How On-Page Factors Affect Your SEO Performance
The vast bulk of search engine optimization lies in on-page factors such as keyword placement, content quality and linking structures. However, many of these factors are commonly misunderstood with unscrupulous content marketers using methods such as keyword stuffing or paying too much attention to keyword density.
This article takes a look at the various on-page features which play an important part in your search engine ranking.
1 – Keyword Usage
Having your keyword placed in the title, H1 and description tag is important, so long as it is not overused and still blends in naturally with the rest of the wording. Likewise, keywords placed once in the title of a page, as well as a few times in the content itself, are still significant relevance signals which help the search engine crawlers to identify and index your content. The keyword should also feature in the URL, which ideally, should be a contraction of the title of the webpage.
The importance of keyword density has become somewhat of a myth these days, and paying too much attention to it often ends up leading to over-optimized content which can have the opposite effect to what you intend.
2 – Content Length
One of the reasons why many of the once highly ranking article directories and online magazines were severely hit by Google’s algorithm updates is that they tended to feature huge numbers of short articles. Much of such content is also low in quality and filled with errors, although this is another matter. In order to help mitigate the effects of the algorithm updates, many sites increased the minimum number of words for article submissions.
Articles such as blog posts, for example, should ideally be at least 500 words long. As far as Google is concerned, longer pieces of content indicate a more in-depth look into a subject unlike content which appears vague and overly generic.
3 – Image Optimization
Google’s Image Search feature is getting better all the time, and many people use it to search specifically for visual content. You can either use a text query or search by an image itself in order to find other appearances of the same image or similar images.
Image optimization involves naming the image files appropriately and filling in the caption, description and alt text. Optimization your images makes them more valuable for SEO purposes.
4 – New Content and Updates
Particularly when it comes to blogging, new content is always an important factor in increasing your search engine ranking. Although many websites are also static (i.e. they do not change), it is still important to provide up-to-date information and get rid of any outdated content which is no longer relevant.
Blogs should be updated on a regular basis, preferably several times per week at least. A website which is frequently modified, added to or updated appears “alive,” and is thus significantly less likely to drift to the end of the search results.
5 – Original Content
Google has a zero tolerance policy on plagiarized content, and although it is harder to distinguish through automated means, this also includes content which is rewritten or spun. Plagiarized content will likely end up getting taken down with the website which published it being severely punished, if not de-indexed altogether. However, even if the content has not been plagiarized, yet is still published on multiple sites, the copies will not rank as highly as the original.
6 – Outbound Links
Although controversial, a lot of SEO experts believe that linking to other authoritative sources, particularly when linking to reference material, helps to increase trust and improve your search engine standing as a result. However, overusing outbound links can have quite the opposite effect, particularly since the recent Google Penguin update.
Broken links, whether internal or external can also hurt your search engine standing, since it indicates that a website is either poorly maintained or has been abandoned entirely. It’s a good idea to periodically test your website with a broken link checker.
7 – Content Quality
Nowadays, the quality of content is by far the most influential factor when it comes to getting in the first page of the search engine results. Google’s algorithms are constantly improving in order to provide higher quality and more relevant search results while penalizing sites written primarily with the search engine crawlers in mind rather than their human readers. Impeccable grammar and spelling may also play a part in search engine ranking, but even if they don’t, it is still essential for holding onto your human readers.
