Skip to main content

On-page SEO practices

On-page SEO practices are really important considerations when looking after/building your website. On-Page SEO practices, if carried out as per the following guidelines, will positively affect your website’s search engine ranking.

There is quite a list of SEO practices that you should be aware of but we’ve identified 7 key ones and we’ve published 4 in today’s blog – ‘On-page SEO practices to boost your website’s ranking – part 1’.

Keywords

Keywords are the words and phrases that people search to get to your site. They are critical to the success of search engine optimisation or SEO for your site.

There are three key keyword tasks:

1. Carry out in-depth long -tail keyword research before you set about optimising your website.

2. Then use these long-tail keywords or phrases in your website pages to enhance your chances of being listed for those phrases.

3. Always include your keywords in the first 150 words of content on each page. You’ll find that Yoast, for example, will ask you to include your keyword in the very first sentence.

Title tags

Title tags define the title of a web page. It tells the search engines what your page is about so it’s importance can’t be stressed enough.

There are three key title tag tasks:

1. Title tags should be under 55 characters

2. Remember long-tail keywords from above – use them in the title tag.

3. Use the following order so that search engines can best rank your page – Primary keyword, Secondary keyword, Website name.

Meta descriptions

Meta descriptions provide potential customers with a snippet of information of what they can expect to find by clicking on your particular landing page. The meta description is recommended to have no more than 160 characters and despite being related by Google as to a major non ranking factor, meta descriptions are an important consideration when publishing any page.

There are three key meta description tasks:

1. Meta description is your opportunity to sell the sizzle. Attract visitors with good, well written copy.

2. no more than 160 characters and try to stay above 150.

3. Remember those long tail key words? Use them here too.

URLs

First off, URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, and is used to specify addresses on the World Wide Web. This is important as URLs are important to Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines – they help the search engines and visitors to better navigate your website. They act as signposts, (hopefully) telling search engines and visitors what the page is about.

There are three key URL tasks:

1.Like your meta descriptions, spend some time thinking about the title of the URL.  Instead of  www.bigredcloud.com//ac-24567 be descriptive and go for something like www.bigredcloud.com//account-ability/introduction-free-training-course/

2. Again – remember keywords. Use them. In our example above, ‘introduction free training course’, keywords about Account Ability, our new basics of accounting training course.

3. Follow the accepted protocol for producing a URL – protocol://hostname/other_information: https://bigredcloud.com/account-ability/

If you can see the pattern emerging above, it’s about taking time to follow a set of steps that are guaranteed to help your website to perform better. Yes, there is a technical element to the back-end of your website but at least, you are getting a grounding in the key aspects of maintaining a website that meets the critical for Google, Bing, Yahoo and most importantly, your potential customers.

Check back in tomorrow for ‘On-page SEO practices to boost your website’s ranking – part 2’.

 

Marc O'Dwyer

After completing a Graduate program in Marketing, Marc’s impressive sales career began at Allied Irish Banks, Pitney Bowes and Panasonic where he received numerous Irish and European sales performance awards and consistently exceeded targets and expectations. In 1992, Marc’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to set up his own business, Irish International Sales (IIS). Initially, this company was a reseller for Take 5 Accounts and Payroll software. Within four years, IIS became the largest reseller of Take 5 in Ireland, acquiring four other Take 5 resellers. He also found time to set up two mobile phone shops under the Cellular World brand and a web design company offering website design services for small businesses. In 2001, he bought the majority share in a small Irish software business, Big Red Book. At that time, the company was losing money. The company became profitable within two months, and Marc then acquired a payroll company to compliment Big Red Books Accounting products. In 2003, IIS were appointed as Channel Partners with SAP for their new SME product, SAP Business One. Marc sold his Take 5 business and concentrated on developing this new market for SAP As a result, by 2007, IIS was recognised as the largest Channel Partner for SAP in EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa). In 2008, the IIS Sales Manager bought the Company from Marc in an MBO. He launched Big red cloud in June 2012, the online version of big red book, to date the company successfully converts 59% of trials into sales and the number of customers is growing rapidly. Marc continues to run both Big Red Book and Big Red Cloud which now support 75,000 businesses. He is a very keen sportsman, having played rugby for 20 years, represented Leinster at under 16 and under 20 levels, and league squash with Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club for 10 years. Marc has competed in 11 Marathons, including the London and Boston Marathons, and has completed several Triathlons and Half Ironman races. He has also completed six Ironman Races in Austria(x2), Frankfurt (Germany), Nice (France) , Mallorca (Spain) and Copenhagen (Denmark)

This site is registered on wpml.org as a development site. Switch to a production site key to remove this banner.