You’ve learned a lot, now it’s time to put those pieces together.
There are certain essentials that every website must have in order to be successful. Whether you’re creating a new site or working on an existing site, the elements below are the areas you should focus your attention on for maximum effectiveness.
But to honest – there’s a lot more to it than this. Before I look at a single line of code or craft a headline, I go through a lengthy conversion (or several) about the sites purpose (why are we building a website), the target audience (what are their needs and what are they looking for), what value do we provide (what unique value can be offered versus the competition), the competition (why are “they” the competitors and what makes them the “market leader”), and dozens of other questions that need to be answered before working on a single page.
For the sake of expediency, let’s assume you already have those answers… Everything on the page can impact rankings, but the page elements below are the areas I consider most important and make a great starting point when reviewing an existing site or creating a new one.
Keyword Rich Title Tags
Title tags are the second most important on-page factor for SEO (right after content) and for good reason. The <title> element is the main text that describes an online document and has always been and will remain one of the most important signals that search engines use to understand what a page is about.
Leverage Your Brand
Ending your title tag with your brand name helps increase brand awareness and creates a higher click-through rate for people who are familiar with the brand. Sometimes it makes sense to place your brand at the beginning of the title tag, such as your homepage. Keywords at the beginning of the title tag carry more weight so you need to decide what you want to rank for.
Example:
Primary Keyword – Secondary Keyword | Brand Name
or
Brand Name | Primary Keyword and Secondary Keyword
Use Modifiers
Adding modifiers like “2015”, “best”, “guide” and “review” is a great trick for getting long tail searchers (5-9 word searches). These keywords may not show up in the Google Keyword Planner, but people DO search for them.
Getting Clicks
Spend time on your title tags – they are important to searchers too. The title tag is displayed in three key places:
- Browsers: Title tags show up on the top of a browser window or in the tabs.
- Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs): Title tags appear in the search results (and keywords are bolded). Mess up here and you could impact click through.
- External Websites: Many websites, especially social media sites, use the title tag as the anchor text in a link.
There’s a lot of data that suggests Google puts extra emphasis on the words closer to the beginning of your content – the same holds true for the title tag. The closer you place your keywords to the start of the title tag, the more helpful they’ll be for ranking and more likely a user will be to click them in the search results.
SEO Friendly URLs
URL’s might not carry the same SEO weight as title tags, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore them. You want to use keyword rich URL’s that are short and easy to read. Why include keywords? Google thinks they’re important enough to bold in the search results which makes it clear that Google thinks URL’s are important.
Ranking Signal
Just like your title tag and content, Google uses your URL as a clue to help them figure out the topic of your page. The easier you make that process for them, the more confident they’ll be ranking your page for your target keyword.
Avoid overly complicated URL’s structures (like dynamically generated pages). Try to keep them short and be sure to include your keyword near the beginning of the URL structure. After a lot of testing I’ve found that short, keyword rich URLs make a small but significant difference in rankings.
Getting Clicks
Since search engines display URLs in their results, they can impact click-through and visibility.
- Browser Address: URL’s appear in a browsers address bar. This has no impact on ranking, but poor URL structures and site design can result in a negative user experience.
- Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs): URL’s appear in the search results (and keywords are bolded).
- Anchor text Hyperlink: URL’s are often copy and pasted into other locations as your audience shares the content with others. Poor URL structures can influence click through to your website.
Use Multimedia in Content
They say a picture is worth a thousand words… Using multimedia (like images, videos, screen shots, lists, etc.) can add detail to your content like nothing else.
In the example image above, let’s I asked you if this website has a sitemap. A quick glance at the image will quickly let you know that it does and where to find the information. Without the image, you would waste time trying to determine if it did and where to look. This is additional detail is the type of content that will help you stand out from your competition.
Multimedia doesn’t have a direct effect on ranking but it goes a long way towards increasing your contents “value” – and that’s does affect ranking through increased user interaction signals like increased social sharing, increase dwell time and decreased bounce rate.
Include Outbound Linking
The internet is built on linking… So much that Google uses linking as one of it’s main ranking factors. When Google found your webpage, it was through a link on another page or website.
From an SEO perspective, outbound linking is a win win. Google counts the backlinks to your page, your page content, and the outbound links from your page to other websites in determining your site’s relevance and authority. By linking out to relevant, authoritative and trustworthy content (outbound links) you’re not only providing your audience with a great resource but you’re also letting Google know that your an authority too.
