by To support you in understanding the content of this process, we have created a list of recommendations related to what SEO optimization means for site pages – On-Page SEO.
To help articles and blog pages gain visibility in searches, you must use natural page referencing. So, you will attract search engines and you will help them understand, to recognize and classify content.
Whether we try to generate sales, or we have other methods of monetization, results should be analyzed and, where appropriate, measures necessary must be applied to ensure that our purpose is reached. And that’s what we have to do with each keyword.
If there are too many, it doesn’t matter, we take them one at a time, but we don’t even monthly. Or we sort them according to the number of impressions brought, to act where we have the greatest chance of generating useful changes in the shortest time.
What does optimizing a website for SEO mean?
On-Page SEO means optimizing the content of the pages individually to get a better ranking in searches and thus generating relevant traffic. This process includes the basic tactics that helps to rank content higher according to one or more many keywords
On-Page SEO generally involves optimizing a site, page with page. It also includes optimization techniques at the level of the entire site. To be truly successful though, these approaches must be supported by other types of specific SEO activities.
It is very possible that On-Page SEO is not enough to get an indexed page at the top of the rankings. This means that you will need an Off-Page SEO strategy and techniques to help you help the site be more attractive to search engines if you want to get quality traffic.
If you use this On-Page SEO checklist before you publish new articles or pages on your site, the chances of getting results durable and quality increase significantly.
You can also use a list of techniques just as well to will re-evaluate and improve any previously published content.
On-Page SEO step by step
1. Make a list of the best keywords on the niche site
In SEO, it all starts with finding the best keywords main and relevant to reach the desired traffic. One such keyword is the phrase or term that:
- It is relevant to the main topic or theme of the content. The keyword must describe exactly
page content; - Can be regularly searched by target customers. Search volume of the keyword is large enough to drive traffic useful;
- It is in the range of “competitive power” of the site. The site has enough authority to be placed above other sites already ranked for that keyword.
In case you probably don’t have access to tools expensive, keyword lists can be obtained using free tools, such as:
This guide refers mainly to general searches, without a connotation local. For what is called Local SEO, the rules are in place similar measure. Although there are differences, we will not treat them in this chapter, so let’s move on.
2. Choose the main keyword for each page
Once you’ve chosen your keywords, assign them to a content page from the site. Create an editorial calendar for the new content and assign a target keyword for each page
3. Make sure the primary keyword isn’t assigned to other content
A primary keyword should never be assigned again to many content pages on the site.
If you assign the same keywords to multiple pages, you may have trouble cannibalizing your keywords, search engines don’t know which page is the most important, and they don’t rank well.
You can also use a duplicate content check to look for such problems on the site, but often not
it is a problem of this kind, but simply, more articles refer to the same topic, with an emphasis (more or less) on the same keyword.
The easiest way to detect such problems is in Google Search Console, where, by isolating higher volume queries, view the associated pages. If for an important query (keyword in search) one page is served, everything is fine.
If we talk about a plan for new content – a series of articles, the simple Excel sheet with the chosen keywords and the topics assigned to each one should help you enough.
4. Choose 3-5 associated keywords for each content page
By associating keywords secondary to a page we refer to principles on topics adjacent to the underlying keyword on that page.
Associated keywords are terms or phrases that are synonymous or semantically related to the main keyword. These are sometimes mentioned in the keywords LSA (latent semantic analysis) or keywords with latent semantic indexing. Search for keywords to find three to five keywords associated with the main keyword.
Latent semantic analysis (LSA) is a technique in processing the natural language, especially in the semantic distribution, of a relationship between a set of documents and the terms they contain, achieved especially by producing a set of connecting concepts the terms of the documents that include them. LSA implies the terms that are close in meaning will appear in similar parts of the text (hypothesis distribution).
5. Create a content plan for each selected keyword
Once you’ve defined a keyword, develop a plan of content describing its use. Determine if the keyword should be a news blog article, a homepage on the site, or a landing page for various specific traffic sources.
Connect the content to the search intent related to that keyword. Create content that provides what the user would be looking for when performing the search.
Decide where the content fits in the sales channel. Create appropriate content for a certain level of acquisition channel.
Create better content than what you find above in that search theme. Try to create a more useful, better-organized page with original dates, etc.
As I said above, for a well-crafted plan, you shouldn’t need more than one Excel sheet and for choosing the right topics for each selected keyword, the basis is searched in Google – there you see which topics are considered appropriate.
Or, when we are lucky, we find untouched topics, more appropriate than those “Served” by Google.
6. Write a title that includes the main keyword
Write a title that addresses both search engines and the public. Serve search engines by including the word main key at the beginning of the title, but also serve the audience by writing a title descriptive but concise that tells readers why the content is valuable.
Although it is not a very important aspect, the keyword is good to be found in the first part of the title. More important, however, is to avoid repeating that term in the title section.
Although it seems difficult to escape such a thing, it happens more often than your thoughts: when the title of a page completely or partially coincides with the title site.
As most SERP titles are in the form %page_title%|% site_name%, and this is not an edit area to act on often, it is good to follow from the beginning how the titles appear in searches.
