You’ve probably heard that SEO has a lot of variables because Google is “always changing its mind.” In turn, this can make SEO feel like an overwhelming beast of a thing that can never be understood, let alone mastered. However, onsite SEO is something every website owner has some control over. It’s also relatively simple to get to grips with, and it’s important to try. That’s because a well-optimised website page gives you the best chance of ranking highly on Google. In this competitive market, it’s too easy to be invisible. So, in this guide, the KIJO team has attempted to make on-site SEO friendly and comprehensible. This means you can start to implement some onsite SEO on your website.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Onsite SEO refers to everything that appears on a website page. So, this will include:
Applying some onsite SEO enables you to rank higher in search engine results. It also allows you to reach a wider audience, gain more traffic to your website and keep users on your pages for longer.
Even if you’re already ranking well, onsite SEO should be continuously refined and updated. That’s because Google changes its parameters regularly, but also appreciates a website that is routinely tweaked. A continuously updated website tells Google that this website is more likely to have the most up to date information. It is thus considered a more trustworthy source.
The best part about onsite SEO is that it’s fully in your control, unlike offsite SEO (backlinks etc.) So, you can get going on implementing onsite SEO yourself today.
Here are the most SEO friendly and easy steps you can implement on your website to make sure it’s optimised for search engines. You can use these steps like a checklist. Work your way through them to make sure you’ve covered all of the basics.
Title Tags: Title tags and meta descriptions are what users see on the SERP (the Search Engine Result Page). The title tag is the hyperlink in blue. The best title tags are relevant to the search intent (covered below) and include the target keyword. The more relevant the tag is to your user’s search, the more likely it is they’ll click on your website page!
Meta Descriptions: These short lines of text sit below the blue hyperlink on the SERP and provide more context on your page’s content. They serve to inspire a user to click on your page, so be sure to highlight the value of the preceding content here. It’s worth nothing that meta descriptions are restricted by 160 characters in length. So, you have to keep them succinct. Google will just hide any excess text with an ellipses so there really is no point in trying to cheat this character count.
URLs: Ideally, your page URLs (for example, this page is https://kijo.co.uk/blog/onsite-SEO-friendly) should be short and as concise as possible, and include your target keywords. In this blog, our target keywords are “onsite SEO” and “SEO friendly”, so the URL is “onsite-SEO-friendly”. This is short, concise and targeted. Note that each word is separated by a hyphen, bolstering its clarity.
It’s thought that the more keyword rich your URL is, the more organic traffic the page will inspire.
It’s all well and good having your keyword research nailed, and your keywords strategically placed throughout your content (which we talk a bit more about further down in this article). However, if your content isn’t answering the ‘why’ behind user queries, then search engines are going to cotton on and lower your website in their rankings.
Search intent usually lies in one of four categories;
You should understand what your target keywords are and the intent behind them. Then, align your copy and content accordingly. Satisfying the user in this way also satisfies SERPs.
Content Type: What sort of content do you need to provide for your specific target keyword(s). The best way to do this is to see what’s already ranking on the first page of Google with these keywords. Take note of the subheadings, page structure, and other common keywords on each piece of content. Then, follow a similar, inspired style.
Depth: You shouldn’t have a page for each keyword topic. This is what’s known as “thin” content, and Google doesn’t consider this favourably. You should have a comprehensive piece of content for each topic.
For example, if you’re a store that sells running shoes, and there are keywords like “running shoes” and “running trainers”, you shouldn’t make a page about running shoes and a page about running trainers. You should use your headers on one page to target both. That’s because they mean the same thing – Google’s smart enough to know that too.
Readability: Your content needs to be of high quality, and aside from being factually accurate and distinctively yours, it also needs to be readable. Ask yourself when reading it back; is it easy to understand? Is the content flowing well? Is the tone of voice correct? Are sentences well structured and mostly short in length? You can use an online spelling and grammar checker if you want to double check these elements of your copy too, or instruct a professional copywriter/proofreader .
