Fahim Ahmed
If you are reading this article, you probably have done a lot of reading about on-page SEO, and is not new to the concept. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a pandora’s box. It is hard to get a hold of it even after reading dozens of articles and watching countless videos online.
Even though the term SEO came to light in the late 90s, it is still fairly a new concept that keeps changing with time. The way we approach SEO nowadays is quite different from where we started. As the internet got crowded and more content came flooding in, there had to be a structure to curate those contents and rank them on search engines according to relevance and other metrics.
The term SEO stands for “search engine optimization”. It is a process of increasing your website’s online visibility to attract organic traffic to your website. The better you optimize your website for search engines the more chance it has to rank high for certain keywords. Nowadays the term SEO very much revolves around Google today.
SEO is divided into two categories:
- On-page-SEO
- Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO refers to any actions that you take outside of your website that can potentially affect your search engine rankings and visibility.
But on-page SEO is where things get interesting because it is dependent on your understanding of SEO and internal actions you take on your website to influence search engines.
We are here to decode everything you need to know about on-page SEO and how you can use on-page SEO to drive traffic to your website and improve search engine ranking.
Frankly, SEO can be intimidating. Even when you think you did everything right, you might miss a piece of the puzzle for which you won’t get the expected result. Sometimes SEO can even backfire and lower your website’s ranking.
But when it comes to on-site SEO, you have nothing to worry about. There is very little that can go wrong and if done correctly on-page SEO can garner thousands of organic traffic to your site.
Understanding On-Page SEO
On-page SEO also referred to as “on-site SEO” is the practice of optimizing your web pages in order to improve search visibility and drive organic traffic to your website. Using on-page SEO we optimize our content for both search engines (mostly Google) and users.
A lot of people often confuse on-page SEO with keyword optimization. While keyword optimization is a key element of on-page SEO, there is more to it than just garnishing your content with keywords.
Earlier you could win on-page SEO just by stuffing your primary keywords within your pages. But as the search engines got smarter things have changed drastically. Nowadays, you can’t rank just by strategically placing keywords throughout your article. Having said that keyword placement is still very important when it comes to on-page SEO.
On-SEO can sometimes be a bit overwhelming. Especially because on-page SEO is no longer just about primary keywords and LSI keywords. There are other factors involved that can affect your website’s ranking on Google or any other search engine. But when compared to off-page SEO, it is a piece of cake.
When it comes to on-page SEO, you have full control as you don’t have to worry about signals that happen off of your website. Also, you don’t have to learn the technical part of SEO. All you need is a keyword research tool and a good understanding of your niche and you are good to go.
On-Page SEO Basics To Get You Started
Here we give a brief overview of what on-page SEO is and how it can affect your website’s ranking. Even if you are new to on-page SEO, you can get started here.
What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO (also called on-site SEO) is the practice of optimizing your web pages and content within those pages to rank higher in search engines. It is the easiest way to drive organic traffic to a website by targeting a certain keyword and ranking for it. On-page SEO is the first step to create a more efficient and actionable keyword strategy. On-site optimization includes optimizing your visible content, title tags, internal links, permalink as well as HTML source code.
Why on-page SEO is important?
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing content to match the search intent of the user. Google and other Search engines scour content from a website to determine whether it’s a relevant result for specific search queries. Google uses focus keywords to determine the subject of your content and the relevancy to rank your web page accordingly.
But it is not just the keyword that does the trick. Sprinkling your primary keywords in the HTML tag and content is not the only ranking factor. Google keeps changing its search engine algorithm to provide a better user experience.
With all the latest algorithm updates Google became a lot smarter than it was back in the day. There are other metrics and ranking signals that help Google determine which position to rank your website. Understanding these metrics and improving them accordingly can help you rank easily.
Google intends to offer its users the most relevant and insightful information based on the search query. How do they do that? Their algorithm looks for ranking signals and other relevant content in a web page to decide whether it is relevant to the searcher’s query.
If you have written an article about “digital marketing” and you don’t mention “SEO” “Facebook marketplace” or “e-commerce” then your article most likely won’t draw Google’s attention. It means there are other web pages that Google thinks are more relevant about “digital marketing”.
