On-Page SEO for Quality Content
There is a truth in SEO. If something is set up (be it a house, a building, or a marketing strategy) it is an essential part of a particular plan. If you make the foundations of the established structure weak, you will face the collapse of that structure as a result.
The same things apply to SEO. Even if the strategies you perform off-page are very good, they do not affect your on-page strategy much. Most marketers know this and act accordingly, but some mistakes are made when evaluating.
Website Page Errors
Your first step should be to detect broken links (404 pages) or temporary redirects (302 redirects) on your site. You can use many different sites for this.
Create a list of all the links that need to be redirected and forward these links with the help of HTACCESS, a plugin or a control panel.
For 404 errors, you should make sure that broken links are redirected to the appropriate new pages. If there are no new pages on your site that you can redirect broken links to, you should redirect them to the homepage.
For 302 errors, have these pages eventually turned into 301 redirects. In this way, you will make your site easier to crawl for visitors as well as bots of search engines.
Website URL Standards
For this step, the pages on your site must not have more than one URL address. You should make sure that non-www 301 redirects are not redirected to www versions, or something like that.
Another case is the extensions of URL pages. For example, www.examplesite.com and www.examplesite.com/home.php addresses go to the homepage. In some cases they can be seen as duplicates.
Make sure all URL addresses have only one version. If there are different extensions or different URL addresses for a page, they will be seen as duplicates. When you scan all the links on your site, you can see the duplicate URL addresses. You should redirect them to the appropriate pages with a 301 redirect. At the same time, if your site is an e-commerce site, you should make sure that all standard pages have the "rel-canonical" tag.
When a page is classified as price or rating, this page generates a new page/URL address. Therefore, it is necessary to place the relevant re-canonical tag.
Keyword Research
There is no need to dwell on this subject at length. You can use different sources or articles to carry out keyword research. Even if you're inexperienced with SEO, you know you have to do it. You must perform keyword research accurately and appropriately. Keyword research is one of the most important parts of an SEO campaign.
Metadata Implementation (Title, Meta Description, H1 and ALT)
After doing the appropriate keyword research, your next step is to create complementary metadata tags for all your eligible pages.
Hashtag
In the old methods, titles were created in the form of Keyword 1 - Keyword 1 - Brand Name. However, you should move away from this method and include explanatory information in the title. For example, you can use a title tag like “SEO Methods and Tips – Site Name”.
Descriptive title tags look more natural and generate more conversions. The new recommended lengths for title tags are 55-60 characters. Headlines that will be longer than this will negatively affect the user experience.
Meta Description
This part does not have a big impact on search engine rankings, but when you appear in the results, searchers want to know what the page is about. With this tag, you reflect this to the user and send them a call to action.
When entering the Meta Description section, be careful to choose messages that will enable the searcher to enter the site. Recommended Meta Description length is between 155-160 characters.
H1
Try to provide descriptive information by using the relevant keyword in the H1 tag according to the page structure, but while doing this, consider the user experience.
ALT Tags
While optimizing all tags, you should also optimize images. Be sure to use descriptive ALT tags for all images. This way, people searching on Google images can find you and bring traffic to your site.
Site Loading Speed
You can check how fast your site loads using Google's Page Insight tool. Google considers site speed in search results ranking. That's why it's important to check this. Most users do not like sites that load slowly. Google is aware of these trends of users and considers the current speed of sites as a ranking criterion.
A good figure for the size of your site is 90+ points for both the desktop and mobile version. If your site scores below this, you should listen to Google's suggestions and try to make certain arrangements on your site. Sometimes adjustments can only be made with the HTACCESS file, but in some cases you need to edit images or JavaScript.
XML Sitemap
Make sure the XML sitemap is created on your site. The easiest way to do this is to check your site at www.examplesite.com/sitemap.xml.
If you see a 404 page appearing here or the homepage appears, your site does not have an XML map. A sitemap is required for all major search engines to crawl your site easily.
There are many tools that will allow you to create the XML sitemap. You must place the XML sitemap on the site server using one of them. If you are using WordPress or different content management systems, you can create the sitemap with the help of the plugin.
Social Media Icons
Make sure you have an account on important social media sites for your site. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ are important social media sites. Go one step further and embed the icons of these social media sites on your site. In this way, Google's bots can understand that your site is linked to social media pages, but these icons also increase the user experience.
Nowadays, a site that does not have a social media account is not seen as a reliable site by users.
Content Optimization
A lot of research has been done on whether the content is long or short. According to research, long content is always advantageous. When creating your content, make sure to use more than 500+ words. While doing this, try not to affect the readability of your articles.
Pages like contact, about or similar are not included in this scope. Having more content on your site will not harm your site, but if the content is less, your site may suffer. The more content on your site, the more likely you are to appear in search engine results when relevant searches are made.
Schema Markups
You may not know much about formatting. The markups help search engines understand what the information on the site is about. If you think of it as an official company site and address, this information is properly reflected in the search results with the help of formatting.
If you have a site that sells products, Google may show reviews and ratings in search results. If you are a writer, your picture will appear next to your article in the search results. This way, users can see how popular a product is, even if they don't click on the results.
Considering what has been said above, it is extremely important that you use Schema markups on your site.
Website Structure and Architecture
Make sure all your pages are linked by a hierarchy, thanks to the main navigation elements. This is also called the “silo structure”.
Pages on your site should have a logical order. For example, if you have a website about cars, the URL structure might look like this:
www.codingsource.net/2022/11/on-page-seo-for-quality-content.html
www.example.com/cars/ford
www.example.com/cars/renault
If you create a URL structure in this way, you will establish logical links between different pages.
Also, avoid creating pages that are not linked to any navigation elements, categories, or pages. Google's bots find pages by following links and pages. If a page is not internally linked, it will not be indexed by search engines.
Contact information
This is another area that gives your site credibility. You should always include your contact information on your site. Email, address or phone number are within the scope of contact information. Whatever your site is about, users may want to contact you. However, contact information should be easily accessible on your site.