Search engine optimization includes on-page optimization, a process that helps your website rank higher in search engine results.
If you’re looking to perfect your on-page SEO, know that you’re not alone—57% of professional and marketing executives believe that it’s the most effective SEO strategy.
Small Business On-Page SEO Tips
Here are 14 tips to keep in mind that will help you with on-page SEO for your small business!
Gain Insights With Analytics Tools
On-page SEO tools can help you understand how to better optimize your website content for your site visitors. Web analytics tools can help you understand how your site visitors interact with your website content.
You will be able to create content that your audience will respond to positively, resulting in more sales.
If you are looking for an on-page SEO tool that can be incredibly helpful, Surfer SEO is a great option. The tool provides an analysis of the top-ranking pages for your target keyword and provides guidelines for creating a rankable piece of content. The guidelines include using hundreds of relevant terms.
To see how people are interacting with your website, use Google Analytics. The Google Analytics tool can help you understand how visitors interact with your site, what kinds of content they engage with the most, and which pages could be improved.
Additionally, you can use rank tracking software to see which of your pages are increasing or decreasing in popularity for certain target keywords. If you want the most accurate and up-to-date data, a daily rank tracker is the best option. The following text provides information that can be used to determine which of your pages are weak or strong in search visibility so that you can prioritize optimization.
Improve Content Quality & Quantity
If you post quality content on your website more often, you will have more pages with relevant keywords and links to other pages.
If your website only consists of one page, it will be more difficult to rank high on search engines because your site will have less authority. This is where content quantity comes in.
If your website contains more pages that cover different aspects of a larger topic and are linked together in a way that is easy for users to navigate, it is likely that Google will deem you to be more of an authority on the topic than a site with less content on the topic.
Additionally, creating more in-depth content and blog posts can help keep visitors on your site longer, which might tell Google and other search engines that your content is worth ranking higher in search results for keywords related to the topic.
Keep Page URLs Simple
To optimize your website pages, use URLs that are simple and straightforward, and include the main keyword phrase of the given page.
The URL of a page is one of the factors that a search engine uses to determine what the page is about in relation to other pages. This means URL structure is a minor ranking factor.
A short, clean URL that includes your target keyword can help improve clickthrough rates by reassuring potential visitors about what the page is about.
Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Mobile browsing is becoming increasingly relevant these days.
Mobile devices were responsible for over half of all website traffic in the first quarter of 2021, according to new data from Statista.
This means that if you want people to see your website, you need to design it for mobile devices. Your website should be designed to provide a smooth experience for visitors using mobile devices.
You can access Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool by visiting the following URL: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly.
Improve Your Keyword Placement
It’s widely known that using keywords and related phrases based on SEO keyword research can improve the given content’s chances of ranking highly on search engines.
Your content should be helpful and engaging, with relevant keywords included naturally. You can also carefully optimize your title tags and meta descriptions with additional relevant words, as long as you don’t repeat yourself or make the content redundant. This includes finding the best place to put these keywords so that they will have the most impact.
When creating content for a blog post, it is helpful to include the target or focus keyword in the page title and in the introduction. This allows readers and search engines to quickly understand the subject of the post. A summary of the topic is often included at the end of a post.
Optimize Your Media
Don’t underestimate the power of multimedia when you’re optimizing your content.
Adding images, infographics, and videos to your content can help make your pages more engaging and increase the amount of time visitors spend on your website.
Using videos or images on your website can help improve your site’s search engine visibility. This means that your videos or images could be displayed in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Including keywords in the alt tag of your images can potentially result in your images being ranked by image search engines such as Google Images.
Avoid Writing Unnaturally
Google is looking for unique, quality content. Don’t try to improve your ranking by filling your page with keywords.
Tactics like these are not advised as the algorithms for search engines are constantly changing, and could result in pages being delisted from ranking well in the future.
If the density of a word or phrase is above 3%, consider how you can edit your content to replace the word with a similar word, or rearrange your sentence.
Use Google Search Console
Besides helping you identify hosting and website loading issues, Google Search Console can also give you information about the keywords and methods that work best for getting a high ranking on Google.
You can increase the amount of traffic your website gets from Google Search by creating and editing content to match the keywords and search trends that Google favors for your site.
It’s worth examining data from Google Search Console on a regular basis since Google dominates the market as the most commonly used search engine worldwide.