7. Write an SEO-friendly URL including the main keyword
Create a URL for the page (permalink), a URL that is good to include the main keyword. Avoid adding empty words, special characters, or unnecessary words in the permalink.
8. Insert that title into the content and into an H tag
The chosen title is good to appear in the content, at the beginning. In practice “classic” SEO, the title is also H1. However, more recent practices are improving to an H1 which is a variation of the title, in which case the title is good to appear at the beginning in the text, but also somewhere along the way in a tag, preferably large, H2, or H3.
Whatever you choose, be careful to keep untouched the chosen keyword.
Note that an H1-H6 title tag is a piece of HTML code that tells search engines what the content is about, but it highlights this aspect to the readers as well. These tags are intended only search engines, therefore their use should be avoided just for faster text formatting.
We mention here that if you use a WordPress or platform Blogger, the text given as a title is inserted automatically and as H1, without the direct possibility of differentiation. If from the point of view of SEO view, in the idea of covering a larger number of keywords basic, you want to differentiate the title from URL and H1, the solution is to use an SEO plugin.
An example was taken at random for how this can be done I found on a site, FondPro: title = “quick credit only with the id”; URL = “credit-only-with-id.html” (different from Title); H1 = credit only with id “(same as URL).
In most cases, however, such differences are rare and special, in which advanced optimization proves useful behind some tests. Otherwise, on most quality sites, the title, URL, and H1 have the same content.
9. Write a sufficient number of words in the content
The number of words in the content varies depending on the topic of the page and the depth of the subject. However, it is recommended to publish pages with more than 300 words in the text. This is in fact a minimum in any guide.
Already the SEO world, from this point of view, has split into several distinct categories: minimum 300 words, minimum 400, minimum 500, and minimum 600. However, whenever possible, follow at least 800 words, because the most detailed messages will have ahigher probability of ranking at the top of the page results.
Extensive studies, such as those conducted by Moz or Cognitive Seo, show that the best-positioned articles in informative searches have even over 2000 words.
However, it is not possible to prove a clear causal relationship, a variant acceptable being that quality sites – from all points of view, ie those that would have obtained very good SEO performance anyway, tend to prepare extensive articles, very well documented, and built.
10. Write unique content
Do not copy content already posted on your own site or other sites. Even if, in principle, search engines can penalize a site that uses “copied” content, most often there is a situation in which the page will not be indexed.
Such a page, not being indexed, will not be found by anyone, therefore it will not produce any traffic. Worse maybe the fact that the links are gone from an unindexed page can also hurt the pages to which it is link addressed.
We make here a note about what happens most of the time in practice with two or more web pages identical or almost identical. Let’s think here only of the News area, where so something happens all the time.
Do you think that Google will rank in the SERP the page that first published that text? Unfortunately no. As long as there are no other problems, the above is will pick up the page that belongs to the site with the highest authority, or among those with similar authority, the best-supported pages with internal linking and Off-Site SEO.
11. Write useful content for your audience
Even when creating content with an emphasis on SEO, for a position with the best SERP ranking, always remember that the main goal should be readers. Create high-quality, valuable, useful, and well-written content.
A search engine today may find text to be valuable, but if it is not really relevant to readers, earlier or later the search engine will notice and correct its own “error”.
In short, even when you do SEO optimization, do it with the thought of readers.
For a long time, this desideratum gave huge headaches in the SEO world. Why? Because Google wasn’t so ready to do that he promised to do so, especially in non-English areas of the Internet. However, the year 2019 brought a dizzying series of updates, among which BERT was certainly the most relevant, and now, although not perfect, the system is much closer to what it should be.
12. Write quality and easy-to-read content
Writing high-quality content does not mean that the result looks like an academic research paper.
In fact, it often means just the opposite. Write the content for an eighth-grade reading level on the Flesch reading scale. This means using common terminology and writing some short sentences and paragraphs.
13. Use the primary keyword wisely
Help search engines recognize the main theme of content using the main keyword throughout pages, without exaggeration. When you are in the writing area, even a simply Ctrl + F on the chosen keyword, with Highlight all, will show you visually where it appears too often, and where it does not appear at all. Balance this distribution.
A big question in the SEO community remains about density optimal keywords. For a while, it is recommended to use the term two to three times per 100 words to create a keyword density of 2 to 3%.
In newer guides, and with particular reference to longer articles, by over 800 words, the limit dropped to 1 – 1.5%. Anyway, better to be less than too many.
Whatever density you choose that you trust, try to avoid exceeding this limit to avoid “keyword” problems, and especially, don’t go for a standard density for anything article.
14. Use each associated keyword at least once in the content
See the list of associated keywords (secondary keywords) and include them at least once per page. Integrate them in a way naturally with your content, do not force their placement unrelated to the context.
Here comes an interesting possibility: the ranking of a page on several different searches. Basically, we use the main keyword in the title, meta description, and content.
When Google serves that page on another search key, it will create a separate snippet, in which you will not use the meta description, but will choose other parts of the text.
How can we optimize for such a thing? We assume that we want to get a ranking for the secondary keywords and that for this we try to “impose” an adequate description. Can it be done?
