On-Page Optimization Accounts For ~40% of a Page's Ability To Rank in Search Results

Ensure Your Site Is Effectively Targeting Well-Researched Keywords For Optimal Rankings

On-Page Optimization Services

Imagine trying to build a relationship with someone without revealing anything about yourself or what you’re all about. How much will that person trust you? The same concept applies to your website and search engines. Unless they know what your pages are all about, they will not trust them enough to rank them for the search terms you want.

Once keyword research has been completed and approved, we get to work optimizing your site for search. This begins by developing a keyword targeting strategy which essentially assigns 1-2 keywords to every page we plan on optimizing based on the relevance of those keywords in relation to the page. We also do this to ensure each keyword is receiving appropriate support.

So what constitutes an optimized page?

  • Title Tag – Your title tag should include your primary keyword 1-2 times, with one occurrence as close to the front of the tag as possible. Titles should be no longer than 70 characters long, including spaces, but excluding things like brand name, which may occur at the end of every tag by default. We also craft title tags to be compelling, in order to draw clicks within search results pages (SERPS).
  • Description Tag – Your description tag is only visible within search results, and can be considered a short sales pitch, selling a click. They should be no longer than 156 characters (including spaces) and while including keywords in description tags doesn’t directly improve rankings like a title tag, engines do bold them if they are what the user searched for, which attracts eyes and clicks (one could argue description tags do affect rankings because they can improve your clickthrough rate, which is a ranking factor).
  • Headings – Heading tags (H1, H2—all the way to H6) not only break apart your content for readability, it is also a best practice to include keywords in your primary heading (H1).
  • Body Content – Naturally, the content on your page should include your primary keyword and natural variations of it (known as “longtail” keywords). This is something search engines have put less emphasis on over the years so while we make sure keywords are included, content should be written for users first and foremost.
  • Image alt Tags – Search engines cannot “see” images, but they can read the alt tags which are not visible on standard browsers. This is another opportunity to establish keyword relevance while also benefiting image search.
  • URLs (Permalinks)  – Page URLs should also include primary keywords. They should be kept relatively short, easy to understand, and keywords should be separated by dashes, such as www.example.com/buy-blue-widgets. In addition to title tags and descriptions, keywords in page URLs can also be bolded when shown in search results.

Properly optimizing entire sites while adhering to best practices is a large undertaking, and is something we specialize in.