Relevance is such an important aspect of on-page SEO that you won’t be able to rank unless you master it.
Optimizing Content For SEO
Now that you have somewhat of an idea of what on-page SEO is and why it is important we can take a deep dive and see how we can implement on-page SEO on a website.
In this next chapter, we will talk about how you can properly optimize a web page and hopefully improve your search engine ranking. We will discuss keyword optimization, image compression, optimizing HTML, and much more.
We have previously discussed a lot about what keywords are, the types of keywords in SEO, and how you can find winning keywords. Here we will look at how you can implement those in your article or blog post and keyword optimize your web pages.
Writing SEO Content
Millions of content are being published every day on the world wide web. But only a few of those content are considered worthy to appear on the first page of Google.
So how do you make way for yourself on the first page of Google?
Simple, just write content that Google wants to rank. No matter how well you optimize your web page and make it load faster, Google will always give priority to content that is relevant and useful.
So before you move to the technical part of on-page SEO you need to know how to write content that Google wants.
First and foremost, we will talk about how to write content that makes sense to your audience and search engines.
We also have an article about how to write evergreen content.
Make sure to go through it so your blog post doesn’t lose ranking and you write content that keeps bringing organic traffic to your site.
Anyways, here few ways you can optimize your content for search engines.
1. Create Relevant Content
Unless you can create content that is relevant to the search query, there is no way you can rank. Relevancy is the key component of on-page SEO. If you don’t understand the search intent and what your audience wants, you will always fail to deliver relevant content. So unless you do that, there is no chance you can rank on Google.
Google always gives priority to content over any other ranking signal. Over the years Google has mastered its search engine algorithm.
Google understands search intent better than any other search engine. This is why they can provide users with the most relevant and useful information from the internet.
Understanding a searcher’s intent is a very crucial part of SEO. When you can have a good understanding of what your target audience is looking for, you can start building content accordingly.
We have briefly discussed search intent on our article about keywords. Here we will understand how you can use search intent to your advantage by aligning it with your content.
Understanding content type
Content types are divided into five categories: landing pages, blog posts, products, categories, or videos. Google will deliver one of this content-type based on the search query.
Let’s say for example you are looking to buy a prom dress. You will probably type the keyword “prom dress” or “buy prom dress” on Google. Google will then show you a list of e-commerce sites that are selling prom dresses.
Here your intention is to buy a “prom dress”. So Google is showing you the search results of category or product pages of e-commerce sites.
So if you are looking to rank for the term “prom dress” you can’t do that with a blog post. Because here the search intent is transactional and not informational. Searchers are looking to buy and not learn about “prom dress”.
Figuring Out Content Angle
Content angle is the main “selling point” of your content. It is about deciding what you want to offer with your content. Are you providing a solution, selling a product, or simply providing information.
For example, people who are searching “how to fix Asus laptop charger” are looking for solutions to repair charger from home and are not willing to buy a new charger.
For the term “best android phone” people are looking for recent search results that include information about the latest android phone models. If you have a year-old article about “latest android phones” that isn’t updated, you surely won’t rank for this search query.
Figuring out a content angle is mostly about following your gut feeling.
Choosing The Right Content format
The most common content formats for blog posts include how-tos, listicles, news stories, opinion pieces, and reviews.
For example; if you search for the keyword “motivational quotes” Google won’t show you any e-commerce sites on the search results. Rather it will show web pages that are listicles and contain motivational quotes. But if you ask the question “why motivational quotes don’t work” Google will show you a list of articles or opinion pieces that might give you an explanation of why motivation quotes aren’t inspiring.
You probably will have a hard time ranking for “why motivational quotes don’t work” with listicles or an e-commerce page.
Content format is all about using common sense. If you can understand what you want to rank for it will be easier for you to decide what content format you should follow. But sometimes it can get confusing as SERPs aren’t always clear-cut for some search queries.
For example, if you search for “how to increase Snapchat followers” you might find a mix and match of listicles and how-to articles on the first page of Google search results.