Yes, there is a possibility. There is no guarantee that Google will choose what we want to choose, but the chances are high: we place the keywords secondary in H2 tags, respecting the suggestions for making a title.
Then, build the first paragraph below these subtitles in the format a meta description (number of characters, the presence of the keyword in the first part, attractive format for bringing clicks from SERP, etc).
After we continue with a portion of content that covers both the main theme, as well as the secondary subject.
Helpful in such a working scenario is the use of a Table of Contents system.
15. Make sure you have well-structured content
Both readers and search engines appreciate easy content to be analyzed and understood. Browse content and use the options formatting to make it easy to understand and track.
• Arrange the content in sections with descriptive subtitles.
• Use bullet formatting for information lists.
• Use bold formats to highlight important points.
16. Place the main subtitles in H tags
Help search engines identify subchapters of content and the main points encapsulating the titles of the subchapters – the subtitles, in labels type H2-H6.
Like the H1 tag used in the title, this HTML code tells the engine to search that section is important in relation to a portion consistency of content and that it is related to the main topic of the page.
There are not many SEO rules in this segment, however, there are a few things you have to keep in mind.
First of all, these tags represent a clear hierarchy: do not can jump over a step. If the content of an article starts with H1, the next tag cannot be anything other than H2. Under H2 is not can come directly with H4.
Second, to structure a text well, it is good to keep a good distribution. It makes no sense to open a tag H2 for only a few words until the next H2, and it’s not very good to write very large amounts of content without any tags to structure them.
Last but not least, let’s not lose sight of something: H1-H6 tags do not have been implemented in HTML for a proper look. Although it looks at same and they are called about the same, the H1-H6 tags in HTML do not mean at all the same as the Headings in Word.
If you need beautiful ways to arrange your titles and subtitles on the page, but without submitting to the search engine descriptive information for them, use CSS.
17. Use the keyword in H tags
Use the main keyword in at least one of the subtitles in the content. Choose, preferably, for this to happen in the section
most important as meaning or purpose in the entire content.
You can do this in several subtitles if it is natural and logical, but in a different context so that the small differences mean to a large extent the differences in the described texts.
18. Use the main keyword throughout the text
It is important that this main keyword appears especially in the first and last paragraph of the content, but also not missing from any section of the text.
Thus convey to search engines that the page is closely linked to the subject. Try to use the targeted keyword both at the beginning of the first paragraph, to draw the line, but also in the last paragraph to strengthen its importance.
We have also covered this aspect in sub-point 13 of this guide, we resume the relevant text: „… using the main keyword throughout the page but without exaggeration.
When you are in the writing area, even a simple Ctrl + F on the chosen keyword, with Highlight all, will show you visually where it appears too often, and where it does not appear at all. Balance this distribution. ”
19. Add internal links with relevant anchor texts
I have said it before and we will say it again: internal linking is a terribly underestimated SEO power. An internal link has at least the authority our site brings from the beginning the relevance between source and destination, and no chance of Google believing it to be a paid link or anything else non-organic form of acquisition.
However, do not over-optimize your anchors if you place a large number of internal links on the same page. You can complete the anchor on the main search key with the associated keywords. Links help search engines connect and understand online content.
Add relevant internal links to other pages on the site and, if possible, use the target keyword of the page linked as anchor text for the link.
20. Add relevant links to high-quality sites
Links to other sites also add context that helps crawlers understand the content. Moreover, thus adding a certain weight to the presented text, you give it authority. You should also include relevant, high-quality links when mentioning a resource or citing a source.
When looking for the best sources to mention, avoid choosing the ones that are best placed exactly on your keyword main on which you build that page, not even those secondary.
You will only strengthen the competition without seeming to bring anything new or additional. Instead, look for topics related to the topic, something above “placed” in the hierarchy of subject description
When I looked for such sources to mention, I already said yes, be careful not to strengthen your competition. Also, do not insert links to external sites with potential Google penalties – and so on it matters for your own ranking.
Run links at regular intervals, but not too often external, to detect possible missing destinations (defects links) – these should be corrected as soon as possible.
21. Opening external links in the new window
When a user clicks on a link on a page on the site, in particular when it comes to an external link, you don’t want it to leave complete the site.
Set each external output link to open in a window new, so that the site itself remains open even if the user temporarily accesses another site. The chance is that in the end, he will continue to visit us.
To avoid a high bounce (site dropout rate directly from the home page), in addition to opening external sites in the new tab/window, it doesn’t hurt that they are closer to the end of the article anyway after you have already suggested to the reader’s other internal links, which will keep your visitors in the site.
Some publishers prefer to open any link in the new window, including internal ones. We believe that from a number of tabs open simultaneously, a visitor becomes confused, and instead of keeping him from reading an article, we lose him altogether.
22. Add at least one multimedia item
Make the content more interesting to readers and show the engine search that content is really intended for readers by adding at least one multimedia element to the page. In most cases, it is an image, but instead of the image, it can be inserted as well as video content.
We will return to the images in the following points, for the moment submission: pay attention to the rules for inserting video in the content.
23. Resize the image correctly
Check the image size and make sure it is not too big in order not to slow down the loading time of the site. Compress large files before uploading them to the site and resize the images to the desired display size.
