Simple and Effective On Page SEO You Need to be Doing

One of the most over-looked pieces of Search Engine Optimization is the proper use of On Page SEO. Most marketers and bloggers figure that if they just use their targeted keyword a few times in their posts that they are doing the needed optimization for Google to show them the love. Then of course they move all focus to the off-page optimization such as building backlinks and social presence. The fact is that their are a number of things that the search engines still love to see in your posts to show that you are optimizing your posts for a better user experience and thus will your site will be rewarded with a better search engine ranking.

On Page SEO Tactic 1: Google loves to see multimedia

Every single post that you make should include a picture  placed among the text.  Google loves to see this because it increases the user experience and Google is all about providing sites to searchers that give them a good user experience. Not only is it important to include a relevant image to your post, but it is also very important to make sure it is labelled with a keyword rich title and alt text.  If you are unsure of how to do this, then just do a search on inserting images into a post and you will easily be able to find out how to do this.  It is also useful to include youtube videos in your posts occasionally. There is no need to place a Youtube video in every one of your posts, but when there is a relevant one that you can add, it will help your On-Page SEO.

On Page SEO Tactic 2: Use Header Tags

Many people ignore using the header tags because they think that Google ignores them now since they were abused so much in the earlier days of SEO.  But using header tags that contain your targeted keyword tells Google and the other search engines “Hey, here is my main keyword!  Right here!”  And don’t just use the H1 tag, use H2, H3 and even H4 tags.  If you can include your targeted keyword or a variance of it in each of the header tags, then you will be doing really well.

On Page SEO Tactic 3: The RIGHT Keyword Density

The common belief seems to be that a higher keyword density such as 5% is best and what Google likes to see most. However, through testing and reading other marketers findings, I believe that 1 to 2% keyword density is optimal for your on page SEO.  I have seen a site that had 3% keyword density ranking on the second page of Google, but when the keyword density was changed to just under 2%, it all of a sudden bounced up to page 1.  Now whether this was just Google still doing it’s dance or if it really was the change in keyword density, I can’t say with 100% certainty.  But since then I have been using 1 to 2% keyword density with great success.  No one knows for sure but Google what the optimal keyword density is, but I have gotten good results with the above guidelines and I think you will too.

On Page SEO Tactic 4: How Much Content
The old saying goes, content is king, and it still really holds a lot of truth today. But exactly how much is optimal in Google’s eyes. I heard a stat somewhere that the number 1 ranked result on Google for any given keyword has on average over 3000 words of content on the front page.  I have also found that Google often ranks longer articles much better than shorter ones.  So instead of posting 500 word articles all of the time, try posting some articles that are 800 to 1000 words long.  Another trick for WordPress blogs is to go into your Reading settings and make the number of posts on the first page to show be 20 or more.  Also, the posts should be the full articles, never use excerpts.  You want as much content as possible to be showing on your front page.  You should be able to have 10,000 words of solid content on your front page if you have 20 posts showing.

Also, it is important to post content on a consistent basis, daily or every other day is best in the early stages of your blog or website.  Then after a couple of weeks, you can taper off a bit.  You should start to notice your rankings improving just by consistently posting content.  Eventually, you should only have to post once every week or two or perhaps even less once you have achieved the ranking that you desired.

On Page SEO Tactic 5: Interlinking
Each and every article that you post should have an internal link pointing back to another post on your blog or website.  This way as you build link juice to your site, that link juice will be passed between the inner pages of your site rather than just going to the one page.  This will create a powerful effect for your blog and should not be undervalued.  It is also important to mix in some links to other authority sites or related blog posts.  This is more natural looking to Google and will show that you are linking out to other quality content that your users would enjoy.  Going back to the concept that Google wants to provide search results that give a rich user experience, this will show Google that your site does just that.

On Page SEO Tactic 6: Social Integration
Now a days, Google puts a lot of weight into the social media side of things.  If you can show Google that your site is popular or being talked about in the socialsphere, then that will give more authority and credibility to your site.  So as far as On Page SEO, make sure that you include social buttons such as a Facebook Like button, a tweet this post type button, a Stumbleupon button and a Digg button for starters.  There may be more that you wish to include, but those are some of the biggest.  Make sure you find a plugin that will add these buttons to each of your posts.  If you can get users to “Like” or “Tweet” your posts, it will give a nice boost to your rankings, so get these social proof buttons on your site.

On Page SEO: Conclusion

I think this about sums up the key points of On Page SEO that will greatly increase your chances of ranking well in Google. There are more complex things that I may get into in a future post, but these are the easiest to implement and will have the largest effect in my opinion on your rankings.  The best thing about On Page SEO is that you are completely in control of how well it is done.  You could either keyword stuff and call it good or you could do half of the things I went through above, or you could do all of them.  The choice is yours and no one is stopping you from choosing the exact amount of On Page search engine optimization that you want. However, these things are not very time consuming and there are even plugins that will help you to see just how well you have done at optimizing your posts.

SEOPressor: WordPress Plugin
There is one WordPress Plugin in particular that checks almost all of the things that I detailed above. Plus it will analyze your blog and tell you exactly what you need to do to increase your rankings.  I have been using it for a while and it makes my On Page optimization a breeze and is giving me some incredible information.  I can hardly work without it now.

The Plugin is Called SEOPressor and it does an incredible job.  If you get a chance to try it out, you won’t be dissapointed.

If you have any On Page SEO questions that you want to ask, feel free to leave a comment and I will reply back with my best answer.  It is not rocket science, just knowing what you should be doing and then actually doing it.  Also, having a handy tool like SEOPressor can go a long way to making sure you follow through with doing your On Page SEO correctly.

I hope you get something out of this article and please check out the rest of Major Marketing Tools if you get a chance.