On-page SEO is one of the only things youhave full control of in SEO.
And today, I'm going to take you through anon-page SEO checklist that we use to grow our search traffic consistently Stay tuned.
[music] What's up SEOs? Sam Oh here with Ahrefs, the SEO tool thathelps you grow your search traffic, research your competitors and dominate your niche.
Now, if you're new to on-page SEO, it's basicallythe practice of 'optimizing' web pages to help them rank higher in search engines.
And while on-page work likely won't be enoughto rank for competitive terms, it's a foundation to higher Google rankings and more traffic for your site.
With that said, let's get to the checklist.
The first step is to understand and match search intent.
Search intent basically means the reason behinda searcher's query.
For example, if someone searches for”buy headphones, ” they likely want to see category pagesfrom eCommerce stores.
And you don't have to guess what search intent is.
Since Google gives preference to pages that their users are happy with, just search for your target keyword and analyzethe types of pages that show on the first page.
Afterall, user happiness essentially meanssatisfied search intent.
So let's say you had a website where you sellsupplements and you want to create a page targeting the keyword “best protein powder.
” If you look at the search results, you cantell right away from the titles that they're all blog posts that follow a list-styled format.
So for this scenario, I wouldn't advise creatinga product or category page targeting this keyword because if you're not matching intent, you probably won't rank.
Now, while it's easy to stop here and startwriting, I highly recommend actually visiting these pages to get a better understandingof what they've included in their posts.
For example, if you look at this post, you'll seethat they're primarily focusing on categorizing protein powders by type.
Best grass-fed whey protein powder.
Best tasting protein powder.
They then go on to give you a descriptionof that specific product and end it off by breaking down the pros and cons.
And if you look at another one of the top3 results, you'll also see that the focus is on types before brands.
Analyzing the top results is like lookingthrough the lens of Google.
Their job is to return the most relevant resultsfor any given query.
Take note of search intent and make sure yourpage matches it.
Step 2 is to increase topical relevance of your page.
We ran a study and found that on average, the #1ranking page for a target keyword ranks for nearly a thousand other relevant keywords in the Top 10.
So what you'll want to do is find relatedsubtopics to ensure your piece is thorough.
And there are a few ways you can find theserelated subtopics.
First, analyze the top-ranking pages and lookfor relevant keywords.
So this time, you'll see related keywords like “whey, “”isolate, ” “concentrate, ” “grams, ” and “calories.
” Second, use Google's autosuggest.
Just type in your target keyword, and you'll seea few suggestions like “for women, ” “for men, ” “weight loss, ” “weight gain, ” “smoothies, ” and”bulking, ” which are all related to protein powder.
Just make sure that these are in fact relatedsubtopics and not standalone topics of their own.
To do that, Google the suggested keyword and if the results are completely different to the results for your main target keyword, chances are you should target the keyword with its own page.
#3.
Use the People also ask box to find pointsworth covering.
Here, you'll see common questions people areasking like “what is the healthiest protein powder, ” and “which whey protein is best for muscle building?” Finally you can scroll down to the bottomof the page to see additional keywords and potential subtopics for your post.
Now, the downside to these methods is thatyou're kind of guessing.
So a better way to do this is to use Ahrefs Content Gap tool, which is going to show us common keywords that the top pages rank for in Google.
And to me, this is much more valuable sinceyou're essentially looking at the exact keywords Google has ranked a single page for.
So why wouldn't your page be able to rankfor those same keywords? So I'm in the Content Gap tool and you'll see thatI've pasted in a few of the top ranking pages for the query “best protein powder” in the top section.
And I've left the bottom section blank.
What we're asking the tool to do here is showcommon keywords that any of these pages rank for where at least one of them ranks in the Top 10.
And this is to ensure that our results arerelevant since keywords in position 50 probably won't be very helpful.
So let's run the search.
And now you can see data that shows you whichsubtopics you should cover.
To narrow our list down even further, let'schange the number of intersections, where all 3 pages need to rank in the Top 100.
And we're down to around 140 relevant keywordsto skim through.
So you should talk about whey protein, you'll alsosee that “for women” is a recurring theme here.
And people are also specifically looking for vanillaprotein powder.
Now, that you have a data-driven outline, youshould be able to write your post and create content that perfectly matches the intent of your future visitors.
Let's move on to step 3, which is to use shortand descriptive URLs.
In our study on various on-page ranking factors, we found a clear correlation between the number of characters in the URL and a page's rankingposition in Google.
Now, correlation doesn't mean causation, soI don't want you to take this advice as a be-all-end-all.
So let's say that your page title was “11Best Protein Powders in 2019.
” Now, if you're using a CMS like WordPress, it'llautomatically change the URL slug to the title and replace spaces with dashes.
This URL is longer than it needs to be.
So as a general rule of thumb, use your targetkeyword as the URL slug.
So in this case, I'd leave it as just “best protein powder” because it's short and descriptive.
Now, there are a couple other benefits worth noting.
