On-page Search engine optimization is really important if you want your blog to rank higher in search engines, you can never over-emphasize the importance of on-page SEO.
SEO, in general, is not such a difficult task, but you will need to learn some basic things about it for you to have a proper understanding of how the advanced aspect of SEO works. These basic things are not hard to learn, in fact, there are millions of Search engine optimization tutorials on the internet.
On-page optimization simply means optimizing the content on your blog for search engines and it is quite easy to do, though it may require a bit of time. There are various On-page SEO factors, but I will be sharing with you 5 On-Page SEO factors that I have deemed fit you should never ignore.
Bloggers Should Never Ignore
Let’s get started!
- Page/Post Titles
Your blog Post/page titles should never be handled with levity; it is the top most important on-page SEO factor. Your page title is the mini description of what that particular page is all about, it tells the potential visitors as well as search engines what the content of that particular page is about.
When writing a post/page title, you need not to be in a hurry, take your time to construct the best title that will describe the page content whilst still having your post keywords in it.
Make sure you write page titles that are short and accurate, the post title should contain your target keyword for that page and you should also make sure that the post title is relevant to the page content so that you won’t look like spam to search engines as well as your blog visitors.
- Description META Tag
The description meta tag is also a very important on-page SEO factor that I will advise you not to ignore; The function of the description meta tag is to describe what a post/page is about in about 150 characters (just like the short messages you send on your phone).
A post/page title is a few words long, but your description could be a sentence or two and this will help compliment your well optimized page/post titles.
The description Meta tag is important because it is what the search engines usually shoe as the preview snippets of your articles on search engine result pages (SERPs). When writing a description for your posts, you should draft a description that will be short (150 characters) and concise, and it should also describe the true content of the page whilst still interesting and entice people that read it on SERPs it to visit your blog.
Furthermore, when you are writing the description Meta tag, you should not forget to include the main keyword you are targeting in it. try to place the keyword near the beginning of the description and also use other related keywords in the description; but you should avoid writing a keyword stuffed description (a description that just contain keywords only), it will not help your rankings a bit (if it won’t get you banned).
Also, you should never write a non-related description for a post/page just because you want to rank higher, search engines are smart enough to detect this and you may be penalized.
Tip: you should install a WordPress SEO plug-in to help you add the Meta description functionality to your blog, I use All in one SEO plug-in, and it’s free so give it a try.
- Use Search Engine Optimizes URL Structure
It still surprises me when I see bloggers using generic URL structure in this era, I know most of those that do this are newbie’s, and it is because they don’t understand the added benefit of having an optimized permalink. Your permalink/URL structure is also very important on-page SEO factor, apart from it helping your rankings; it also makes it easier for people to remember your post URL.
You should avoid the default/generic URL structure, make sure you are using a keyword structure that allows you to have your keyword in the post permalink; stop using the WordPress default URL structure like your-site.com/p7892-33.html, when you can create an optimized URL like your-site.com/weight-loss if the post/page is on weight loss.
In WordPress users, you can change your permalinks/URL structure by login into your blog dashboard and navigating to settings >> Permalinks option; to choose your desired permalink format, but make sure you change it from the default WordPress generic URL structure.
- Optimize Your Blog Post Images
If you don’t know, images can be a good source of traffic to your blog! As a matter of fact, it is easier to rank higher for your target keywords with the help of images. I know most of us don’t usually use images in our blog post, but I will advise you to start using it because it can be a good source of additional traffic to your blog.
How do you optimize your images? Optimizing your images for search engine traffic is quite easy, all you need to do is to take care of two things: “the image filename” and “the image ‘alt’” attribute, these two factors are what makes your images to rank higher in SERPs.
when using images on your blog, you should make sure that the image filename is the exact keyword that you are targeting in the post, also, you “alt” attribute you be short and must include your target keyword.
- Sitemaps
There are two types of sitemaps that you can have, you can have the HTML sitemap and the XML sitemap, but the XML sitemap is the most important one from my own point of view.
A sitemap is a page with links to all of the post and pages on your blog. Having a sitemap on your blog is really helpful in the sense that it makes it easy for search engine crawlers to crawl your blog content with ease by just following the links on the sitemap page.
Creating a xml sitemap for you blog is quite easy, all you need is to install the Google xml sitemap plug-in, and this plug-in will automatically create and update a search engine friendly sitemap for your blog; this plug-in does not require you to do a thing other than installing it, it will automatically update your sitemap whenever you add a new post or page to your blog.
For the HTML sitemap, you will need to check your WordPress theme it has a sitemap or archive page template (most theme has). If it has, you can create a HTML sitemap page by creating a new page and selecting the sitemap/archive page template as the new page template.
