If you are a newcomer to the world of SEO and want to find a way to get results quickly and effectively, start by focusing on analyzing On-page SEOstrategies. Here are some key tips to keep in mind when planning your SEO strategy for 2022.
The 2022 Guide to Successful On-Page SEO: Do You Know It All?
This guide covers 7 practical tips, categorized into the following 3 main groups:
- Secrets to keyword research
- Enhancing user experience (UX) and leveraging multimedia
- Using internal links intelligently
Choosing and using keywords is not just a technique; it is an art form.
Keywords are the core of any SEO strategy, especially for On-page. Therefore, selecting, using, and distributing keywords requires not only logical data analysis but also creative thinking.
1. Target long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are an SEO term for phrases that are longer and more specific than short, generic keywords. While they have lower search volume than short-tail keywords, they offer many other advantages. These specific keywords help us better understand what users are looking for. They currently dominate search volume compared to short-tail keywords; a recent study shows that 91.8% of searchers use long-tail keywords.
Another reason for SEO professionals to focus on long-tail keywords is their higher search intent due to their specificity, allowing us to target keywords that directly relate to user search behavior.
Example: The long-tail keyword "how to rank on Google" is more specific than the short-tail keyword "Google ranking". With long-tail keywords, we understand the user's problem and can provide a direct answer. With short-tail keywords, it is difficult to know exactly what the user is looking for—whether it's information, a definition, a how-to guide, or advice.
Depending on the situation, many long-tail keywords have low search volume, but they also have lower competition. Leveraging these keywords makes it easier to rank at the top.
So, how can you effectively utilize long-tail keywords in your content? You shouldn't just stuff a bunch of long, boring terms into your articles and hope for success. Sometimes, this can even backfire. Here are some useful tips for using long-tail keywords:
- Identify the article topic
- Add the most general phrases or headings related to the topic into a keyword research tool
- Identify long-tail keywords related to the selected topics that have high search volume and low competition.
- Narrow down the keyword list to those with high search volume.
For example: if you are a credit card issuer and one of your topics is "open a credit card," a long-tail keyword you might target is "how to open a credit card for the first time."
- Write relevant content that answers what users are looking for behind the selected keyword.
Learn more: Top 6 content strategies to skyrocket organic traffic
- Use keywords to insert Alt text for images in the article
Alt text is a description for an image and is an important Google ranking factor. According to MozCast, it accounts for up to 20% of an article's performance.
Alt text has 3 main roles:
- Accessibility: Alt text is read aloud by screen readers for visually impaired users.
- Image description: When an image fails to load on a page, the alt text appears as a substitute to describe the image content to the user.
- Search engine optimization: Search engine crawlers use alt text to index images. In 2021, Google confirmed that alt text "is still very important for SEO."
Tips for using keywords in alt text:
- First, think about the image and write an accurate description of it.
- Describe the image naturally; there is no need to overcomplicate it.
- Think about how to incorporate target or secondary keywords into the alt text.
- Use keywords in the article's headings
By placing keywords in your headings, you are implicitly signaling to both search engines and users that your content meets the intent of that search query. Just as a table of contents provides context for users, keywords placed in headings do the same for search engine bots.
Although 36% of SEO professionals consider headings important, this does not mean you should force keywords in if they don't make sense.
Consider the user experience and Google's recommendations before deciding where to place target keywords or other related terms. Most importantly, avoid keyword stuffing in your articles. Tips for using keywords in headings:
- Choose the main keyword for your post to include in the heading.
- Add the keyword to a keyword research tool to find other related terms.
- Use your main keyword and related keywords in your headings as often as possible (ensuring they appear in at least 40% of your headings).
- Focus on Top-of-the-Funnel Keywords
The three main stages of the buying cycle are awareness, consideration, and decision. When talking about the top of the funnel, you should use keywords that capture the attention of potential customers. Content targeting these terms aims to build "awareness" of a topic. This approach attracts readers without the expectation that they will take immediate action.
What do these keywords look like? Top-of-the-funnel keywords tend to answer more general questions about a topic. To focus on these keywords, we need to do the following:
- Reach a wider audience, as these terms tend to have higher search volumes.
- Engage users earlier while they are still in the research phase.
Tips for choosing top-of-the-funnel keywords:
- Select phrases with higher search volumes and lower SEO competition.