Try to include at least 2 outbound links to authority sites (like popular blogs, news sites and other resources) in every piece of content you publish.
Consider Keyword Placement
Obviously, Google pays attention to the words on your page. They also pay attention to “where” those words appear and in “what order“. Google does this because they are trying to determine what your page is about and where in the rankings it should be placed.
The closer your keywords are to the beginning of your content, they more they are considered in relation to the topic of your article.
Think of it like this… Let’s say your writing a post that is an “SEO Guide”. Wouldn’t it seem odd if the words SEO Guide appeared at the end of your article? Wouldn’t it be hard for your audience (and Google) to understand what the article was about?
Include Your Keyword in H1 Tags
Your H1 tag is like your page’s headline or title.
Most blog platforms (like WordPress) automatically wrap the post title in an H1 tag, however, certain themes ignore this setting and cause your page to have no H1 tag at all. Double check your source code to make that H1 tags are enabled (like the screen shot above).
Page Speed
Page Speed is one of the few ranking signals that Google has publicly confirmed and it’s something you have total control over!
Google would like your page delivered lightening fast. That makes for a good user experience. Don’t believe me, search for something on Google and see how fast the results are delivered – milliseconds!
Images, fonts, style sheets, JavaScript, HTTP Requests, etc. can all be optimized for faster load times. Check your page speed with the tools below:
Before you begin optimizing for page speed, you should be very familiar with the tools and tactics available. WARNING: Make a mistake and you will crash your website!
READ: Ian Lurie and his team at Portent created, How We Made Portent.com Really Freaking Fast, a great starting point to “watch” over the should as someone else tweaks their code. You will learn some of the finer points of speed optimization and the tools Portent used (which is a really great SEO firm).
READ: Neil Patel creates some great content and if he isn’t already on your reading list I suggest you add him. His guide, How to Make Your Site Insanely Fast, is a great resource to learn how to optimize page speed filled with downloadable checklists, links to great resources and clear explanations of the entire process.
READ: Google offers the most trusted source for page speed optimization and I would be remiss if I didn’t include it on this list. Read through the Google Developer PageSpeed Tools section to learn exactly what they want in terms of site performance.
If your using WordPress, you have a lot of options. Two of my personal favorites are W3 Total Cache and WP Smush (formerly Smush It).
READ: GTmetrix has put together a comprehensive WordPress Optimization Guide complete with tools, step-by-step instruction with screenshots and links to the tools need need for a faster site.
Make Sharing Buttons Easy to Find
The easier you make it for your audience to share your content, thc more likely they will. By placing your social sharing buttons front and center on all content (especially valuable content) you stand a better chance of your audience engaging, sharing and receiving all those wonder user metrics that Google loves.
Your in luck if your using WordPress – there are literally 100’s of plugins that do this. One suggestion, make sure whatever you choose doesn’t get in the way and annoy your audience (especially mobile platforms with smaller screens).
Long Content Rules!
2,500 is the New 400… In the old days, it was fairly easy to rank webpages with as little as 400 words on them. Today, the competition is much tougher… This study by SERPIQ illustrates that longer content typically ranks higher in Google SERP’s.
I tell my clients that articles must start at 1,000 words of useful, unique and relevant content (and the more the better). For tougher niches, I bump that up to 2,500+ words (plus images, charts, graphs, videos, outbound links and the kitchen sink!).
Longer content does more than support rankings, it provides your audience with helpful information that in-turn increases your chances of them engaging, sharing and doing all those wonder user metrics that Google loves. It’s another win win!
Decrease Bounce Rate
Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who land on one of your webpages and then immediately leave without clicking on any of your content – they just leave.
This is an important metric to Google. If visitors bounce, it suggests that visitors either didn’t find what they were looking for, the page wasn’t user-friendly, or you have poor quality content for that specific search term and Google will adjust your ranking accordingly.
There’s a lot you can do to decrease bounce rate and site usability is the one of the first places I check. Is the content easy to read, well organized and useful? If not, fix it.
Is your page loading so slow that visitors bounce before the page has a chance to load? Check the page (and website) across multiple browsers and devices and see what happens. Today’s internet user demands that pages load fast on all devices (that means MOBILE)!
Are you targeting the right audience? Words can have multiple meanings. Read through your content, check your metrics and make the necessary changes.
Sometimes you have the right audience, they just didn’t find what they were looking for. A quick fix – add internal site links near the beginning of your content. If your visitor didn’t find what they were looking for on this page, you’ve given them choices and have kept them on the website at the same time (decreasing bounce rate!).