These few simple rules were enough until recently, but the world has changed, traffic from mobile devices is king. How do we proceed in this case?If we work on a good CMS, such as WordPress for example, it is enough simple, with a plugin like ShortPixel or Optimole.
But different variants of the image inside the text of an article, at different sizes depending on the screen size on which displays, do not make any simple plugin.
One of the options we prefer is to use in the text-only images optimized for mobile, so they will be fine received regardless of the environment.
Such an image is 300-320 pixels wide, the desktop-style is float (left or right) so that the text flows around the image, and in mobile width, 100%, fill the entire screen width and move the text after her.
24. Add the primary keyword to the Alt-tab of the image
Finally, although this is actually the most important of the three related to the inserted image descriptors, add the main keyword to the Alt tag of the image.
The Alt tag has the main role of showing readers what it is there if the image as such cannot be displayed. Must mention that the HTML standards also stipulate that the Alt tag is mandatory, so be careful not to forget it anyway.
The Alt tag function is double. On the one hand, when – for various reasons, the image cannot be loaded on the page, the contents of the Alt tag will be displayed on the screen.
On the other hand – and this subject is becoming more and more importantly, the Alt label participates in how, with the help of some applications specialized, people with visually impaired people can “read” our pages.
25. Add the primary keyword to the image file name
Before uploading the image to your site, name the file with an expression that includes the main keyword of the page. Even if not there is clear evidence that this detail is important in SEO (but not that would not have), the practice is one to follow, at least to help us evidence and management of these images.
26. Also add the primary keyword to the image title
When you upload the image, add the main keyword in the Title element of the inserted image. This title will be displayed when the mouse pointer hovers over the image, but it is very possible that the search engine crawler will take this content into account.
27. Structured into relevant categories and labels
Categories and tags in blog posts organize the content site and help search engines understand better topics. If you post a blog post, add categories and tags relevant to the content topic.
28. Make sure the titles are optimized
A meta-title is a line of code that tells search engines the title of a page. This is also the title that appears on the pages with search engine results (SERP). Add a meta-title for the page of fewer than 60 characters, without forgetting to place the word main key on the front of the title.
29. Add a well-optimized meta description
A meta-description is an informative text that completes the title. It also helps search engines understand the content, and it is also displayed in SERP displays.
Add an optimized meta description of up to 160 characters. And this is good to include the main keyword right at the beginning of the description. Another good idea is to include a call to action here that asks readers to click.
A mention of the size of the meta description. In general, in the SERP 160 characters are displayed.
But in many situations – especially in the case of blog posts, also in this block, the results show the date of publication of the article. In this case, the text of the displayed date will be “cut” from the displayed description. That’s why it’s good that both the main keyword and especially the call to action, are somewhere in the first 130 characters.
We must not skip another possibility: there are periods in which Google is testing a snippet display of over 160 characters.
If he only took over our meta description, and where he found more than 160 characters, he would take them, it would be good, but sometimes he forces this “extension”, taking parts of the text.
For English sites in general it does well, in lesser-used languages, however, it rarely finds a formula that doesn’t negatively affect the Click Through Rate.
Although the situation is rarer, an increasingly tested practice is to create longer meta descriptions, but keep the essentials in the first 130-140 characters.
30. Add structured data items
To make the SERP results of the page even more attractive, add structured data bookmarks. Structured data is an additional code that helps search engines to recognize certain categories in content, to better interpret their meaning.
This additional code can increase SEO visibility as well as how it is displayed in search results.
Caution: Use these additions carefully. There is a temptation to load the “background” of a page with structured data, which has no correspondence in the visible part, or in reality (for example, a rating which does not come from visitor interactions or questions and answers that do not appear in the text).
Structured data should help the search engine to be able to better understand, label, and categorize what is found or what is a web page.
31. Add active social media elements
Content is more likely to be found when it is optimized for both search and social networks.
Include action buttons, add blocks for Twitter, Pinterest, Like or share on Facebook, etc.
32. Review and correct the content
Always check before posting an article or page content for grammatical and spelling errors. This is an essential part of writing, as it ensures that you publish high-quality content. Only such content will gain authority and will be worthy of being among the best search results.
33. Check your work as a whole
Make sure you provide the best On-Page SEO optimization in the way as efficiently as possible. Do not allocate huge resources of time and energy for over-optimization – the optimization of a page is completed as well along the way, after indexing.
In fact, the best signals of a correct On-Page optimization come only after the appearance and analysis of interactions – both with search engines search, especially with the reading public.
Check the page again before finishing the work. Use a specialized tool, such as an SEO verifier, to analyze your content and technical elements.
34. Return periodically to published pages
Using the preferred tools for traffic analysis potentially, such as Google Search Console, you will be able to analyze what is happens with the chosen keywords.
Take the list in turn, at intervals that your time allows, but at least once a month would be good, and check the following:
a. We check the indexing
Are there enough impressions for the analyzed keyword? If not, means that the page created does not meet the expectations of search engines search.
Sometimes we may find that a page is not indexed at all. It means that something is wrong, often just being the simple quality of the content (for lack of it, in fact).
