On-Page SEO: An In-Depth Guide For Beginners

On-Page SEO And how to create high-quality content is what we shall discuss in this beautiful phase. You are officially welcome and as usual, I remain your speedy Teacher Law P

Have you ever wonder, How Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engine rank web pages number one on a search result?

Would you like search engine to understand your blog and rank it number one on search result?

If your answer is YES! then you are in the right place.

When it comes to optimizing a website or a blog post, there are two main factors at play:

On-page optimization
Off-page optimization

Today’s tutorial will focus on on-page optimization, and I will be sharing lots of good on-page SEO techniques you should implement while working on optimizing your blog posts.

Let’s first make sure we understand what on-page SEO is and why it matters.

What is On-page SEO?

It is the process of writing your posts so that they can rank higher on Google front page by optimizing web pages for specific keywords. It involves creating SEO friendly posts through internal signals.

Others definition of on-page SEO;

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing content for a target keyword within a single blog post. This includes using proper headings, proper keyword placement, ensuring content quality, and paying attention to many other factors.
shoudmeloud

On-page SEO (also called on-site SEO) is the practice of optimizing web pages to rank higher in search engines. It includes optimizations to visible content and the HTML source code.
ahrefs

Onpage optimization (AKA on-page SEO) refers to all measures that can be taken directly within the website in order to improve its position in the search rankings.
searchmetrics

Why onpage SEO is important

On-page SEO is important because it helps search engines understand your website and its content, as well as identify whether it is relevant to a searcher’s query.

Google and other search engines are constantly updating their algorithm so that it can better understand a searcher’s intent and deliver search results that meet that user’s needs. As algorithm develops, so should your website thus onpage SEO can’t be overemphasized.

FLASHBACK: If you have not been following this series then you would have to start from basics so that you do not miss out anything. We have already treated a lot on blogging and SEO, See the tutorials you missed below.

Speedy Learning class 101

The Vision And General Framework

Introduction To Blogging, SEO And How I Started

Speedy Learning class 102

Niche, Domain, SEO, Hosting And WordPress

Get Domain, Pay For Hosting, Cost Analysis And Designing A WordPress blog

Note: By proceeding, you agree that you have started a blog or concluded plans to do so. Once again, click here to start your blog now. On the other hand, welcome to the blogging world if you just jumped into the ocean of blogging.

WELCOME BACK! As I continue the lesson.

How to create SEO friendly content

Firstly, you need to create content that Google wants to rank and for that, you need targeted keyword(s) in mind. Read our keyword research guide.

Secondly, If you’ve been creating content in a haphazard manner, hoping and praying that some of it eventually will rank high like magic my dear sorry to tell you this, you have been wasting your time.

Here are 4 ways to creating SEO friendly content:

Define your goals:

Before you think of creating SEO friendly content you need to set your goals.

Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the most of your life.

2. Consider your niche and Audience:

A nontrivial part of an SEO plan is figuring out who you are targeting with your website. This is not always that easy to determine. Many factors enter into this, including the competition, the particular strengths or weaknesses of your own company, and more.

What products, services, and types of information and resources does your organization have to offer?

Answering the above questions will help you in creating SEO friendly content.

3. Understanding Google Search Intent:

What Is Search Intent?

Search Intent (also known as “User Intent”) is the main goal a user has when typing a query into a search engine.

Different types of search intent include; informational, commercial, navigational and transactional.

If you know what users are typing and searching for, you are on your way to creating SEO friendly content.

4. Create an editorial calendar:

An editorial calendar is a visual planning document that helps you schedule your blog posts on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.x

At a glance, you’ll be able to see the upcoming blog posts that you need to write and publish. This will help you create the right content.

Now that you understand how to create the perfect SEO friendly content. How can you optimise your blog post.

On-Page SEO: How to optimize your content

As a blogger or content creator, you must be ready to create high quality and unique content on your blog so as to grow.

Use Short And Unique Title:

Your post titles tell others what your page is about. Therefore, make your titles short, unique, informative and authoritative. Don’t make your post title seem like the content itself.

Examples of post Title;

A Good Title: How to Make Money with your Blog.

A Bad/Long Title : You know that things are hard and you therefore need to learn how to Make Money Online so that you will not be broke.

A Unique Title : How to dramatically make Money with your blog.

A Catchy Title : 5 Blogging secrets that could earn you more dollars.

2. Use A Long Tale Focus Keyword:

One question new bloggers often ask me is, “what is focus keyword and how do I use it for my blog posts?” As simple as the question may seem, it is the most important factor of your Onpage SEO strategy.

Focus Keyword is the phrase or keyword that you want your article to rank for. Alternatively, a focus keyword is the phrase that you want people to find your blog/post with on Google, Bing and other Search engine.

But you may be wondering, how do I know the focus keyword to use? Your focus keyword has something to do with the topic you want to blog about. Before creating any content, you should do a
keyword research (know the keyword you want to rank for).

