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On Page SEO or On Site SEO – Everything You Need to Know

 

On Page SEO or On Site SEO – Everything You Need to Know

On Page SEO or On Site SEO – Everything You Need to Know

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, consists mainly of two things: On Page or On Site SEO, and Off Page or Off Site SEO.

Off Page or Off Site SEO includes the aspect of SEO that are outside your blog or domain. This includes:

  • Link building using guest posts, article directories, forum profiles, blog commenting, etc.
  • Social media marketing using Facebook, Twitter, etc
  • And more…

 

Problems with Off Page SEO or Off Site SEO

By definition, off page SEO is no in your control since the activity happens outside your blog or domain.

Theoretically, this SEO happens by others – when people talk about you in their blog posts and link to your blog, when people talk about your blog on social media sites, when people tweet about your posts, etc.

However, many bloggers try to engineer these off site SEO aspects. For example, some people might create multiple Twitter accounts and tweet their own blog post from these multiple times.

This is a grey area, and search engines like Google are always on the lookout for such things. Therefore, it is best to use these techniques in moderation.

 

On Page SEO or On Site Search Engine Optimization

On Page SEO or On Site Search Engine Optimization

On Page SEO or On Site Search Engine Optimization

On page SEO includes aspects of SEO that are handled on your own blog or site. Therefore, by definition, you and only you have full control over these aspects.

Moreover, many of on page SEO fatcors are seen as good practices by search engines like Google and Yahoo!

Considering all this, shouldn’t you take full advantage of on site SEO factors and maximize your SEO impact with minimal effort on your part?

Of course you should! So let’s not waste any time and dive in…

 

Factors Impacting On Page SEO

 

On Page SEO: Title of Your Page or Blog Post

The title of your post or page is one of the most important on page SEO factors – search engines pay a great deal of attention to it in order to figure out what the page is all about.

Please remember that I am talking about the title meta tag, and not the title that appears on top of the blog post (although for most of the themes, these two are the same).

Here are the things you need to take care of when it comes to the title tag:

  • The title tag should contain the keyword you are targeting on that page (remember, you should target only one keyword in each post or page of your blog)
  • Ideally, your title should also begin with the keyword
  • The title should not be too short or too long. It should be at least 4-5 words, and not more than 66 characters in length (any more, and the search engines would truncate it while displaying it in the search results)

And how can you achieve all this? The best way is to use a plugin that let’s you change the title tag.

One of the best plugins for this is All in One SEO Pack – it is a free plugin that lets you control most aspects of SEO from one place!

 

On Site SEO: Other Meta Tags for the Blog Post or Page

  • Title Description and Keyword Meta Tags for Search Engine Optimization / On Page SEO

    Title Description and Keyword Meta Tags for Search Engine Optimization / On Page SEO

    Make sure that the description meta tag contains your keyword

  • Just like the title tag, it is desirable that the description meta tag also begins with the keyword you are targeting
  • The description meta tag should also not be too short or too long. You get more leeway here than the title tag, though – the description of the webpage can be up to 160 characters in length
  • Although the “keywords” meta tag has lost most of its significance, you should have your keyword here too – just to be extra cautious. Some older search engines might still be considering it, so why take a chance by excluding your keywords from the keyword meta tag?

Again, the free All in One SEO Pack plugin would let you do all this while writing the blog post.

 

OnPage SEO: Headings on the Webpage

H1, H2 and H3 headings (these are the HTML notations for headings within your webpages) play a very important role in SEO.

When something is marked as a heading, search engines like Google know that it contains important information. So it makes sense to have your keywords in the headings! Here’s what you need to do:

  • H1 is the most important heading, so make sure that the H1 tag (Level 1 heading) contains your keyword. Most themes display the title of the post in the H1 tag, so make sure that your post or page title contains your keyword (here, we are talking about the actual title of your post, and not the title tag)
  • Also, try to make sure that the H1 heading begins with the keyword
  • Mae sure that your keyword occurs in H2 and H3 tags on the webpage as well
  • There is no need to include your keyword in the H4, H5 and H6 tags – it doesn’t have any impact on SEO

 

OnSite SEO: URL or Premalink of the Post or Page

When it come to URLs of your blog posts and pages, there is only one thing you need to make sure. Yes, you guessed it right – the URL needs to have your keyword in it!

Permalink or URL Structure and On Page SEO

Permalink or URL Structure and On Page SEO

WordPress automatically uses the port or page title (not title tag, but the actual title) to create the URL, so as long as your include the keyword in the title, you would be good regarding the URL too.

But, and this is important – you need to have changed the premalink settings for this to happen. After a fresh install, WordPress has the following URL or permalink structure:

http://thewphowtoblog.com/?p=123

Once you tweak the setting (which is a very simple step), you would have good-looking, SEO friendly permalinks like these:

http://thewphowtoblog.com/features-to-look-for-web-hosting-provider-wordpress-host-blog-host/

(To find out how to change this setting, please read “WordPress Configuration & Setup After Fresh Installation“)

 

On Page SEO: Images on the Page

  • Make sure that the webpage has at least one image
  • The file name of the image should have your keyword in it
  • Also include the keyword in the image’s title and alt text

 

On Site SEO: Content of the Page

  • On Page SEO and Content Formatting

    On Page SEO and Content Formatting

    Make sure that your blog posts and pages are not too short. Anything less than 300 words is a big no-no. For best SEO impact, try to have more than 750 words in each blog post.

  • Make sure that you have your keyword in the first and last 50 words of the post.
  • Make sure that you have your keyword in the anchor text of a hyperlink – preferably to an external website or blog
  • Make sure that you have at least one hyperlink to an external, authority website (like WikiPedia.org, About.com or any other authority website in your niche)
  • If possible, try to make your keyword appear as bold, italics and underlined at least once in the blog post text
  • Keyword density is not very relevant any more. In any case, a keyword density of between 2% and 3% is considered reasonable by most search engines. Anything above 3% might get flagged as keyword stuffing.

 

Anything Missing – Let Me Know

I believe this is a very exhaustive list of on page SEO factors.

Have I missed anything regarding on site SEO or on page SEO? If so, please let me know through your comments, and I would update the post to reflect this!

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