If you have a WordPress website, you can install Yoast, a free plugin that helps you optimise your written content for SERPs. It will tell you exactly what’s hindering the readability of your copy, so it’s a great plugin to consider using.
If you’d like more content marketing tips, read the KIJO blog 10 Pointers to Elevate Your Content Marketing Strategy.
So, we’ve done our keyword research and know which keywords we should be putting into our content. Surely, the more you put the keyword in the content, the higher Google will rank your page? Wrong. This is known as keyword stuffing, and actually has the opposite effect on your SERP ranking. Although Google does look for keywords, it’s sophisticated enough to work out if a piece of content is of good quality aside from them.
Only place keywords when they can sit in a sentence naturally, and remember to use them in your headers sporadically throughout your content too (H1s, H2s and H3s etc.)
Read our related blog: The Ultimate Keyword Research Tips & Tricks from KIJO.
If a beautifully designed website is slow to load, it doesn’t matter how good everything on it is. A user will become frustrated and leave your site for your competitor’s. Google recognises this and ranks pages that load faster, higher. According to Google, if a page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds, your user bounce rate (another way of referring to your user leaving the website) increases to a 32% likelihood. This is an enormous amount, all caused by a mere two seconds. So, page speed is imperative.You can test your page speed by using Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
Ways to improve your page loading speed include minifying your code, using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to speed up your content delivery, choosing proper website hosting, browser caching, and utilising more in-depth programmes like Google Lighthouse.
The former points on the list may need the support of your web design team, but you can read up on how using the free Google Lighthouse programme can help you optimise your website like a pro: Mastering Google Lighthouse.
Another way of helping speed up your website load time is using high-quality, optimised images…
Using high-resolution images that have been professionally shot, and properly showcase your product and/or service, help keep users on site for longer. Google recognises this and looks to this trait favourably. However, these images are often extremely large in file size and can thus slow a website down considerably. So, make sure your images are compressed to a smaller size, but in a way that doesn’t compromise their quality. In most cases, this usually means opting for the PNG format over the JPEG format.
There’s also the option to consider ‘lazy loading’. Lazy loading is when an image or piece of content on your website is instructed to not load until it is needed (scrolled to!). Your website design team should be able to advise you on this technique and the possibilities with it on your website.
When you link to other pages of your website within it, you’re not only providing your user with potential content or information they may be additionally interested in. You’re providing a further, solidified map for Google to understand your website.
You do this by using the same or similar ‘anchor text’ for a particular page and hyperlinking this word or phrase. So, if you use the phrase ‘contact us’ on your website within a blog, hyperlink this to your contact page. We’ve demonstrated this! This fortifies Google’s understanding of where to find our contact page.
The same principles apply with keyword placement though; try not to internal link stuff or cram. Google may see this as manipulation, so choose where you internally link strategically. The more links on your page, the less link equity a link can pass on to the preceding page.
When it comes to external linking, these should only be used (as they take users away from your website) to show Google that your content is trustworthy. Quoting data or studies to back up claims? These external links should be linked to reputable and verifiable sources only. If you link to a non-credible source, Google will think your website isn’t trustworthy. It’s okay if these links are to your direct competitors. If the content is reputable, the association to your website is often worth it.
Prioritising accessibility is a really important factor for SEO now, and it’s relatively easy to start to implement. Accessibility on a website is usually targeted for visually impaired users who use a screen reader to access the internet.
A great starting point is making sure you’ve supplied ‘alt text’ on every image across your website. Alt text offers a description of the image in detail (supplied via the backend of your website when uploading content) so the user can understand what’s being shown. Google also reads alt text to better understand your image too. However, don’t be tempted to overload keywords in the alt text image description – these should be focused on providing the best experience for a visually impaired user.
The free Google Lighthouse programme we mentioned earlier will assess your website for accessibility and score it. Anything under 90 out of 100 is considered a less than desirable score on Google Lighthouse. So, our advice would be to leverage the software to find out your current score. Then, follow its advice and recommendations regarding improvements for accessibility.
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