On Page SEO Checklist: 5 Ways To Optimize your blog for maximum traffic When it comes to SEO, the buzz is always around backlinks. After all, it’s the most dominating factor to rank a website. While the talks are about how to earn backlinks, it’s the overlooked factor of On-Page SEO that has a heavy impact on generating traffic. Sure, you rank in top 3, and the bigger portion of traffic comes to your site. However, if the onpage isn’t correct and driven toward enticing customers, your site will leak right traffic. If you run a blog and are running through the same problem of leaking traffic, here are 5 ways you can optimize your post.
1. Write conversion focused titles with few long tail keywords The problem with new bloggers and most of the guys following the old SEO norms is that they pursue the same strategy over and over again. Here is the deal breaker: You aren’t going to rank with just placing your keywords in Title tag. Dead simple. So how do you make it work?
Incorporate your titles so that it blends with your user’s query rather than search engines. You should also play around with few extra long tail keywords that give an extra push to your main keyword. The best way to do that is by using Google’s own auto-suggest and related searches feature. Worth Reading: How to write SEO friendly blog posts on WordPress. Now I’m not saying you should completely ignore the anatomy of on-page SEO. It’s best that you should put your major keywords upfront but the point is it shouldn’t be the only resource for you. For instance: here are two titles:
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If you were a user which is the title you would go for?
2. Optimize your Meta description and URL Structure Gone are the days where Meta description played key value in search rankings. However, it’s definitely one of the major factors to high click through rates. And CTR is directly proportional to rankings. So, indirectly description is something you can’t ignore. But this is another ignored department in SEO. Still, I see people using general description or excerpts from the content itself. This is the place you need to entice your users. Your blog’s title and description should go along with each other. Unlike description tags, URL structure plays a vital role in search rankings. It’s highly recommended to use your main keyword in URL. For example: If on page SEO is your keyword, you should have it in your URL. Keep your URLs as short as possible and use a static URL rather than a dynamic one.
3. Always use images I don’t understand how many bloggers miss this part. A blog with images gets 94% more views than blogs without them. Does it ring the bell, now? I have always found featured image to be one of the major attracting points of a post. Never be afraid to use humor in featured image. Trust me, it works. Always use images with right alignment. It shouldn’t float left in one paragraph and right in another. Keep it static. Don’t use images with heavy size as it can be hectic to load and also affects page speed. Use keywords in alt tags to give them search engine values.
4. Use longer form of content Till 2013, the short form of content was the best way to crafting content. Now, in 2017 people are shifting more to the longer form. Why? It simply works. Google takes factors like user engagement measured by dwell time spent in the site into consideration while ranking sites. Also if you think about it, it makes sense to rank a longer form of content as it covers every aspect of the topic in a detail version. And it can be primarily achieved with a long content crafted brilliantly for engagement. The longer form of content also means you can place few extra keywords without having to worry about keyword density. However, I recommend using LSI keywords more often than the exact keywords itself. You can also optimize headings with long tail keywords that make it easy for them to rank.
5. Optimize website speed You only have 3 seconds to impress your users. And, if the 3 seconds is what it takes to load your website, you may be leaking a great deal of traffic. With Google giving all kinds of signals that they are serious about page speed, as a website owner, you should comply with their methodology. Heavy size images and browser cache are two culprits that cause the website to lag. If your site is in WordPress, you can easily achieve the optimum web speed through few plugins and easy configurations.
Wrapping Up Although the crowd is running after backlinks and all sort of hidden marketing strategies, it’s basics that can make or break a post. If you can follow the 5 above tips, your website should be able to generate a sound traffic along with effective backlink strategies.