I wrote an article earlier about the on-page SEO factors before. However, that was a brief introduction to on-page SEO. This article, on the other hand, is more elaborate. We will discuss in detail the on-page content structure. We already discussed the first factor in detail in my last article which was about URL structure & the quality of content as well. This article will have proper guidelines to set, Meta title tags of the webpage, Meta description, Headings, Image optimization, do & no-follow links, & other links on the page. Let us do this step by step.
This is the most important part of your webpage listing in searches. I would say that this is a name tag for a page. Google bots read this title and then try to know about the content of the page.
My article is ranking currently in 6th position in the searches for the keyword “cycling hashtags”. Meta title tells a visitor about any page of the website and it appears on the top of your browser as well. These days most people use CMS like WordPress, Square space & others. These platforms give you the option of adding the meta title. For WordPress, a plugin called Yoast does the job.
This is an SEO plugin. However, when writing the code manually you can add a meta title tag in the <head> section in your site’s HTML. It should look something like this:
<head>
<title>On-page content structure | Organized pages that Google & visitors love</title>
</head>
These are inevitability the most important part of On-page content structure as visitors decide to click on the link or not by looking at the title. When writing the meta title there are a few things that should be kept in mind. I am listing these pointers below.
Checklist
- The length of the title should be between 50-60 characters including spaces. Less than 50 will create a problem and more than 60 again the complete title will not fit the space for search title space. If you look at the screenshot above, the green line just below the title shows that length is as per Google standards. Yoast has this feature.
- You need to mention your focus keyword at the beginning of the title and then the other keywords. The end of the title should have the brand name if you are inclined to promote your business.
- Do not duplicate the meta title tags even though you might write similar content for two pages. They have to be unique for different pages else this will affect your SEO negatively.
- The meta title tag needs to explain exactly what the page is all about. If you try to misguide the visitor by writing something else in the title and the content is different, the user will bounce off increating your bounce rate. Google again will not like this.
- Do not stuff keywords unnecessarily in the title. A title should be logical and should not sound vague while reading.
- Finally, keep your title different from your heading. This is done to increase your chances of appearing for different search terms.
Meta description
Another important component that appears just below the meta title. This description tells you briefly about the content of the page. This is another factor that compels a user to click on your page link. It looks something like this.
Again Yoast does an amazing job in WordPress and gives you the option for adding a description for your page. In basic code, this looks something like this. Now look at the words which are in bold, these are theme words that Google has highlighted.
<head>
<meta name=”description” content=” Simply post an image using appropriate cycling hashtags and you’ll soon be attracting likes and follows from similarly minded cyclists. “>
</head>
The meta description needs to be optimized for your visitors. Google will try to judge the content based on your description. Below are the points that you should keep in mind while writing a meta description.
Checklist
- The length of the meta description should not exceed more than 160 characters.
- Provide an understandable summary of your content. The description should be concise and accurate to what the page is all about.
- Keywords should be added in the description, but do not stuff unnecessarily. The sentence should be meaningful and not vague again.
- The meta description needs to be unique for each page and not the same.
- You can use special characters in your description, however, the description structure should make sense.
- Lastly, include a call to action in the description.
Image optimization is an on-page SEO factor
We all know that Google cannot read the content in your image. Then the question that pops up is how do we tell Google that the image we are using is for a particular subject? For doing this Google introduced an Image optimization feature which is Alt text. For every image that you now upload on your page, Google asks you to add an Alt text to it. This Alt text tells Google bots about the nature of the image. I do this when I upload any image. WordPress gives you an option to do this. Look at the screenshot below.
This is basically describing your image. There is a checklist that I follow while dealing with image optimization. If you follow this checklist, even your image will rank higher in the searches. This is tried and tested.
Checklist
- Use images that are unique and have a great affinity to your webpage. The images should be a shadow of your content.
- Use the highest quality formats, make sure that your images do not get pixelated. No one likes distorted images.
- When using high-quality images make sure that the size is in KB’s and not MB’s, if the size is more your page load time will increase. Especially in mobile searches. Moreover, you know that 60% of searches happen on a mobile device.
- If you are using multiple images, make sure that they are in a logical order. Image placement is something that people make a mistake with. Illogical placement will make your images and content look bad.
- Use a caption that tells your visitors about the image that you are using. I would say include your keywords in your caption. That helps a lot in searches.
- Lastly, and most important write an amazing Alt text. This will be the description of your image in searches. Google will read this and will know the purpose of your image. This is the most important factor when it comes to image optimization.
To sum up, image optimization needs to be done for each image in order to get more traffic and better rankings in searches.
No & Do-Follow links in on-page SEO factor
There are two types of backlinks in SEO. They are “do” follow and “no” follow backlinks. Let us define each one of them to eliminate the confusion. We all know about the link juice now. So the purpose of these links is to pass or not pass the link juice.
“Nofollow” backlink
This type of link does not pass the SEO benefits or link juice from the source site to the blog where it is pointed. These links are of no value to a website owner. A visitor can navigate to your blog from the source site, however, when it comes to link juice there is none.
“Dofollow” backlink
This type of link will pass on the link juice or the SEO benefits from the source site to your website. Once you create a blog, you should spend considerable time building “Dofollow” backlinks to your website. There are a lot of ways of doing this. You can build follow links in article directories, in web 2.0 properties, in forums, and in high PR blogs, among many others. The best way in fact of building these following links is the article directories. However, not all the directories provide dofollow links. So keep a check on this. I am listing a list of dofollow link sites and web 2.0 properties for your reference. You can download the “follow links” list from the link below.
Summing Up
Building backlinks is a tedious task because you have to properly target the right places to build those links. Always ensure that most links are do-follow backlinks for SEO reasons. Building an excellent backlink profile with a mixture of do-follow and no-follow links is going to be truly rewarding. So if you have any questions regarding the On-page content structure do let me know in the comment section.
