We have been asked by several of our clients what the SEO best practices are that we use here at SmartToFinish as well as when we support them with their WordPress page setup. You asked and we have answered!
Here are on page SEO best practices for you to follow if you want your website to get better rankings in the search engines.
1. Keyword in post title
The title is perhaps the most important SEO element on a page. It has to be unique, and it should contain your main keyword for that particular page or post.
2. Subheadings for easy reading, with keywords in subheadings
Viewers will be scanning an article for words and phrases that jump out at them. The easy way to Get important point across to readers is to use subheadings, bullet points and lists. Subheadings are “mini titles” that are used in the body of the content to introduce a new concept or idea. Use keywords in subheadings. The best subheading to use are “<h2>” and “<h3>”. For some reason Google and the other search engines think that any text inside a code tag, like “<h2>” is more important than the rest of the words on the page. The same holds true for bolds, italics and links.
3. Use images and insert a keyword in the alt text area of the image.
Images are very good for SEO, but few people know how to insert them correctly. In order to comply with the on page SEO best practices, you need to always add an “alt” tag to your images. Write a description that makes sense and use the keyword in it. Make sure the image is also related to what you put in the alt tag because there are chances to rank in Google Images for that particular keyword.
4. Use an SEO plugin like WPSEO by Yoast.
These plugins allow you to optimize the Google search entry, which makes it more enticing for people to visit your website. Use a single keyword / keyword phrase for each post. That keyword needs to be in:
- the title
- keyword area
- meta description
of the SEO plugin editor. The plugin will indicate the level of on page optimization of your post, so you will know if you need to further tweak those elements in order to be in line with the most important on page SEO best practices.
5. Keywords used in the content on the page
You would think this is a given …. but it’s not. Putting a keyword in the post title and the description of the page is not enough to make that page relevant. You also need to use it in the page content. Try to include semantically related words in the context, as that increases the relevancy of the page for your particular keyword. As a general rule, it’s good to include your main keyword once in the first sentence of the content and in the last sentence. If you have a lot of content, you may consider adding it once or twice more. If you have too many instances of the keyword, you risk an over-optimization penalty from Google.
6. Link to different pages or posts on the same website and link to outside websites with a higher page rank.
Internal linking is very important if you want to improve your rankings. It’s good to make references to older posts and link to them naturally.
In order to improve the internal architecture of your website, you may consider adding a related posts plugin. There are a few good ones out there. Choose one and have three to five related posts displayed under each article. It improves the navigation for both people and search engines spiders.
Linking out should also be part of your on page SEO strategy. Unlike inbound links, outbound ones can be controlled by you. Take advantage of this and always try to link to websites with good authority and with higher page rank. Be careful, it’s best that all resources you link to are related to your niche and to the topic of your post. The best thing about such links is that some websites have the trackback function enabled, so it’s possible you get a good link back from them automatically.
When you are consistent and persistent with these SEO best practices, you will see a rise in your website traffic and your page rank.
If you would like us to support you with your SEO best practices, please schedule a call with us to find out more!
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