Before businesses adopt search engine optimisation techniques to optimise their websites, they must focus on their on-page optimisation.
On page SEO refers to the process of optimising the content on your website, which includes the copy, video, links, and images on the whole website. Anything that is uploaded on to your website can be considered as on-page. It is a vital part of any business’ search marketing approach.
Googlebots
Google gives each webpage a value, which it then uses to rank pages for each search term. It utilises Googlebots – search bot software that collects and documents each website – to build a searchable index of sites relative to search terms.
Googlebots compare the layout of a page to those that have already been ranked highly, look into ratio of advertising to copy and, critically, the relevance of the on-page content to the keyword query.
If you want to improve your website ranking, then it’s important that your website and all of its individual pages are search-engine friendly. You can achieve this by ensuring all your web pages can be indexed by search engines; for example, place your keywords in the URL link of each webpage.
Quality content
Released in February 2011, Google’s Panda update shook up on-page SEO content, with its aim to remove low-quality content and to encourage the provision of high-quality, keyword-related content to satisfy website visitors.
In April 2012, the Penguin update attacked keyword stuffing and other black-hat techniques, further reducing the extent to which SEOs can cheat the system, and incentivising the production of quality content.
The most important factor when it comes to on-page optimisation is the presence of unique and original copy. The content must be fresh and relevant to your website, so the copy on every webpage should be distinctive, engaging, and boosts your search engine rankings.
SEO checklist
So what should you do to ensure your webpages are search-engine friendly?
- Make it reader friendly! Ensure your copy is unique, informative, adds value and engages visitors. Make your pages clear and easily navigable, and check that all content is relevant and well-written
- Anticipate the keywords you think users would typically type to search for the products and/or services that your business offers. These keywords must then be included in your copy, each page’s URL and meta tags
- Embed keywords in a link that points to an external authority related to your post.
- When using images, use the “ALT” tag to attribute to include keywords related to the content
- Search engines favour a lot of relevant text. For maximum SEO it is recommended that posts with approximately 500 words of copy are ideal.