For this verification, it is enough to open the Google Search Console, section Index -> Coverage -> Excluded, especially the content of the sections “Crawled – currently not indexed” and “Discovered – currently not indexed”.
b. We check the keyword assigned to the pages
If enough impressions appear, I send them mainly to the page created for that search word? If I link to multiple pages, we are dealing with a case of keyword cannibalization and you will have to redo the pages to which you do not want an answer on that keyword.
There are cases where another page, not particularly important in the whole site, responds much better to a certain search than the specially created one. In that case, you can consider optimizing that page and “cleaning” the one originally intended.
c. We check the ranking
There are enough impressions, oriented to the corresponding page, but the position in the hierarchy of results is weak (in principle, everything that is not on the first page means that it will not reach an acceptable potential).
Here the solution lies less in the part of On-Page SEO optimization: it is the moment when the Off-Site SEO techniques must take the initiative. With the risk of confusing the classifications a bit, here we will include internal linking; external linking; authority building.
d. Check the CTR
There are enough impressions, the position is high in searches, but the rate of click is weak. You need to rethink the elements you see a person using a search engine: title, URL, description and any additional items (rich snippets).
These elements, but especially the title and description, are what must attract people to click on our result. If not I do, it means that we did not attract them and we must find a better way.
e. We are looking for a room for improvement
There are enough impressions, the position is good, the click rate is hello, which means that we already have good traffic on the site on that word of search the desired page.
On the one hand, there is always room for improvement, but be careful: we can never forget that any improvement can actually happen with the opposite effect. On the other hand, it would be time to see what we produce with that traffic.
It’s time to tell you a secret: it’s something that can’t be found almost not in SEO advice lists: evolution and usefulness AutoComplete in the Google Search window.
We have covered this aspect, but something else is important: the search suggestions are constantly evolving.
Sometimes there are significant changes as a result of an algorithm update, other times they are due to the search statistics that Google uses – that is, depending on the users.
What’s the idea? Simple, what is optimized very well today, it may not be like that tomorrow. We check permanently, we edit accordingly the “environmental” changes, we stay at the top.
Site optimization for voice search
What is a voice search?
Voice search is a voice recognition technology that allows users to search by dictating the question, instead of typing in the text box.
This practice is relatively new, but the spread is massive. It is some of you may have already used speech recognition software, both text-to-speech and especially the reverse – the transcription of speech into text.
A very good example of this is, for example, the Dragon Suite Naturally Speaking *, a speech recognition software package. The SEO field is constantly evolving, and the evolution in voice search is a particular one.
Although the common trunk is still a solid one, there are some elements that substantially differentiate the classic search from the keyboard to the “from the microphone”.
The SEO world is already “hit” almost monthly by a major update of the Google algorithm. But the most important update has already arrived! The most important change will be the rapid spread of voice search techniques.
What does voice search site optimization mean?
The key to SEO optimization for voice search is to create simple, clear, accurate, and relevant content for Google to a specific search.
As I said above, voice search is simply a replacement keyboard with a voice command to look for something of interest at that moment.
Whether it’s a computer, a smartphone, a tablet, or even a smart TV, voice command also means voice search.
Today, you can use your smartphone to ask anything, and depending on the type of requirement, the assistant will operate an action, or open a search results page.
“Okay Google, how is the weather?” Answer: “Currently, in Madrid, it is 21 degrees with clear skies, tonight 8 degrees with a partly cloudy sky are announced.”
This is an example where the wizard provides information directly. But how does he do that? Does the smartphone-operated assistant have access to a weather database? Not as one would think, but classic, by searching the Internet.
“Okay, Google, what’s the weather like?” – how to get the result direct? The assistant takes the request, which it turns into a search on Google.
Once he finds a set of results, he reads the passage presented at the top of the SERP, while giving you the source name.
So far apparently nothing special, but we will deal with an essential detail below: a voice search will almost always use the result from position 0 – when it has “in stock” something like that.
The assistant understands the request very well and is quite specific as well as precisely in what it aims to do.
And as these technologies are constantly evolving, voice search requests are increasingly being met.
Why is voice search important for SEO?
Google is becoming more precise about understanding our voice. The accuracy is now 95%.
In general, when it comes to everything that means online, mobile is the big winner. It has been the instrument he has had for several years we use the most for online searches.
By its nature, the mobile is made to record the voice, which makes the perfect tool for voice searches.
On average, it is 3 times faster to order a voice search than in writing, if the browser was already open with the search page. On this line, we are not just talking about speed.
Of course, speed matters a lot in our lives, but more important is convenience. We also wonder, when do we have the opportunity to do one thing at a time?
In short, to go further, voice search has a way long, but it’s definitely the main way a Google search will be done soon!
So, I convinced you that you should consider voice search in your own SEO strategy? Okay, then let’s see how it’s done.
Voice search optimization in Google
Optimizing a site for voice search does not escape the principles of regular SEO. If in the case of video content promotion the ways and principles of SEO are substantially different. In the case of a voice search, what we have to do is also a Google site optimization.
Voice search will generate results like any search – but don’t forget the existence of specific elements. So voice or text, to be found on a search, you have to be high in the rankings.
