this keyword?”. If you can (honestly) answer yes to that question, you’re starting off on the right foot. A lot of webmasters will make a website and regardless of how much value the website offers, insist on trying to get their website to the #1 spot. If these same webmasters spent a little more time and effort on developing the website itself, it’d make their search engine optimization efforts a lot easier. Don’t make that same mistake.

On Site Optimization using proper Website Structure

On site SEO starts at the foundation of your website, the website structure. You want to optimize your website structure so that it is well received by search engine algorithms. This includes making sure you have a good URL structure, strong internal linking, and theming your content so that it has structure and organization. Think of the website structure like the “My Documents” folder on your computer. By organizing your pages into properly organized and labeled folders, you’re making it easier for other people who want to find something in your collection of files.

Optimizing Meta Tags for On Page SEO

Meta Tags are another way to help search engines understand what your website about, which is pretty much the goal of on page optimization. By adding titles and descriptions to the pages on your site, you’re further organizing your website’s content and on page optimization. Going back to the analogy of “My Documents” on your computer, if you’re putting a title and description on each song, image, video or document on your computer – it will be that much easier for other people to find what they’re looking for.

Doing SEO Copywriting for On Page SEO

SEO Copyrwriting is another aspect of on page SEO that is often misunderstood. Search engines are extremely intelligent at sorting through the internet and figuring out what pages are about, and whether those pages are useful. The problem is search engines are not human beings, they rely on factors like keyword density and metrics to determine whether a query is transactional, navigational or informational.

That thing that rotates around the planet we live on can be see when there is no day light.

You could probably figure out it that the above sentence is referencing the moon. Search engines however would have a difficult time understanding what that sentence is about, because the topic isn’t even mentioned.

That thing that rotates around the planet we live on that we can see when there is no day light, in English called the moon, is something that some people believe has certain superstitions tied to it.

This (run-on) sentence is actually equally difficult for search engines to understand. There’s a lot being said in there and only one word is the actual subject of the sentence. Without any context it would be difficult to sort it. SEO copywriting is all about knowing how search engines read the content and making sure you’re writing the content in a way that is understandable to both search engines and the visitors.

Optimizing Images for On Page SEO

One of the biggest misconceptions about optimizing your images for SEO is that it only benefits image searches. Image SEO also greatly effects the overall page’s optimization effort. Making sure that search engines know an image is relevant to the page it is sitting on, is helping the page’s relevance as well as the image’s relevance.

Most of the time when blogs have spun content that are low quality, they don’t have any images on them at all. On the other hand when you have someone who puts a lot of effort into their blog or website, there are usually images associated with the what’s been written about to help the writer put his or her point in context. This is why search engines look upon content with relevant images favorably. Not only will this increase your on page optimization, it will also increase your user experience.