In this situation use your instinct to decide which content format suits the search query that you are targeting.
2. Keep Your Content Descriptive & Fresh
Keeping your content relevant and aligned to search intent is a great start. But it is just the inception. There is a lot more you need to do in order to get to the top of Google search results. Only a few deserving websites get to be on the first page of Google search results.
So how do you get to the top and make sure your site is worthy of ranking on the first page of Google?
The answer is simple: Create content that covers all the aspects of a search query and everything the searcher expects to see.
Your content not only has to be unique but should be resourceful and explanatory. If you are writing a blog post it should be interesting and insightful to get your reader’s attention and keep them engaged. Bottom line…it should serve the purpose of the search query.
Some people often confuse the word “descriptive”. Keeping your content descriptive doesn’t mean you keep juggling with words and stuff unnecessary information that is irrelevant.
Your content should have all the necessary information but that does not mean you should explain all the intricate details. Only write content that is relevant and useful to the search query. Keep your content informative but on point.
Now that you know how to identify search intent, you probably have an understanding of what searchers are looking for.
Stay Relevant With Your Content
If you are writing a blog post about “how to start a blog” there is probably no need to write about “Google ranking factors” or explain what “cloud hosting is”. At least you don’t have to do that in detail.
If your audience came to learn about “how to start a blog”, they would find information about “Google ranking factors” irrelevant. It won’t be wise to barge them with the information they didn’t ask for. This will likely result in a high bounce rate.
The best practice of creating SEO content is to keep it relevant and useful. There is no need to add an extra flair to your content if it’s unnecessary.
Sneaking On Competitors
How do you know if something is irrelevant? Well, it’s mostly common sense and instinct, but there are few other ways that can help you determine if your content is relevant. You can take inspiration from other top-ranking pages and analyze pages that are similar to yours. Take a sneak peek of their content and see what do you find similar.
Look at the headings and alt tags of your competing pages. See if the description of the page is relevant to yours. Look at keywords that are being used frequently and see if you have the same keywords in your post. Find out the list of keywords that the web page is ranking for. You can do this with and without an SEO tool. Just use your brain and see what fits and what doesn’t.
It is very important to figure which content format is ranking for your target keyword. You can do this just by doing a Google search and see the format of top-ranking pages.
If you see most top-ranking pages are a how-to guide, it means Google is probably looking for posts that are how-tos. So your chances of ranking on the first page will increase if your blog post includes a how-to guide.
Sometimes you can see that videos rank on top of search results (especially recipes). This means that users who are searching with that keyword probably are more interested in watching a video rather than reading a blog post.
You can also see if there are any SERPs features available for your target keyword. Targeting SERP features can make it much easier for you to reach out to your potential audience.
3. Be Creative With Your Content
The internet is crammed with content. Millions of content are published every day. It is not just good content that is being published. A lot of it is actually trashy content and adds no value to the internet. Even though Google and other search engines might index some of these contents, they won’t certainly rank high in search results. If you want your content to rank it has to have its own voice that stands out.
But how do you cut the clutter and have content that is unique?
If you are not covering news, probably everything that you might write about is already on the internet. There are very few unique niches that you can work on. But frankly, you can’t avoid competition.
Instead of running away from competitors, you can learn from them. This is probably the easiest way to make your mark on the internet.
Writing brand new content is not an easy task. You can just expect to relax and take a sip of your tea while ideas come pouring out of the tip of your pen. Sometimes it can take days just to get inspiration for a topic. Especially, if you are a blogger you need to have a list of topics prepared before you start brainstorming.
Before You Start Brainstorming Topics
Instead of starting from scratch, one of the easiest ways to find ideas to write about is just spying on your competitors. Although you shouldn’t follow their way of writing, you can still take inspiration and look for ideas to write about.
The best way to create a sustainable business that keeps generating traffic to your website is by bringing something new to the table.
If you would like to create a good impression on your audience, you must create content that is engaging. Your content should be resourceful as well as interesting. People should find “everything they expect” from your content.