What would be the general principles – the basics on which to act for a very good positioning? At a time:
Study the search intent
Many times, doing keyword research to write an article, we find that the subject of many of the resulting pages has nothing to do with the subject of the search.
Sometimes the search is not correct (search intent problems). Sometimes, Google does not pick up in the first part of the SERP the articles that should be there. Either way, there’s “bread to eat.”
What’s the point of placing a search on a page that people don’t is he waiting to find her there, or is he useless to them? Probably none. Then analyze where to enter with your own page.
Then, create more content that matches the search results which you found.
Here we have to make a parenthesis: what happens if one of will the pages that have nothing to do there belongs? Do you think you had good luck, and that traffic is traffic? More than likely, however, it is an approach wrong, because the entries on that page will be few, and the rate of extremely high bounce.
Now let’s get back to the search intent. The content of a page is not enough to respond strictly to the search key entered, you must especially fulfill the user’s search intention. Even if very often the two are identical, they are very important and the cases in which differences appear.
For starters, you need to thank Google. Your page must respond to the request – the search key. But more importantly, is to understand what awaits a user looking for this keyword.
If from the title and from the meta-description you do not answer and the intent of the search, the CTR in the search will be minimal. Then, if the visitor who arrives on the page does not find in the content what he wanted, will get out fast.
Example search intent analysis
We check two variants of the question:
• Recruit an SEO consultant
• What is an SEO consultant
The searches will obviously not have the same goal. Still, or better yet, unfortunately, in none of these searches will you receive the desired “answers”.
Why would you be interested in this detail? Because, if you analyze the results carefully, you will see that entering these areas of competition can be difficult.
If you focus only on the keywords mentioned above, it is very difficult to think that you will surpass those who are already up there. But if you go further to understand the real intention of each of the two searches?
We try to follow the path, starting with four steps:
- What is an SEO consultant (initial search – general)
- What an SEO consultant does (moving from definition to detail concrete)
- When I need an SEO consultant (switching from documentation information)
- Where can I find an SEO consultant (purchase intention)?
Try to answer each of these four correctly and explicitly steps and your chances of success will increase exponentially.
Come back. It seems that I have digressed, but I had already started: a voice search does not exclude any of the elements necessary for positioning in text searches.
In this segment, however, what is the specific aspect of a search vowel?
The speed with which a new search can be made makes people more willing to try successive searches, in an attempt to find the search suitable.
The closer you are to their intention (see above the example of the four steps), the higher you get.
Answering questions in SEO
People will not have the same questions on search engines via the keyboard compared to the vocal ones.
A person searching for “Supermarket in Madrid” via the keyboard, will most likely search for “Where is the nearest supermarket in Madrid? “
In this kind of question, we run into a special situation. The more it is the clearer the question, the more accurate the answer will be. If our page has that precise answer, we win.
Many classic sites used to gather all these questions and answers on one page.
But it would not be better to make a page for each of them these answers? It would not allow Google to understand much better every question?
If you are looking for text even with a block page you could still get in the first positions, in a vocal search, the chances will be much higher on the page that contains strictly that question pair – answer.
A combined option is to build a page that contains all questions, from which each question leads to a separate page with the individual answer. All these aspects can be thought of and inserted during the life of a website, but it is best, if we have the chance, to approach them from the site creation phase.
So, in short, publishing content based on questions will help you increase the chances of answering voice search questions.
Focus on long-tail keywords
Once you understand the intent of the search and you have to answer the questions, it results from Long-tail keywords.
But what are long keywords? There are simple questions consisting of 4 words or more.
Short keywords are generally characterized by a much higher search volume, but also by serious competition between results.
But long-tails bring very little search, but bad competition small and – especially, a much higher percentage of clicks in the SERP.
Let’s say someone does a “bike” search. You will get all kinds of results: Bicycle sales, repairs, traffic rules, news, hipster stories, and who knows what else. While a search for “Women’s bicycle price for the city” will get rid of most of the results that do not correspond to the real intention.
So, these long keywords deserve a lot of attention in the context of voice searches. For this, I recommend you put 2 questions.
1. How could a person ask a certain question if he spoke instead of using the keyboard?
2. How do I target a similar keyword?
Now that you’ve done your homework, it’s time to move on-site optimization for voice search.
Create optimized content for featured snippets
You are already wondering, what is a fragment presented? In SEO jargon, it is the element that can enter position 0 in Google. No more confusion, what is zero position? It is the result that appears in the SERP above the first result.
In general, at position zero, a part of the answer to the given search is presented directly. Often, this excerpt is enough to fully answer the question, but to complete the excerpt ends with a link to the site where the passage was extracted.
This position, although as I said, sometimes does not cause clicks from search, still has a very high CTR compared to normal positions on the results page.
Why did I make this parenthesis? Because most of the time, a voice search will provide the answer from position 0. If this the answer is very good, it will attract the visitor’s attention enough to take him to our site.
And here is the most important specificity in optimizing the site for voice search: optimization on extracted fragments.
Google gives in audio format the answer to a voice search. If our fragment is not simple and precise enough, Google will choose another fragment.
How do we get to position 0 in Google?
