The Fundamentals Of On-Page SEO

On Page SEO doesn’t have to be something that you should get yourself worked up over, in truth the fundamentals of on-page Optimisation haven’t really changed that much over the years. For those that are new to SEO though, there are plenty of conflicting snippets of advice on-line, so here’s a definitive guide to the on-page fundamentals.

Page Titles

These are incredibly important when it comes to your on page SEO. In years gone by, many people would try and cram in as many keywords into their page title as possible and be rewarded with high Google rankings. This isn’t advised any more, instead I would recommend that you spend some time trying to craft a page title that incorporates your targeted keywords, which also makes sense to a user who will be presented with it in the Search Results.

Page Description

Your page description, although doesn’t impact your ranking can act as a sales pitch of sorts to a potential visitor who will see this (in most cases) in the Search Results. Incorporate your keywords and convince a user that they want to visit your page.

Meta Keywords

Back in 2009 there was an announcement that Google no longer uses this as a ranking factor, yet many people still champion their value. Bing still uses it as a minor factor, so it shouldn’t be fully ignored. Add a few select keywords unique to each page in this tag, spend a few moments doing it and no more.

Page Headings

Keyword inclusion in page headings used to hold a lot more SEO value than they currently do, in fact there is very little evidence to suggest that using your keywords in your heading tags will actually have a positive impact at all. I would suggest that you use your heading tags to help guide your users in your content and only use them when appropriate. Don’t just place your targeted keywords in here for the sake of it.

Page Content

The first thing to mention about page content is that you should write your content for your users and not try to cram in keywords as many times as possible because you think that’s what search engines want. In reality they don’t want this and if you do this, even if people find your website, they probably won’t want to do business with you as your content will put them off.

All of your content should be unique and valuable. There will be times where you will want to incorporate content that is online already, such as quotes or even product descriptions. This is completely fine, but if you want to give your pages a fighting chance of appearing in the search engines’ results, then you’ll need to make your page unique.

This is quite simple, add your opinion to the piece, give it an intro and an outro if it’s an article or news story. If it’s a product page, add your own review and encourage your customers to do so as well.

You may have read, or hear about “Keyword Density”, which if you’re not familiar with it is an outdated belief that there is an optimum amount of times that a keyword should be included as a % of the overall page content. This has been dismissed on many occasions by Search Engine representatives so please don’t slave away for hours aimlessly tweaking your content!

Author Bio:

Jonathan Walker: is an Online Marketing consultant based in Cardiff who has over seven years experience in SEO and Pay Per Click campaigns. Having originally honing his skills in affiliate marketing, he has since worked with a wide range of clients of all sizes and also speaks at events.