SEO is a big topic, and it can seem daunting to someone who’s just getting started. But luckily, there are some simple steps you can take to optimize your content for search engines. The first step towards successful SEO is on-page optimization: that’s simply the process of making sure the text on your site is optimized for search engines.
On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing your website’s content and structure to rank higher in search engines. It’s a crucial part of achieving strong SEO and one that you definitely need to know about if you want your site to rank well.
On-page SEO consists of everything that happens on the page itself: from keywords, descriptions, titles, links and more. The goal is for Google to understand what your site is about based on what it sees on each individual page (hence “on” rather than “off”). This means creating an experience for users that keeps them engaged by giving them what they want – not just filling up pages with long paragraphs of text or keyword stuffing!
The best way to get started with on-page SEO is through keyword research – learning which words people are searching for most often so that you can target those same terms when writing posts or creating new pages on your site. Then make sure each page contains enough unique content without overwhelming readers who don’t care about every single word being perfect (it doesn’t have anything important). Finally, include links within text so readers don’t feel like they’re scrolling forever before finding something interesting; this will also help Google understand relationships between different articles/pages (which we’ll talk more about later).
On-page and off-page SEO are both important. Each is a part of your website’s overall health, but on-page is the one you can control directly. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, if it has broken links or duplicate content, if it’s not optimized for search engines—those are all issues that directly affect how well your site ranks in search results. On the other hand, keywords are also important: they’re still how people find information on the internet and how search engines know what to show when someone searches for something specific. Keyword research can help you figure out which terms people use when looking for what you offer—or at least which terms they should be using!
Meta tags are the “code” that search engines read to understand your page. They help them figure out what your page is about, and how important it is.
By describing the content of a page, meta tags give search engines clues as to how best to rank a site. For example, if you write about how to fix a broken lawnmower blade, you might want to include words like “lawnmower blade” and “repairing.” This will make sure that search engines know what kind of content your site contains—and it can also help improve its ranking on Google or Bing!
The tag is a text alternative for an image. It should include a brief description of the image, which can be read by search engines, screen readers and other applications that access web pages. I have written a full blog dedicated to image optimization which you can check out HERE.
The first thing you need to do is make sure that when people search for your product or service, they can easily find it. Your goal is to get as many clicks as possible from organic search results so that you can convert those visitors into customers.
To do this, there are two things you must focus on:
Use tools to help you optimize your content as you write. There are a lot of tools out there that can help you check for errors and improve the quality of your content, including Yoast, Google Search Console, SEMrush, Moz, Ahrefs and Raven Tools. These will also let you know if there are any issues with broken links or duplicate pages on your site. It may take some time to learn how to use these properly but it’s worth it—the more time-consuming aspects of SEO can be automated using software like this so that when you’re ready to move from being an amateur at SEO into becoming a pro (and saving yourself lots of headache), just set them up once and then forget about them until they need updating again.
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. On-page SEO is a very simple process that has been refined by thousands of people over many years. The techniques that work today have remained largely unchanged since they were first discovered in 2003 by an engineer named Dr. Matt Cutts (who now works at Google). It’s important not to overcomplicate things or get caught up in all the latest news about new developments in SEO as this will likely lead you down a rabbit hole of time-consuming experiments that won’t improve your rankings on Google or any other search engine.
Don’t worry about things you can’t control.* In order for most websites’ pages to rank highly for keywords, there needs to be backlinks pointing at the page from other sites – these are called external links and are usually found on other websites with content relevant to yours (e.g., if I wrote an article about pets, I might link it from my own blogpost titled “How To Take Care Of Cats”). External links aren’t something we have direct control over so don’t worry too much if they’re not present right away because they can take some time before showing up after being published online; however if someone finds value within our content then they may want share it with their friends which would result in getting more external links!
On-page SEO is a valuable tool in your marketing arsenal, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. The main takeaway here is that you don’t need to overthink this process—all you have to do is make sure your content is easy for search engines and readers alike. If you can do that, then on-page SEO will take care of itself.
Oh! and in case you are looking for free SEO education resources, check out THIS blog, where I have written a list of free SEO education resources.