USE LSI Keywords
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords are words that are related, similar or synonyms with your keyword.
Look at the example above. The search term is “weight loss”; notice all of the related words: healthy lifestyle, weight-loss, diet plans, diet, diet and exercise, diet pills, weight, calories, fad diets, counting carbs, grapefruit, pounds drop off, calories, burning more calories, reducing extra calories, calories burned, and physical activity – these are LSI keywords.
This is an extreme example (and I do not endorse this method), but it worked. When Google saw those words around the target word “weight loss”, it gave this web page a decent ranking position on page one.
LSI keywords are easy to find. Search a thesaurus and find synonyms, use Google’s Contextual Targeting Tool, or use Google Search – enter a query for your keyword, scroll to the bottom of the page where it says “searches related to…” and check out what Google thinks is ‘related’.
Increase Dwell Time
Almost the opposite of bounce rate, dwell time is the measurement of how long a visitors stays on your page (or website) before clicking to somewhere else.
This is another important metric to Google. If visitors leave your page quickly, it suggests that visitors either found the page wasn’t user-friendly or the content was poor quality. Either way – Google will adjust your ranking accordingly.
If you’ve followed the advice given so far, you’re on the right path to increasing dwell time. Providing your audience with long relevant, useful and engaging content will keep them reading.
My best suggestion – make sure the opening paragraph “pops” – once the reader is hooked, they will read through the entire article. Utilizing eye pleasing multimedia like images, videos and the use of color can go a long way to increasing dwell time too.
READ: Neil Patel published an insightful article on SearchEngineLand, Understanding the Impact of Dwell Time, that will help you understand the impact of dwell time. I recommend you read through this one.
Use Internal Linking
After everything that’s been mentioned – do you really need an explanation?
Look at the example above. This screenshot above is a great example of how to place internal links in your content. For a live demo, check out Wikipedia… Have you noticed how that website consistently ranks near the top of the search results?
Add 2-3 internal links to all of your content linking back to older articles – you’ll be glad you did.
Using H2 and H3 Tags
Unlike social sharing, more title tags aren’t necessarily a good thing. I recommend using extended title tags when it makes it easier to organize your content and easier for your audience to read.
If your going to use H2 and H3 tags, be sure to use a keyword or LSI word within them to help Google figure out what your content is about.
Use Image Alt Tags
There’s more than one way to drive traffic from Google. Optimizing your images for popular keywords can also drive traffic from Google Image Search.
I typically use LSI keywords for image naming and and provide accurate, keyword rich ALT tags to describe the image. Do not trying and be spammy – just helpful to your audience (and Google).
Reduce Click Hops
When creating a website, I try to balance the user experience versus SEO and ranking as much as possible. I make sure all of the potential “ranking” content is easy to reach – 1 click away. This ensures not only a better user experience, it also let’s Google know that these pages are important.
Each page on your website has PageRank (a trust and authority ranking within Google’s algorithm). For most websites, the homepage is the most authoritative page on the site… which means it has the most PageRank to pass around to other pages.
Similar to a garden hose with holes in it, Pages closer to the homepage (closer by clicks) will receive more of this PageRank (higher water pressure) than pages multiple clicks away (reduced to trickle of water).
Put your “high priority” content as close to the homepage as possible. Anything more than 3 clicks to your target then your page is missing out on a lot of potential “juice” (and ranking potential).
Improve CTR
Click-Through-Rate (or CTR) is the number of clicks your getting divided by the number of views.
CTR = Clicks / Page Views
If you’re not receiving clicks on your Google search query results – you’ve got problems. Receiving clicks (or votes) is a very strong metric that Google considers when determining ranking positions.
How do you increase CTR? That’s easy – use better URL naming, write better titles tags/headlines and click inspiring meta descriptions.
If you need ideas, view some of the top positioned AdWords for your search terms. See what wording draws the most impulse to “click” – now your on the right path.
READ: While working as an SEO, you’ll encounter a wide variety of problems – from websites that won’t rank to websites that have great rankings but no conversion. As a professional, it’s your job to be prepared and that means knowing a lot about the different aspects that impact websites. UX or User Experience is the area of study that explores design and how users interact and “use” a web page (or anything for that matter). By understanding visitor experience, you can take a marginal website and turn it into something effective. This UX Crash Course will teach you UX fundamentals that will help with all facets of design.