8 On Page SEO Techniques to Improve Your Page Rankings Now

When you are putting together your web pages, every decision you make should take Search Engine Optimization – or SEO, for short – into account.

When people go online to search for businesses like yours, they type keywords into the search engine, which then looks for and ranks web pages that include those specific keywords.

SEO is techniques that improve the way Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines rank your website on the search engine result pages for your keywords.

Here are some simple, yet effective, on page SEO techniques you can include in your website design to improve your site rankings:

1. The Importance of Keywords

Which keywords you use and when and where you place them within your website has a profound impact on how your web page will be ranked.

Getting ranked at or near the top of the results pages for your keywords is critical to the success of your business because people tend to click on only those links, ignoring those that are listed below.

Choose keywords that are most likely to be the ones people use to find pages like yours. For example, if you own an auto body repair shop in Cleveland, it makes sense that people living there, who need this type of service, would search for something like “Cleveland auto body repair” or “auto body repair shops in Cleveland”.

These, then, are the types of keywords you want to include when optimizing your pages.

2. Where to Put Keywords

Google and other search engines want to see your keywords listed in the page title, headers, links, and in the alt attributes for images that you use on your web page.

3. How Often Should You Use Your Keywords?

You also should include your keywords within the content of your web page, with a keyword density of about 1% to 2%.

Keyword density means how often your keywords appear within your content. So, for example, if the copy on your web page is 1,000 words long, with a keyword density of 1% or 2% you want to include your keywords 10 to 20 times.

4. Make Your Page Appealing to Search Engines

Google and other search engines prefer web pages that play by their rules. So you need to use the right tags and eliminate anything they don’t like:

• Use only one h1 tag and make sure it includes your keywords. The h1 tag is the main headline to the web page.
• Include your keywords in some of the sub-headlines within the content of your web copy.
• Check all your links to make sure they work. Search engines hate broken links and will penalize your web page if it includes them.
• Make your pages load quickly, especially when viewed on mobile devices.
• Load JavaScript and CSS onto your page externally to speed up your load times.

5. Page Titles Headlines Matter

The page title of your web page is the first thing search engines are going to see.

To make your page titles more attractive to Google and other search engines, limit them to a maximum of 60 characters. Anything longer than that isn’t going to be displayed on the search result anyway.

The page title needs to be a short, accurate summary of what your web page is all about, followed by your website’s name.

6. Make Your Links Informative

Search engines prefer if the links on your web page say exactly what will happen when the user clicks on them. So instead of generic links that say such things as “Click Here” or “Submit Form”, use more descriptive titles such as “Click Here to Download Your Free Report” or “Submit Your Email Address Now To Subscribe to our eNewsletter”.

This also makes it more likely that page visitors will click-through on the links on your web page.

7. Give Google Top Priority When Using On Page SEO Techniques

While there are many search engines, Google is by far the biggest and most popular. So when you use on page SEO techniques to improve your page rankings, you should always consider what Google prefers your pages to look like rather than Bing, Yahoo or anybody else.

8. Don’t Sacrifice Page Content for SEO

SEO will help people land on your web pages, but the content you include on your page is what’s going to keep them there – and drive them to follow your Call to Action (CTA).

When you stuff your page with keywords, or try to manipulate your web content to fit what you think search engines will like best, it can make it more difficult for visitors to connect with your content.

The copy you include should read and flow naturally. And it should drive readers toward a very specific CTA.

Conclusion

Simple SEO tips like these can dramatically improve the way Google and other search engines rank your page. Just make sure that your pages appeal to visitors once they arrive there.

How do you like this list of on page SEO techniques?

Did I miss anything you’d like to add?

Tell us below by leaving a comment. 🙂

Author Bio – This article is written by Aaron Hurlburt from VSF Marketing, a Tampa bay based SEO Company and one of the top online marketing agencies in the Tampa area.

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On Page SEO Techniques

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