Content that ranks high has a higher engagement rate and high CTR. It is because people find them relevant to their search query and they are probably interesting. If you do not have anything interesting to add to your content, it will be “just another post ” that people avoid.
Content that sparks conversations or makes controversy usually has a higher engagement.
Creating Evergreen Content
Also if your intention is to write content that keeps bringing organic traffic to your website, you should focus on creating evergreen content. Evergreen content is search engine optimized content that stays fresh and relevant most of the time. One of the best ways to make sure your evergreen content stays relevant is to keep updating it over. This will help you improve your search engine ranking.
Another easy way to garner more organic traffic is by embedding videos with your blog post. If you see a video is ranking on top for a search query or topic, it means people prefer to watch videos more than reading about them.
Why not use it to your advantage and add a video to your blog post. Google gives preference to post that are multi-format. Even if you don’t have a video of your own you can embed videos of other publishers…(you can both be benefited from it).
4. Maintaining a Structure
Even if you have some of the most interesting content you won’t be able to secure the attention of your audience unless you make your content presentable. Studies show that most people like content that is visually interesting. Visual content is more appealing and easy to understand.
If you want to make your content more engaging you have to make sure it is visually pleasing. Visual content is an easy way to hack into your viewers’ brains.
Here are few ways you can make your content visually aesthetic:
Find the perfect website theme
Your “average session duration” has to do a lot with your website’s theme. Having the right website theme automatically makes your content look amazing.
Your goal should be to make it easier for your audience to figure out your content and navigate easily through your website. Unattractive theme templates are not only boring to look at but are also terribly optimized.
If you want to have the perfect on-page SEO score, having a well-optimized and easy-to-navigate theme is a prerequisite. If you are working with a pre-built theme template most design work is already done for you. You don’t have to worry about the layout, color scheme, and image size.
If you are working with WordPress and using a pre-built theme template, any new blog posts that you publish automatically conform to that design. The design element is as important as your content.
Use the right headings
Using proper heading in your blog post is also very important as it emphasizes what your blog post is all about. You can’t cherry-pick your heading and see which suits best with your article.
Make an outline for your article to properly write headlines. It may be as basic or as complicated as you like; just be sure to cover every major and little subject you intend to discuss. This is how you’ll format your article when you’re writing it:
- Your blog post’s title (and subtitle, if you have one) will be your H1.
- Your main points (your Roman numerals, if you’re using the middle-school version of outlines you learned in English class) will be your H2s.
- Subpoints under your main points will be H3s.
It’s really that simple.
Setting up your headlines correctly not only makes your blog seem nicer and more organized but also improves the SEO of your site.
Add featured image with an alt-tag
Images are great to grab the attention of your audience. It makes your content more interesting, memorable, and likely to be shared by your audience on social media. If you are writing a blog post, your content should have at least a featured image even if you don’t have multiple images.
This image will not only be seen by your readers when they visit your website but it will also be seen by others on Pinterest and Facebook if your content is shared on social media.
How to make your content more user-friendly
To write clear content that people will love to read, use these simple steps:
- Use bullets to organize and emphasize points easily
- Insert images to break up the text.
- Make your font large to help readers avoid eye strain.
- Use simple words so your readers can easily apprehend.
- Use descriptive subheadings (H2-H6) for hierarchy.
- Make short sentences and paragraphs to avoid “walls of text.”
- Write as you speak to make things more entertaining and conversational.
- Use Whitespaces to lead your reader from one element to another
Using these techniques makes it easier for searchers to find what they are looking for. Your audience would like to know about the points that you covered in your content. If they can’t navigate through your content easily and find things they want, they will probably bounce from your website.
How To Optimize Your Blog Post or Web Page
Now that you have managed to overcome the hard part of creating content that Google and searchers want to see, let’s talk about how to optimize those content.
Optimizing your blog post might be a lot easier than you think. Mostly because it doesn’t involve the intricate part of off-page SEO and you can control whatever you want and tweak on your own website.
There is very little “technical stuff” involved in on-page optimization and it’s very easy to navigate. You need to optimize elements like meta tags and URLs for your on-page optimization process. Think of it as the “cherry on top” to help Google understand the importance of your content.
