Ranking on the first page of Google can be a game-changer for your business. But how can you achieve that? On-page SEO is the answer. By optimizing your website’s content for search engines and people, you can attract countless new visitors and clients.
The tasks list for on-page SEO is always evolving, though. Without the latest SEO changes implemented, your content may become outdated and invisible to your target audience, no matter how good they are. That’s why we created this comprehensive guide to help you optimize your content for increased Google visibility and target audience engagement.
Download this FREE interactive on-page SEO checklist to get started. You can use it on your devices or print. Check the boxes as you complete each task of optimizing your content for profitable visibility.
The complete on-page SEO checklist is below:
- Ensure the content of your post is relevant and valuable
- Use the keyword in the title
- Use your keyword in the post’s first paragraph
- Write a meta description and include the keyword.
- Optimize image size and cite image sources
- Convert images to WebP
- Use descriptive Alt Tags for images
- Use heading tags properly
- Upload videos to external servers (like YouTube and Vimeo) then embed them on your webpage
- Use post title as URL slug/permalink
- Add target keywords to your body content. Avoid keyword stuffing
- Check the mobile version of your post for responsiveness
- Add relevant internal and external links
1. Ensure the content of your post is relevant and valuable
Search engines today are tasked with providing users with quality, relevant content. Your web pages and content won’t rank on search engines if they’re not deemed valuable to a target audience.
Gone are the days when keyword stuffing would help you gain an unfair advantage in search engines. You must create and publish original content your target audience finds useful to gain search engine visibility.
Doing some target audience research can help you easily figure out the best type of content you can create to rank high on Google and gain the engagement of your target audience.
Use this free guide to create a profitable buyer persona that’ll help you gain valuable insights into the needs, wants, challenges, and psychographics of your target audience. Having this knowledge at your disposal will help you consistently create valuable content that your target audience appreciates.
2. Use the keyword in the title
Google uses keywords and context to understand whether a webpage is relevant to a search query. Using your keyword in the title of your post will help it rank when users search for queries that include your keyword.
3. Use your keyword in the post’s first paragraph
Try to include your primary keyword in the opening paragraph. Then add repeats (or secondary keywords) throughout. This is because Google may believe your web page is unrelated to a keyword if it can’t find it in the body of your content.
Avoid keyword stuffing, though. This will only force keywords where they shouldn’t be, making your content sound strange. It doesn’t help your on-page SEO in any way.
4: Write a meta description and include the keyword.
The meta description helps your content stand out on Google and attract more clicks. Use it to briefly describe what the user will gain from your page and why it is worth visiting. Ensure it includes your primary keyword and doesn’t exceed 120 characters so it won’t be truncated.
You can use the Yoast SEO or AIOSEO plugins for WordPress to get your content’s search engine result page (SERP) preview. This will show you how your content may look in search engine results based on the title and meta description you choose.
5. Optimize image size and cite image sources:
Try to reduce the size of your images as much as possible. Heavy images cause your web pages to load slowly, often ranking them low on Google. This is especially true for real estate images that are usually high-resolution to show off the unique beauty of properties.
The WP-Optimize plugin on WordPress can help you significantly reduce the size of your images without losing much of their quality. It can automatically do this immediately after you upload images, saving you time and web resources.
Citing the sources of your images isn’t only a good practice, it helps you avoid infringing on the copyright of creators who invest quite a lot to create those images you love. You can cite the sources of your images by using the caption feature for images on your CMS.
6. Convert images to WebP:
WebP is a raster graphics file format developed by Google and intended as a replacement for JPEG, PNG, and GIF file formats. It supports both lossy and lossless compression, as well as animation and alpha transparency.
According to Google, converting your images to WebP is recommended because WebP often achieves 30% greater compression than JPEG and JPEG 2000 without loss of image quality. The WebP format creates smaller, better-looking images to help your web pages load faster.
The WP-Optimize plugin for WordPress can help you automatically convert your images to WebP once it’s installed, activated, and set up correctly.
7. Use descriptive Alt Tags for images:
Alt Tag, also called alt text or alt description, is the written copy that displays in place of images that can’t be rendered properly in your content. It also tells search engines what your images are about.
Alt tags help people to find your website through image-based search results. It also helps visually impaired users get an accurate description of the images embedded in your content.
Make sure your alt text is descriptive yet concise. Also, try to include your content keyword in the alt tag if the image is directly related to the keyword.
Alt text is typically added via the alt attribute in an image’s HTML code. However, most CMS have a dedicated field for image alt tags so you don’t need to edit the content’s HTML code.
With the WordPress CMS, you can use the block tab to add your alt text when editing a post.
You can also edit existing images and add your alt text in the “alternative text” field.
8: Use heading tags properly.
Heading tags, also header tags, are used to define the headings and subheadings of your content.
They rank in order of importance, from H1 to H6, with H1 being the title and the most important. Header tags improve the readability and SEO of your content. They help search engines and users understand your content’s structure and hierarchical order.
Most CMS will let you easily set the heading tag of any text you highlight in your content.
Ensure you have only one H1, but as many H2 to H6 tags as needed. H1 represents the title of your content, H2 is any sub-topic, H3 is nested under H2, and so on.
9. Upload videos to external servers (like YouTube and Vimeo) then embed them on your webpage
Hosting videos on external servers saves you website bandwidth and helps your web pages load faster. You can easily embed your YouTube videos in your WordPress posts by simply pasting the link of that video in a YouTube block on WordPress. The video below shows you how you can do this.
10: Use post title as URL slug/permalink
The URL slug or permalink of a webpage on your website is the unique address of that page that doesn’t change. Using the title of your website as the permalink is a common practice because it’s reading-friendly to both the people visiting your website and search engines including Google.
You can set the permalink of your posts to default to the title of that post by navigating to the permalink section of the settings on your WordPress dashboard.
11. Add target keywords to your body content.
Include your target keyword(s) in the body of your webpage’s content without forcing it. Include the keyword where it flows naturally in the body of the content. Avoid keyword stuffing, though. It’ll do more harm to your content ranking than good.
12. Check the mobile version of your post for responsiveness
Mobile responsiveness is important for your web content to rank on search engines including Google. Google, in particular, favors websites optimized for fast mobile speed and responsiveness. Use GTMetrix or Google Lighthouse to check and improve your web pages.
13. Add relevant internal and external links
Linking your content to other content on your website or another website might help users discover additional, useful resources that they may have yet to explore previously. It can also direct them to additional resources to help them better use the current page.
Google favors websites that make it easy for visitors to find as much useful information as possible.
Internal linking will encourage readers to spend more time on your website by exploring other relevant and related web pages.
CONCLUSION
On-page SEO can attract thousands of new visitors and customers to your website. We’ve compiled a list of the top 13 tasks you can complete to improve your content’s ranking on search engines such as Google, the world’s largest organic website traffic source.
Use this guide and the FREE checklist to increase profitable visibility and engagement for your content and business. Please leave any questions, inquiries, or content requests in the comments section.
Reach out to us if you’re looking to hire professionals to handle your content marketing. We produce attention-grabbing content that converts leads into loyal clients. Our content strategies are based on delivering measurable success.