How do we do such content optimization for the snippet presented? In short, we have already presented the way:
• Target long-tail keywords.
• Answer a question that contains the long tail.
It is also necessary to have a correct answer to the question, but also to be the one who answers best.
So that the fragment can be taken over for both Position 0 and for voice response, it is best to add the specifics to the already known list of the On-Page optimization part:
- Break down the content into several parts/steps.
- Reverse the natural logical order of a text – from the problem to the conclusion, starting directly with the answer to the basic question. Then continue with all the elements of construction, descriptions, statistics, elements, history s.a.m.d.
- Place the long-tail keyword and question at the beginning of the text follow it with a paragraph containing the short answer and object.
- Continue the text with the new paragraph.
- Use images, videos, computer graphics.
- Make the article very easy to read so that even for an 8-year-old to understand what you are explaining.
- Make sure you use lists (bullet or numbered).
- Open large parts of the text with H2, H3, etc. tags.
Conclusions on voice search and SEO
Voice search is a continuation of natural referencing. Represent a natural evolution of the SEO field and that is why we say that the future is strong.
Final word: the voice search train started the engines, and it would be a shame not to embark immediately. In any case, nothing to lose by optimizing the site in this direction – the techniques used have equally good results for the classic text search. That is, in the worst case, you will increase your traffic from searches sent through the keyboard.
SEO features for video publications
Why are video productions so successful? They are easy to produce and people like them. There is also much greater potential great to quickly get a good SEO ranking.
Why you should create videos
We will never stop supporting this fact: content creation is the key to a great strategy for growing organic traffic. Creating but the content is much more than just blog posts.
Includes infographics, podcasts, videos, and more. One of the great things about all these technologies is that the barriers to entry are very low.
These types of content do not require a lot of equipment special, no professional expertise. All you need are a few basic tools, a little research, and a desire to learn.
Why do people post videos online? Because they are so great in front of the camera? Sure, for some people. But for most of us owe it to ourselves the fact that making videos is another way to create quality content.
In short, here are five reasons why video is one of the best things you can do for your brand:
1. It is the most popular type of content;
2. It means blogging for people who hate writing (or reading);
3. It’s easy to get started;
4. It’s blogging instantly;
5. It has an incomparable impact with other materials in Social Media.
In a recent study, researchers found that videos are 50 times more likely to be found in search than standard content text (Source: Forrester Research – https://go.forrester.com/).
Why? Partly because the competition for video content is even lower than that of plain text pages.
Thus, from the start, it can be much easier to get a good and fast ranking with an online video.
From the same Forrester study, it was found that video content has on average about 11,000 to 1 chance of reaching the first SERP page in Google. Isn’t that great? Yes, because text-based content is over 550,000 to 1. Hence the conclusion – the chances of ranking on page 1 in Google are 50 times higher.
How to create SEO-quality video content?
Being found in searches with video material, as I said before, is 50 times easier than with the same content published as text.
Of course, this will not be exactly the same for all search terms – it depends a lot on the competition. However, if you have properly optimized video content, you can greatly increase your chances of SEO video ranking.
This is partly due to the fact that despite a large number of videos available on YouTube, the text content elements are incomparably more. Better yet, most of these videos are not optimized for search at all.
Here’s how to start SEO for video content
Find the right keywords
The best SEO practices that would use them to promote your videos in searches (on Youtube but also directly in Google)are quite similar to the process you use when optimize the text content.
The big exception is that you will only use keywords in the video title, labels, and description. From the beginning, you “got rid” of who knows how many hours of work for on-page optimization it takes text-type articles.
Select 5-6 strong keywords using, for example, Google Ads Keyword Planner and use them as tags. Incorporate some of these in the video description.
The video description should be a clear and concise description of the content that incorporates some of the keywords that you want the material to be found. And great attention, the title must be as it is maybe clear! Think like a seeker.
An online video is generally published for two things:
• fun and entertainment (cats, people hitting, sports, music, etc.);
• instructions (how to tie a tie, how to make your own pizza, how to use a Facebook page etc).
Titles and labels representing questions or phrases such as “How to … “are usually very popular in search results for video. When you double this thinking with a careful word search key, you will be able to create optimized titles and descriptions that will be successful in searches.
Choose informative titles that clearly state what the video offers and that ideally incorporate one of the keywords you want.
It is very difficult to separate the idea we have about the content of our video, and what can make it attractive BEFORE being watched.
It is true, from a point forward, through virtualization, a video will be successful because it is quality.
But that point means that the first phase has already passed, the one in which visitors, among tens or hundreds of offers, must choose to click on your production, based on a title, a short description, and a static image.
That means a lot of SEO optimization for video.
Practices adjacent to SEO measures for video
To maximize the SEO effect for video content published on a YouTube network, you should also post that video on the website.
An often good measure is to associate a text transcript of the video content. It can be placed on the same page, or even on a separate page.
Use SEO best practices on this text: strong keywords, tags, meta descriptions, and H1 titles.
Text transcription of a video can be tiring at first, but it becomes much faster with the accumulation of practice.
This is also a great argument to carefully write the texts for the video before recording it.