Let’s make it practical -If the title of your post is, “ How to get Google Adsense Approval with your new blog” then you have five choices of focus keyword

Google
Adsense
Google Adsense Approval.
New
Blog.

The third keyword above is a long tale keyword and it is more advisable for you to use long tale keywords. Make sure that your focus keyword appears in your title; It is very important!

3. Your Url Should Be Short And Must Not Contain Stop Word:

What is url? See it here
Speedyminds.com/onpage-seo-content
and that is exactly the url of this post. By clicking on the url above, you will find this very article.

URL Stands for Uniform Resource Locator and it is also called a web address. It is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. See more about url here ↗

The url of this post would have been my domain name + the name of the article e.g speedyminds.com/learn-onpage-seo-and-creating-high-quality-content-with-law-P. But it is too long and contains stop words. Therefore, I have decided to use a shorter version.

Google has stated that the first 3-5 words in a URL are given more weight. It is high time you start making your url short, precise, keyword rich and sweet.

Avoid ugly URLs: Speedyminds.com/p=123 Or long URLs: speedyminds.com/learn-seo-onpage-seo-and-creating-high-quality-content-with-Law-P.

4. Use Headings Tag And Include Keywords In Your Heading :

Heading tags are h1 to h6. They make your article pretty and easy to read. Heading tags also have SEO benefits.

Now, a good Onpage seo practice demand that you make your focus keyword appear in one or more of your heading tags .

Read this: Heading Tags SEO: How to use H1-H6 Tags In Your Blog.

Hints: Your title contains h1 tag, therefore, do not use it again in your content. Feel free to use h2, h3 and h4 heading tags in your post. H5 and h6 tags are not very popular.

5. Use Images And Image Alternate Attribute:

Images help post boosts user experience and as well increases your Search Engine Ranking Position (SERP).

Just like you will see in the image above , ensure to add alt text to your image. Alt text is what appears when your images refuse to load. It also helps search engines know what your image is about.

OPTIMIZE YOUR IMAGES: Images with large size can increase your page load time. Ensure to reduce your sizes without affecting the quality. Google loves fast loading pages and ranks them high.

Read this: 10 Best Image Optimization Plugins for Speeding Up WordPress

6. Use Simple Web Design:

As a new blogger, there is tendency for you to want every feature in your blog. You want to eat your cake and have it; but it only happens in your birthday.

Complex design hurt your users and search engines hate it too. Ensure to have a very simple and mobile friendly design.

Users should be able to navigate your blog freely.
How do I know if my blog is simple and mobile responsive? Use this tool ↗to check it.

You may want to ask, “Is Speedyminds
Mobile friendly?” Of course Speedyminds is mobile-friendly.

7. Use Inbound And OutBound Links:

Link is one of the biggest onpage and offpage SEO signal. We shall treat backlinks and no follow links in detail as time goes on.

Here, I will treat only links from your site (Inbound and outbound links). Another name for outbound link is external link while inbound links are also called internal links.

Inbound links are links from one article to the other articles or pages in your blog while outbound links are links from your blog to other blogs

Strong internal and external link is a good ranking signal.

8. Use Social Sharing Buttons

Social signals may not play a direct role in ranking your site. But social shares generate more eyeballs on your content.

And the more eyeballs you get, the more likely someone is to link to you. So don’t be shy about placing social share button.

10. Nameservers, CDN, Gtmetrix and other speed testing tools, gravata cache, expire headers, Gzip, no-index, sitemap, Search console, Analytics, Leverage Catching….

The above and many more interesting topics shall be treated as time goes on. They are beyond the scope of this article. Just follow the tutorial and roll with me!

Other Factors To Consider About On-page SEO:

Always update your posts.
Ensure that your articles add value and are not copied.

Remove all stop words from permalink.
Add multimedia (video, slides,
infographics).
Optimize images before uploading (compress and resize).
Optimize page load speed.
Create a meta title of fewer than 65 characters.
Create a meta description of fewer than 320 characters.
Internal links to related articles.
Outbound links to relevant high-quality sites.

On-page SEO tools

1. Google PageSpeed Insights ↗

Check the speed and usability of your site on multiple devices

Enter a URL and this tool will test the loading time and performance for that URL on desktop and mobile. It then grades your site’s performance on a score from 0 – 100. It tells you exactly how fast it takes to load the site according to different metrics, and also suggests areas for improvements.

2. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools ↗

Run a technical audit of your site.

Sign up for Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, verify your website and you’ll be able to audit your website for over 100+ technical SEO issues. The tool also gives suggestions on how to fix them.

3. Google Search Console ↗

Constant website analysis, alerts, and error reports.

Google Search Console gives you a taste of what the most used search engine thinks of your website. You can use it to check and fix technical issues on your website, see important SEO data like clicks, impressions and average ranking position, submit sitemaps and more.