- Create a list of secondary keywords related to your chosen phrases that reflect other stages of the buyer's journey. This will help ensure that the traffic generated converts into leads or sales.
- Create up to three top-of-the-funnel keywords for your customer personas. Based on these customer types, we can ensure each search query aligns with the specific audience we want to attract.
- Limit keyword spam to protect your SEO
You should avoid spamming both primary and secondary keywords. Many people believe that the more keywords an article has, the higher it will rank on the SERP. In reality, it is not that simple.
When a keyword appears too frequently on a page, it will be flagged as spam by Google's crawlers, which significantly hurts your rankings. The easiest way to avoid this is to keep keyword density at around 2%, applying this to both your main keywords and secondary keywords related to the topic.
The 2020s: The Era of User Experience and Multimedia
When the internet offers users endless possibilities and choices, the only way to "woo" them and keep them on your website is through an excellent user experience (UX). Part of that effort involves using multimedia content such as video, audio, or motion graphics.
- Focus on UX (User Experience) to boost your Google rankings
Beyond keywords and content, we must also consider the end-to-end user experience. Google factors in many elements when ranking websites, one of which is the time users spend on a page. If users leave our site within seconds of arriving, it signals to Google that this is not the content their users are looking for.
Another factor affecting time on page and bounce rate is page load speed. An analysis of 5 million desktop and mobile websites found that the average time for a page to fully load is 10.3 seconds on desktop and 27.3 seconds on mobile.
The first 5 seconds of page load time have the greatest impact on overall conversion rates. Each additional second of load time reduces the average conversion rate by 4.42%.
Tips for optimizing user experience include:
- Ensure content and images satisfy the search intent for each keyword.
- Include the most relevant information for the search keyword at the top of every page.
- Reduce image file sizes to improve page load times.
- Make content easy to navigate, especially for long-form articles. This could include a summary or a table of contents.
- Remove clutter such as redundant content, irrelevant images, or hard-to-read fonts.
- Add media types that engage readers
There are several indirect ways to improve your SERP rankings. One is to incorporate various types of media into your blog.
Beyond images, media includes audio files, videos, ebooks, and GIFs. These media types are effective ways to better engage users, helping to keep them on your site longer while providing them with the best possible experience.
According to Hubspot, video is the number one form of media used in most content strategies. 86% of businesses use video marketing as a tool to grow their business. On the consumer side, 84% of users say that watching a brand's video has convinced them to buy a product or service.
Audio segments are also seeing increased usage due to the appeal of audio-visual content. 61% of businesses plan to increase their digital audio advertising budgets.
Incorporating video and audio into your blog or website is a great way to improve user experience and increase time on page. You can start by embedding short audio clips into blog posts or using brief videos to simplify complex content.
Tips for better media utilization:
- If you're not sure where to start, create a YouTube channel as an additional marketing channel to grow your following.
- Embed YouTube videos covering similar topics into relevant blog posts.
- Include audio clips from podcasts that align with your article topics.
- Present data and statistics in a more engaging way, such as using data visualizations or custom graphics.
Learn more: Learn more: Overdosing on On-Page SEO - Are you making this serious mistake?
Organically increase site engagement with internal links
As mentioned above, Google values the time spent on an individual page for ranking purposes, but the search engine also cares about the time users spend on your entire site. The longer users stay on your site, the more likely they are to explore deeper. Furthermore, it signals to search engines that your site's content is high quality.
Over 80 percent of SEO experts believe that every blog post should include at least 2 to 5 internal links. Two key steps to increase the time users spend on your site are:
- Write engaging and in-depth content
- Link to relevant content
By linking to internal content, you guide your users deeper into your site. This increases the likelihood of meaningful interactions with your content (e.g., leaving a comment on a blog post or sharing on social media), which benefits your SERP rankings. Tips for incorporating and leveraging internal links:
- Choose pages with content that complements the topic of the current page.
- Use anchor text that sounds natural and encourages users to click through to the next page.
- Avoid generic anchor text like "Click here" or "Read more." The more descriptive your anchor text, the better Google understands your site's content.
- As a rule of thumb, ensure your most important pages are no more than three clicks away from your homepage.
Ultimately, the goal of on-page optimization is to satisfy your site visitors, which in turn helps you earn favor with search engines and achieve higher rankings. We hope these 7 tips from Markdao can assist SEO professionals who are currently navigating the challenges of optimizing their on-page elements.