Target Long-Tail Keywords
The most obvious search terms may not always be the most useful. The huge volume for the term “shoes” may seem desirable if you sell shoes. This term is too vague to be converted. If you want to be more specific in your targeting, use phrases like “red Nike marathon running shoes Birmingham” which suggest that the person is interested in buying them.
This means that you are more likely to rank in search engines for specific terms if you are strategic about it. Long tail may not have a lot of volume, but there is a lot of different terms to consider. All of those variations add up.
If you want to target local customers, try combining longer-tail search terms with your business location.
Use a Spreadsheet for Keyword Research
If you keep creating lists of search terms, eventually you will have a large amount of them. It can be difficult to determine what to do with them, and how to prioritize them. A spreadsheet is useful for more than just listing keywords; it can help you understand the opportunity and value of each term.
As a starting point, the following fields can be useful:
- Keyword – the search term
- Group – the logical group
- Geography – the locations you wish to rank for
- Targeted page – the page we will optimise for this term
- Usage on-page – is this in use (and how many times)
- Search volume – volume for the keyword
- Current rank – where you are currently listed for this term
- Difficulty – the difficulty (requires a tool like Moz.com)
- Opportunity – how does it look out there? Is there an opportunity?
- Business value – how important is this keyword to your business
- PPC cost per click – this can be a good indication of the value of these clicks
- Priority (1-10)
We prioritize the data we have gathered. We then prioritize each group of keywords so the most important ones are higher on the list. After that, you can focus on optimizing your content for the keywords that will have the most positive impact on your business.
Test Your Keywords With PPC
You might think that a given keyword is very valuable to your website, but it might not be as valuable as you think. You can test if a keyword will be successful in bringing you the desired results by running a short-term PPC campaign.
To optimize your website for search engines, buy 100 clicks for a given keyword and review the results. You will need conversion tracking configured so you can grade the commercial viability of a search term.
Monitor Your Website Performance
There are many things that affect page speed, such as the way the site is built and optimized for performance, as well as the quality of the hosting. You should constantly test your site’s speed to ensure it is always available and responsive.
If a page takes one more second to load, conversions can decrease by 20%. Therefore, it is important to have a fast website that is running 24/7.
- Review site speed in Google Analytics: Behaviour > Page Speed.
- Monitor messages from search console regarding uptime and availability.
- Utilise page speed testing tools.
- Consider using a third-party continuous testing tool like www.pingdom.com.
To improve your website’s ranking on search engine results pages, it is important to regularly monitor your SEO progress and adjust your strategy as needed.
Optimize for Clicks
Your search engine listings are a way for customers to find your business. Therefore, it is important to make sure that the text is attractive and encourages users to click through to your site. To improve your click-through rates and rankings, write your page titles and meta descriptions as if they were advertisements.
- Crawl your site in Screaming Frog
- Review all your page titles
- Review all your meta descriptions
- Rewrite them to optimise for click-through rates
The CTR is the percentage of people who click on your ad after they see it. To review your Click Through Rate (CTR) in Google Search Console, look at the percentage of people who click on your ad after they see it. You can make this more useful by filtering around specific pages or search terms. Determine your starting point and work on attracting clicks as much as you work on improving your rankings.
SEO is important for driving users to your site, so don’t neglect page titles and meta descriptions. Choose keywords wisely and focus on increasing clicks to get users from the search results to your site.
Business Listings
Local SEO listings are called citations. A citation is a mention of your business on a relevant site. Sometimes that mention will include a link. Sometimes, it won’t.
The key is to find the websites where your business should be listed. We are discussing the large business directories like Yell.com and Thompson in the UK. We are also talking about any sites that are in your geographical location or relevant to your line of work. As a builder, it is beneficial to be listed on a directory of building services. If you own a business in Birmingham, it is beneficial to be listed on a directory of all businesses in the city.
If you’re looking for citation sources, try Googling your business area and location. You will soon make a list of things you can use as a starting point. If you already have a listing on the website, make sure it is up-to-date and optimised rather than creating a new one.
Consistency is key here again.
- Have a consistent description that mentions your services and target geographic areas
- Select the correct business categories
- Add any other content like images or reviews if possible to make these listings valuable
- Keep everything else consistent (see NAP below)
It is important to use the correct category and keywords when optimizing citations for your business. This will help potential customers find your business more easily.
Conclusion
If you want to improve your ranking in the search engines, on-page SEO is a very important part of the puzzle.
Optimizing your content and revisiting old content based on analytics and ranking insights can help you achieve a boost in your website traffic, SEO performance, and conversion rate.