To truly take advantage of the videos you create, consider some of these ideas:
● Share the video through social networks. A typical example is posting on Twitter on the first day, on Facebook the next day, after which Pinterest is also worth considering. The next day on Linkedin s.a.m.d. – understand the course;
● take some screenshots with the most interesting moments, possibly the ones that sing and text elements that should attract, and also post them on social networks, only with a link to the video material;
● Do not think of video as a source of traffic, but as a direct conversion medium, so include call-traction elements at the end of it.
Where does video SEO start?
12 ways to optimize your page search with video content
1. Study the target audience;
2. Choose the right video hosting platform;
3. Enter a transcript;
4. Make a suitable thumbnail (the equivalent of the thumbnail from the images);
5. Pay attention to the title and description of the video;
6. Add appropriate labels;
7. Make the rest of the page relevant to video and SEO optimized;
8. Don’t forget about mobile optimization;
9. Embed the video in the first part of the page;
10. Make sure the video is the most important visual and conceptual part of the page;
11. Do not embed the same video in multiple pages or sites;
12. Don’t just rely on SEO for promotion;
SEO for video, in short
Video content can be an extremely powerful marketing tool if used correctly.
Keeping in mind some good technical practices and also maintaining a clear and concise perspective on the ultimate goal, marketers have the potential to capture the attention of a growing target audience.
The beginning is “passive”, with video content publishing, SEO optimization of descriptive elements, and the publishing environment. But if we think that the next step is the audio search, we get an idea of what the future holds for us.
On-Site SEO for Google News
Optimization for Google News has only a few different details of SEO practice for large sites or blogs. We will review here the main points to follow, going back to the classic SEO strategy, and focusing on the specifics of the news site area.
Title and URL optimization
Make sure the article title is correctly formatted for the <title> tag, and then include the category and site name: <title> – <category> – <site name> works best.
The title of the article – without adding a category – site name, it is good to have the H1 tag. Whenever you have more text, which involves sections, use H2 and H3 for subtitles.
Both in the title and in the URL, include keywords, for example, the title of the message. While the category and site name will be added to the title forming the published <title> tag, the URL will remain simple and shorter.
Important: insert a number system in the URL. According to Google News, “The URL of each article must contain a unique number of at least three digits.” We don’t know why, but that’s it.
Content optimization for news
Delete as much unrelated content as possible and do not place any links to unrelated content.
Move the content as high as possible in the template, especially for mobile viewing. When working on an SEO project on regular sites, the first thing that concerns you are the keywords.
On a news site, however, their importance has a different weight. Of course, it also depends on what kind of news it is.
Some news stories remain important for long periods, others become uninteresting in a few days. That is why it is difficult to work a classic optimization, marking vertical categories – articles.
What I said here is doubly important. On the one hand, we say that once you’ve published a news story, you don’t have much to do.
On-Page optimization on a news after its publication is a funny concept, old news is old news. Therefore, the correct search and use of the right keywords must be done with double attention from the writing phase.
And speaking of news, we certainly won’t have a few days for careful research.
A little off-topic in the content section:
• Move all js and CSS lines to external files. Better for your regular visitors, because the browser will cache them which will increase the loading speed;
• Use images in text and make sure they are optimized for speed.
Improving the structure of internal links
It is not difficult to get the indexing of one or more articles on the first page. The difficult part of a news site is that it publishes such a large amount of articles that the problem is to completely index the archives.
How can this be done? There are several methods and it is advisable not to limit yourself to just one. It is important that a person who arrives on the site does not read a single piece of news.
But as the interests are extremely diverse and the structure of the public is rarely known, it is very difficult to draw a simple internal linking structure.
Therefore, it is good to make as many different parallel structures available on the site. Organize the news by categories, according to the main topic.
Attach to each article a reasonable number of labels, by secondary topics, by name, institutions, or brands presented in the text. Also, provide calendar archives.
Prevent duplicate content
A major problem with news sites is the deletion of duplicate content. Very high risk is that the CMS is not perfected, and when placing an article in several categories, it generates different URLs.
Each published text must have a main category and redirect all other entry points to this main URL. Another potential source of duplicate content is setting too many tags on extremely narrow topics, and placing too many tags on one article.
This way, you risk having multiple Tag pages with the same content. What you have to do, in principle, is not to change the way you work. No, placing an article – or at least an important one, on as many “paths” as possible is a good idea.
But it is important for Google to know that content is a page, the rest being copies of it for readers. Specifically, no matter how many URLs a page has, all must have a canonical relay set to a single address – the “original”.
Indexing in Google News
As I said at the beginning, SEO for Google News differs in some specifics from indexing for SERP. In regular SEO projects, the time it takes to index new content is usually measured in days. For news projects, we talk about intervals of a few minutes.
What do we need to remember from this?
First of all, it is very important to be the first. Secondly, if you choose to be first, to the detriment of quality, you will most likely have to lose soon enough. Indexing news, from a technical point of view, means that you need to create an XML sitemap news and update it continuously. And the pages themselves are good to have the markups corresponding to the news.
Conclusion
I hope this On-Page SEO guide was helpful. There is a lot of information, I know, but you can start with small steps to implement the notions, and the results will appear.
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