Here are a few on-page optimization techniques that will help you improve your SERPs ranking.
1. Write Catchy & Interesting Headlines
Even though it’s not much of an optimization technique, it is still the most important part of on-page SEO.
Why?… Because the first impression is the last impression. Your title is the first thing that searchers will see when they make a search query. It’s like a trailer for a movie. If you can’t get it right nobody will be interested in reading the whole thing.
The goal of SEO is to attract organic traffic to your website. Your click-through rate will depend a lot on your title and search engine result page’s position. Adding the right words in your headline can help you garner a lot of free website traffic.
Your headline will decide if your content is worth clicking.
If you want your audience to click on your link and want them hooked you need to have a solid title and subheadings. Your title and subheadings will help your audience decide if they are willing to spend time on your website.
2. Include Primary Keyword In Title
Page title usually gets wrapped in H1 tags. Google has stated multiple times that H1 tags can “help Google understand the content and structure of a webpage”.
Probably this is the reason why it became very important to add your primary keyword in the title of your page. It is a conventional SEO practice that is going on forever.
The importance of adding keywords in heading has already been affirmed by Google’s John Mueller back in 2020.
And when it comes to text on a page, a heading is a really strong signal telling us this part of the page is about this topic.
But it’s not just about sending signals to Google. Adding your focus keyword also helps searchers decide whether your content is relevant to their search query.
If you look at our other blog post you will see that our titles are “search engine optimized”. Sometimes it won’t make sense to add your focus keyword in the title.
In that case, you can use a close variant of your focus keyword or use related keywords to make more sense and not sound like a robot.
3. Optimize URLs – Keep URLs Short Yet Descriptive
URL optimization is probably a lesser-known on-page SEO technique that many people avoid. Yes, the URL of your page is also very important and is a big ranking factor.
In case you haven’t noticed yet, Google shows URLs (somewhat) in their search results, and yes sometimes URLs help the searchers decide whether they are going to click on a website.
The terms that you use in your URLs show up in search results above the title of your page. Even if URLs were not important back in the 2000s, it is very important now.
The shorter and defined your content’s URL structure is the more favorable it is to Google. Not only do shorter URLs adds clarity to your content it also takes less time for bots to crawl your sitemap.
Adding keywords in your URLs is also a good SEO practice. Not only does it tell searchers what your page is about but also increases the CTR. It also helps with search ranking as Google likes content with clarity.
Even though it isn’t necessary to have the exact keyword but adding your primary keyword might help boost your ranking. But in some cases adding a variation of your keyword might perform better and makes more sense.
Even though it is a very small ranking factor but it’s not something that should be overlooked.
4. Use Target Keyword Within The Second Paragraph
Even though this is a bit controversial and many SEO experts might disagree, but introducing your target keywords early into the blog post can probably help you rank high. This is an old on-site SEO technique that is still relevant these days.
All you need to do is use your primary keyword at the beginning parts of your blog post. But don’t try to force it in your article as Google likes keywords that come naturally throughout your content. Even if you keep writing naturally without thinking, your target keyword is likely to appear within the first 200 words.
Most of our article that has the target keywords within the second paragraph ranks higher compared to other articles that don’t have primary keywords within the first 300 words. As Google bots crawl your content it looks for words that appear frequently within your post. It emphasizes terms that show up early on your page.
5. Write a Compelling Meta Description
Your meta description is another element that appears in the search results. Google shows a page’s meta description as the descriptive snippet in the SERP.
Searchers with informational intent are likely to look for meta descriptions before clicking on a link. It helps them decide whether the page is relevant to their search query.
If you are using any CMS you can write your own meta description for individual pages. But Google often rewrites the meta description by analyzing the page’s content.
Even though meta description is not a direct ranking factor, it can still be very important. An enticing meta description can drive hundreds of organic traffic and increase your CTR.
6. Optimize Your Meta Descriptions
While meta description has very little to do with your content ranking, it can still affect how your website appears in the search results.
