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On-page SEO actions are what really propel your page- rankings. We’ll be taking a look at some basic SEO actions in this post. To start off, we all agree that when readers look for a keyword on the internet, the “finding” part is actually done by search engines.
And of these, currently, there are three popular search engines Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
So, whenever a reader searches for something related to your website, your site shows up quickly.
And optimization is the process that makes your web- page show up the fastest on the internet. Hence the term search engine optimization or SEO.
What Exactly is On-Page SEO?
Now, SEO comprises of ‘on-page SEO actions ’ and ‘off-page SEO actions’
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing content mainly inside your web pages for quick discovery by search engines. This is also termed as “on-site SEO”.
Whenever your website starts coming up faster in front of your readers compared to other sites, your ranking is considered better. Though ranking has many other facets besides this.
By contrast, off-site or Off-page-SEO involves all those actions that are done outside of your website. They also significantly enhance your rankings.
But for now, we will stick to on-page SEO actions only.
Most common on-page-SEO actions involve optimizing title tags, content, internal links, and optimizing URLs.
As you notice, all these actions fall within the limits of your own website. Not outside, on social media, etc.
But let’s get back to on-page-SEO.
Very Basic On-Page SEO Actions
Why do we say “very basic” on-page SEO techniques? Because the actions we’re covering here are not exhaustive. They are just that – basic. They are simple.
But very, very necessary for your SEO-ranking.
Without these simple on-page actions, you may not make any headway with SEO at all.
And all your hard work of writing content would have been wasted.
1. Position Your Keyword at Precise Points
Now briefly, a keyword is a word or phrase that people type, to find their answers on search engines.
A keyword is the focus of your readers’ search. It is actually a bridge between you and your readers’ choice.
That’s why, for a blog owner, keywords also occupy the center-stage of a post or page.
For example, if a person were looking up on the net about “pens”, they might search for something like “expensive fountain pens” on Google. In fact, this is a good example of a long-tail keyword.
Even though that phrase contains more than one word, it’s still a keyword because of the focus-pens.
Now, these keywords need to be positioned at appropriate locations on your web-page.
Earlier, there was an era in the working of SEO, when the number of keywords in a post was considered crucially important.
This is also called “keyword density”.
And keyword-density fetched handsome rankings for bloggers.
So bloggers would spam their post with keywords indiscriminately. And hence they would zoom to top rankings on Google searches with this.
Google termed this notorious activity as “keyword stuffing”. But today, you can’t do that and get away unscathed.
Although important, keyword density is no longer the “centre of gravity” for SEO.
In fact these days, you will most likely get penalized by Google if you indulge in keyword stuffing!
So to avoid that penalty, bloggers test the waters with keyword-density-checkers , available within plugins like Yoast.
That way,they know when they’ve crossed their limit of keywords.
So what’s the next best action for SEO, if it’s not keyword density?
Well, this is something called ‘keyword placement’.
In today’s era of on-page SEO, where you position your keyword in the post assumes great importance.
Your focus keywords must be tactically deployed at the right place in your post.
In the current SEO scenario, it is recommended that the first 150 words of your content must contain your keyword.
Besides that, five other positions in your content merit those target keywords.
We’ll take them one by one.
2.The Title Tag
Whenever your content lands on the internet, search engines have crawlers (spiders) and bots that go over your content.
This process is complex but eventually, it results in indexing and ranking of your website. All this happens behind the scenes – through machine language, HTML, and code.
The result of these searches shows up in “search engine result pages” or SERP.
And SERPs affect your content rankings in a big way.
More interestingly, your SERP rankings are affected by your title tag.
So the sequence is ; title tag —– SERP —–content ranking.
For this reason, your title tag becomes crucial for search results.
Now what’s a title tag ?
Well, according to Moz.com “a title tag is an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. Title tags are displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs) as the clickable headline for a given result, and are important for usability, SEO, and social sharing. The title tag of a web page is meant to be an accurate and concise description of a page’s content.”
This effectively means, that your title tag is conveying something. It’s saying that your page has useful answers for your reader.
So your title tag becomes the clickable headline for readers, once your content is published online.
Most bloggers manage the title tag with the Post Editor, found on WordPress.
Simply head over there, place the title tag closest to the beginning, inside the Add Title field. Make sure your keyword figures in the title tag.
For clarity of understanding, consider the title tag “Social Media”. A good website will ensure that their title tag figures high in SERPs.
Notice how intelligently some sites place their keyword “social media” in the title tag, preferably in the beginning itself.
3.URL Slug (Important On-page SEO Action)
The address of a web page on the internet is found from its URL (the universal resource locator).
What’s a URL slug then?
A ‘slug’ is that part of a URL that identifies a webpage in easy to read form.
Simply put, the slug is also the part of the URL that describes the page’s content.