With on-page SEO you get the most out of your content! That's how you start.

If you have a website, you naturally want it to be found well in search engines. An important part of this is on-page SEO, where you optimize the content and structure of your website to rank higher in search results. In this blog we discuss different aspects of on-page SEO, such as keyword research, content optimization, and optimizing title tags, meta descriptions and headers. By applying these techniques, you can improve the search engine friendliness of your website and attract more visitors to your website.

keyword research

To optimize or supplement your website, it is important to do keyword research. First, make a list of relevant words or phrases your customers are likely to search for. Use the free one for this Keyword Planner vanGoogle.

The Keyword Planner shows the average number of monthly searches for your chosen keywords. In addition, Google immediately provides an overview of comparable keywords and synonyms. Select the best search terms from this overview to optimize and supplement your website.

When doing keyword research, pay attention to the intent and competition score of the chosen keywords. For example, if someone searches for “Spain” it could have different purposes such as finding the location of the country, information about holidays in Spain or recent news about Spain. Check your keywords on Google to see if the search results match your intent.

Hint: If you Google Search Console been using for a while, you can see where your website is currently being found. More on this later!

Content Optimization

You can easily optimize the texts on your website for SEO via the CMS you use. While optimizing your content, there are a number of important points to keep in mind, including:

H1 headlines

Use search terms you want to be found for in the H1 headline. This way, the purpose and main keyword of your page will become clear to Google. Make sure you choose a different search term per page to avoid competing with your own pages.

300 words

Write at least 300 words per page to provide search engines with enough content to determine what your website is about, its intent, and whether it is relevant to visitors.

Keyword in first paragraph

Preferably include the most important keyword at the beginning of the first paragraph and use synonyms in the other paragraphs. Excessive use of the same keyword (keyword stuffing) is considered spam by Google and can lead to a lower ranking in the search results.

Subheadings

Use subheadings to make your text uncluttered and help visitors and search engines understand and scan the content faster.

Title tags, meta descriptions and headers

An important part of on-page SEO is optimizing title tags, meta descriptions and headers on your website. These elements are important because they appear in Google search results and are therefore known as SEO snippets.

Meta titles and descriptions

A meta title is the title of a page and a meta description is a short description of the content. Both elements appear in Google search results and are therefore important for SEO. Writing good meta titles and descriptions is important to attract more traffic to your website and improve your position in search results.

Tips for writing good meta titles and descriptions

It is important to focus on your target audience and not search engine robots when writing meta titles and descriptions. Of course you want to make the text catchy and inviting for people to click through to your website. It is also important to include the most important keywords in the meta title and description to increase relevance to searches.

Title tags

The title tag is the page title that appears as a blue hyperlink in search results. It must contain a summary of the page and can be up to 60 characters. It is important to include the focus keyword in the title, preferably at the beginning of the title.

Meta description 

The meta description gives a short summary of the page in the search results below the title tag. Although it has little impact on SEO, it is very important for click-through rate. Think about your target audience and their intentions and use the available space to emphasize the most important information or offer relevant content. Keep the length of the meta description between 155-160 characters, place the keyword or a synonym at the front and close with a call to action.

header tags

1. Use H1 tags for the main title of the page, such as a blog post title or product name, and use them only once per page to avoid confusion for search engines and readers.
2. Use H2 tags for subtitles related to the H1 tag that further represent the content of the page and relate to the topic covered in the H1 tag.
3. Use H3 tags for further subdivisions of content, which can be helpful when writing a long blog post with multiple sections.

internal linking

A good internal link structure is of great importance for the findability and relevance of your website. By linking pages in a logical and structured way, search engines better understand the relationship between your pages and can better index them. 

Here are some tips to optimize your internal link structure:

• Make use of internal links: Link to other related pages on your website where relevant.
• Use clear anchor text: Use descriptive anchor text that describes the topic of the page you're linking to. Avoid generic anchor texts like “click here”.
• Regularly check for broken links: Broken links can negatively impact user experience and your SEO performance.
• Use a logical hierarchy: Categorize your pages in a logical way to better understand the relationship between pages.
• Optimize your menu: Make your menu items clear and easy to understand for users and search engines. Use descriptive names for menu items and make sure the menu contains the most important pages of your website.
• Use sitemaps: Use HTML sitemaps and XML sitemaps to help search engines find and index all your pages.

While optimizing your internal link structure takes time and effort, it can have a major impact on your website's SEO performance. It can therefore be smart to hire an agency to help you with your marketing activities. Social Brothers has a lot of experience with Online marketing, IF THE, design en Development – of course data driven.

Do you want advice about or help with your online marketing? Social Brothers will help you! Contact us via the module at the bottom of this page or visit our Contact page.