Optimizing your meta description for search engines is as important as optimizing your title. Just like your title your meta description also shows up in the search results. So it won’t be wise to not pay any attention to the meta description.
Even though Google never confirmed, optimizing meta description can sometimes give you an advantage over your competitors who are not optimizing their meta description.
Adding your primary keywords along with relevant keywords is a good start in optimizing your meta description. In case you haven’t noticed, if your meta description has the exact keyword as the search query Google highlights the words and phrases closely related to the query.
Furthermore, if you have missed something crucial in your title tag, you can write it down in the meta description. An easy way to compose a meta description is to understand the search intent and write accordingly. Also, use active voice to address your readers directly. The fact that writing a meta description takes less than 2 minutes makes it worth it.
7. Optimize Your Images For Search Engines
Optimizing your images is a very important part of on-page SEO. A third of all Google searches are for an image so you can understand the importance of indexing your image properly on Google. Image packs are an important part of Google SERPs.
Sometimes images searches can send you more traffic than web searches. If your images are properly optimized you can get a whole lot of traffic through image search.
There are a lot of Image search queries that can drive traffic to your website. For example, if someone is looking for “formal haircut for men” they probably will like to see images rather than long text about “formal haircut”. You can use this opportunity and optimize your image to get more clicks from Google image search.
Optimizing your image does not require any technical skills or brainstorming. All you have to do is understand your content and the search intent behind it.
Here are few tips to optimize your images properly for Google and other search engines:
Name your images properly: Your image file names are very important as it sends a signal to Google what your image is all about and if it is relevant to the webpage. Rather than using random text or numbers, you should properly describe your image.
But that does not mean you should write every intricate detail explaining the image. Keep your image brief and to the point. Also, add relevant keywords if necessary to explain your image. It will help you rank your image in “Google Image search”
Write descriptive alt text:
Alternative text or popularly known as “alt text” is an HTML attribute used on <img> tags to describe the image. Even though it is not visible to the user and you can see it only when you view the HTML page source, it is a very important ranking factor.
Alt text is usually used to help search engines understand the content of the image. It is also very helpful for visually impaired users who are using screen readers. Screen readers can convert page content, including images, to audio to help visually impaired users understand the content of the webpage.
And if your webpage fails to load properly browser can show a cached version of your page that contains the alt text in place of images if the image fails to load.
Alt text is extremely helpful for Google Images — if you want your images to rank there. Even if you use lazy-loading, you know which image will be loaded, so get that information in there as early as possible & test what it renders as.
— johnmu is a ranking factor and so are you 🐀 (@JohnMu) September 4, 2018
When creating alt text, Google repeatedly stated to ‘focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and is in context of the page’s content.’ However, they advise against “filling alt attributes with terms (keyword stuffing) as it leads to a poor user experience.”
Few key points to remember when writing an alt text:
- Make sure your alt text is descriptive and properly describes the image
- Use relevant keywords if appropriate
- Make sure to keep your al text concise and to the point
- Avoid unnecessary words to make it long
- Be accurate with your description
- Avoid keyword stuffing as it can devalue the proper meaning of the image
Compress images to improve loading time
Image compression can reduce file sizes, resulting in quicker loading times. This is very significant since page performance affects rankings on both desktop and mobile devices. Your page loading time is an important ranking factor.
Larger image sizes can increase your page loading time resulting increasing bounce rate. Nowadays a lot of websites are using WebP image files instead of using Jepg or PNG as it is comparatively 30% smaller than any other image file format.
Improving your page loading time will also improve your search engine ranking. Having too many images can sometimes slow down your webpage. So it is better to compress your image to decrease the loading time. If you are using WordPress, there are multiple image compression plugins that you can use to reduce file size.
8. Add Internal Links
Google uses internal linking to find out if you have a new page or post published on your site. It is easier for Google bots to discover new pages or posts when they are linked to from somewhere on the web.
Most websites usually submit sitemaps in the search console to help Google discover all the newly published content. Google bots regularly crawl those content to see if any changes were made.