First, people are most likely to click the searchresults that best match their search query.
And descriptive URLs can help cement your pageas that result.
Second, descriptive URLs tend to include yourtarget keywords.
And since people often use URLs as anchortext when linking to a page, it can be helpful.
Now, if you already have URLs that are longand/or not descriptive, I wouldn't worry too much about changing them if you're gettinga good amount of search traffic.
For example, Medical News Today gets around53 million search visits per month.
And if we go to the Top pages report, which showsus their pages with the most organic traffic, you'll see that their pages still get a ton of searchtraffic, despite having numeric URL slugs.
Now, step 4 is to add your target keyword inyour title, meta description and H1 tag if and when it makes sense to.
And there are two reasons why I highly recommend including your target keyword in your title tag, description, and H1 tag.
#1.
When we studied 2M keywords, we foundthat there was a small correlation between rankings and the strategic placement of exact-match keywords.
And #2, it can help searchers quickly understand that your page is the most relevant for their search query.
For example, let's say you want to find anarticle with reviews on refrigerators.
So you go to Google and search for “refrigerator reviews.
” Now, if you were to see these two results, which one would you be more likely to click? Probably the first one, since it uses thewords you used in your search query.
In other cases, exact match keywords can look quite spammy.
For example, you wouldn't create a title like this simply because the keyword has a bit of search volume.
So bottomline, you don't need to stuff exact-matchkeywords into your titles or even content for the sake of it.
You can use synonyms, stop words and connecting words.
Google is smart enough to figure things out.
Just make sure your content is on point.
Alright, step 5 is a super low-hanging wayto improve your on-page SEO.
And that's to optimize your images with alt tags.
Image alt tags allow you to provide descriptivetexts for images on your page.
Here's what the code for a typical image looks like.
And when you add the alt attribute, you would basicallydescribe the image by adding alt=”your description.
” Now, there are a few reasons why this is important to do.
First, when your image fails to load on your page, the alt text will appear as a replacement to the image.
Second, 8.
1 million Americans have a visionimpairment.
And oftentimes, they may rely on a screen reader.
Alt text can help provide a more rich experiencefor your users.
And third, alt text can help you rank yourimages in Google images.
John Mueller confirms this by saying: “Alttext is extremely helpful for Google Images — if you want your images to rank there.
” Looking at our Google Search Console data, you'll see that in the past 3 months we've had around 4 million impressions from our images alone, which led to over 5, 000 clicks to our pages.
Bottomline: it doesn't take much effort toadd a few words and describe your images, which could lead to big returns.
Alright, step 6 is to add structured datawhere it makes sense.
And I'm sure you've seen search results with thingslike star ratings.
This is the result of review structured data, which can have a positive impact on your click-through rates.
But using this isn't just about increasingvisibility in Google search since not all schema types create additional details in the SERP.
It's about making it easier for search enginesto understand what your pages are about.
So while it isn't a direct ranking factor, it may still help you rank higher in Google.
Here's what John Mueller had to say: “There's no generic ranking boost for structureddata usage.
However, structured data can make it easierto understand what the page is about, which can make it easier to show where it's relevant (improving targeting and maybe ranking for the right terms).
” You can use Google's Structured Data MarkupHelper to quickly generate your own code.
So for this article, I'll select the title of the articleand set the property as the name.
And then I'll do the same thing for the Author property.
Once you're all done, click the Create HTMLbutton and a piece of JSON code will pop up, which you can then add to your page as instructed here.
Or if you're a WordPress user, there are pluginsout there that make adding markup super-easy.
Feel free to check out our video on our WordPressSEO plugins set up, which covers a codeless structured data plugin.
Alright, step 7 is to make sure your contentis simple and easy to read.
Creating clear and concise content can helpsearch engines piece together what your content is all about.
But what's even more important in my opinion, is making it simple and easy to read for real people.
It's believed that Google looks at user signals likedwell time and time on page to influence rankings.
So if your content is complicated and difficultto understand, your visitors will be heading straight for the Back button, which is never a good thing.
Here are a few tips to improve readability.
Avoid big words if you don't have to use them.
For example, don't say “proximity” when youcan say “near.
” Use short sentences and paragraphs.
This can simplify the read for users asbig walls of text can be intimidating.
Finally, as a general rule of thumb, writeas you speak.
In fact, everything that you've watched inthis video is scripted.
And if you've made it this far, it's becauseit was easier to digest.
Had I written the script in an academic tone, you would have probably been gone a while ago.
To benchmark readability, you can use a freetool called Hemingway editor.
Just paste your content in there and you'llget a readability score.
I suggest aiming for around a 5th to 6th grader level.
For the most part, this is the on-page SEO checklistwe use at Ahrefs, and it works tremendously well.
Now, if there's anything I've missed thatyou find to work particularly well, let me know in the comments.
And if you enjoyed this video, make sureto like, share and subscribe for more actionable SEO and marketing tutorials.
So keep grinding away, put your best footforward for each step, and I'll see you in the next tutorial.
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