Internal links are used to connect your content to help Google understand the structure of your website. Internal links can help you create a content hierarchy by allowing you to offer the most important pages and articles greater link value than less important ones.
Furthermore, it will help your audience discover more useful content from your website and improve the average session duration. As a result, having a good internal linking strategy might help your SEO!
Advanced On-Page SEO Techniques
We have almost covered everything you need to know about on-page SEO. The on-page SEO techniques that we have covered will not only help you improve SERPs ranking but also help you create content that your target audience wants.
On-page SEO is the easiest way to drive organic traffic to your website and improve CTR. It is very important to make sure your on-page SEO checklist is well covered before you attempt to improve other aspects of search engine optimization.
Now that you know all the elements of on-page SEO and how it affects your online visibility and ranking, let’s take a sneak peek at some advanced on-page SEO techniques. Even though the components that we have covered are enough to optimize your webpage, these tips can be the cherry on top.
So if you really want to dig deep you should follow these advanced on-page optimization techniques. It will help you attract more organic traffic and stay one step ahead of your competitors.
Get Featured Snippets Ready
Have you ever noticed a special box on top of search results that exclusively shows a brief excerpt from a website based on the search query?
Those are called Featured snippets.
The idea of featured snippets is to help users find answers to their search queries quickly. Sometimes all you need is a brief answer rather than all the nitty-gritty details.
Featured snippets usually illustrate definitions, lists, steps, and tables. It is automatically pulled from top ranking webpages that have been indexed by Google.
Having a featured snippet for your page can be an easy way to jump to the top of the search results. It is a “privilege spot” that only top-ranking sites get to have. If you can make your way into the featured snippets you can see hundreds or thousands of monthly traffic coming to your site.
But how do you make your content “featured snippets ready”?
Getting your content to appear on the featured snippets is not an easy task. Especially because you need to compete with pages that have already secured the spot.
But you can make the process a bit easier if you follow these simple steps.
- Make sure Google already shows a featured snippet
- Rank your content in the top 10 of the search results
- Use the right featured snippet format that Google wants
- Provide the answer that the featured snippet requires on your page
Bait For Backlinks
Even though building backlinks are not part of on-page SEO, crafting linkbait content that might help you attract backlinks is a great SEO practice. On-page SEO might help you write content that your audience love but off-site SEO is also very necessary to get your audience to your website.
Only when they are on your website they will know about your content. Otherwise, it will be an oasis in the desert that only a few people get to enjoy.
Frankly, most content on the internet does not attract backlinks. But linkbait content is thoughtfully created in a way that might influence your reader to link back to your website.
The intent of linkbait content is to provide valuable and unique content that generates backlinks. Let’s be real, backlinks are still the most important ranking factor apart from your content.
So if you intend to rank your content on top of Google search results you need to start accumulating high-quality backlinks. Because without backlinks your SEO strategy is just a facade.
Now the main question arises “how to get backlinks worthy content”?
After looking at some top-ranking websites data, we figured out there are some specific content types that lure backlinks.
If you look at the anchor report of your competing sites using any SEO tools, you will see the most common words and phrases people use when linking to the page. It will help you figure out the type of content people usually link to.
Here are some content types that are a great link bait:
- Image
- Infographics
- Quotes
- Statistics
- Resource
- Survey
- Data & analysis
- Videos
- controversial topics
Use Relevant Embed In Blog Post
Sometimes adding a bit more flair to your blog post can grab the attention of your audience. Google just doesn’t look for pages that are just stuffed with text. Not only it leaves a bad impression on your audience, it drastically reduces your “average time on page” and increases bounce rate.
Embedding relevant YouTube videos, Instagram posts, or a tweet can really spice up your blog post and add a point of reference. Aside from keywords, Google and other search engines look for these elements to decide if your page has something valuable to offer to its users.
Improving topical relevance is very important for on-site SEO. Adding relevant phrases, LSI keywords and embeds is a great way to improve user experience. It also helps search engines understand your web page content better.
Even though Google has distanced itself from the term “LSI keywords” and John Mueller said there are no such things as LSI keywords, it is still appropriate to use keywords that are relevant to your content.
