Scotts Blog

It’s critical to get your onpage factors correct if you want to get your keyword ranked on page one of Google. “Onpage” factors ensure that Google a) knows the page is about the keyword and b) trust the content is of use to the user.

I know making a new page, or editing an existing one with all the below factors can be a pain, but without this, the page might not rank highly and this is a one off task that can easily x3 or x4 the power of your SEO budget so its really worth doing. If you need any high quality content writers please ask as we have some great contacts.

Below are the onpage factors, in order of importance. We have 3 types…

1 = critical (must be done, simple as that 😉 )
2 = mid range (if possible do it, you’ll be rewarded by Google 😉 )
3 = small benefit (if you have the spare time you might as well do it, but I would get all critical and mid range done first)

1. Keyword in the url (critical)

If the keyword is “blue widgets” the most power, and critical onpage factor is having the keyword in the url eg

site.com/blue-widgets

or

site.com/blue-widgets.html

you can combine other words as well, for example, if you had two keywords…

blue widgets
best blue widgets

… then the url site.com/best-blue-widgets will do the job for both keywords – if in doubt, please contact us and we can advice on how best to split up your keywords.

2. Keyword in the title (critical)

Ideally you want your title tag, the blue clickable link that will show in Google, to start with your keyword, followed by something that will entice a higher click through rate from Google (as click rate, is actually the most powerful SEO metric and them all) so if you compare what your competitors on page one are using, you want something better, to stand out, as a higher click through rate from a Google search for your keyword not only means more visitors to your site, but if your click rate is just 0.001% higher than your competitors, over a 2-3 month average, Google will really trust your page for the keyword and positive ranking improvements will be much easier.

So an example would be: Best Blue Widgets – 20% Off Special Offer

3. Keyword or very close variation in the meta description (critical)

Pop the keyword, or a very close variation of it, in the meta description (the text shown in Google under the blue clickable link) but not at the start and surrounded by bullet point benefits, call to actions, offers, etc, anything to get that click rate up.

Tip: Pop the keyword into Google and see what text your competitors are using in both the PPC adverts and the SEO search results. See if multiple competitors are using the same benefits (hopefully they are tracking conversions and ROI from their online marketing so if multiple competitors are saying the same type of message, it hopefully means they know this works and you can copy the idea and improve upon it). Remember, you need to stand out from the crowd, because if SEO puts your keyword position 5 on page 1, and over 2-3 months you have a slightly higher click rate than you’re competitors, this will turbo charge your race to the top.

4. Keyword in the content (critical)

You want the keyword to be in the content, near the start, ideally in the first sentence – then at least one more time. If the keyword is in the content more times naturally and it reads great, that’s fine, but its very easy now to over optimise content and its best to play it safe, 1-2 times per every 500 words of content, up to a max of 4 times is best (unless your content really needs it in, to read naturally).

5. Length of your page content

There are two schools of thought on content length…

a. go big, i.e. look at 2,000 to 2,5000 words. This seems to give the most power in most niches, however you can start with 500 words and see how the keyword reacts over time and always add more content to that page later.

b. have a little bit more than the top competitor on page one in Google. To do this, pop your keyword into Google and record the top 10 “real competitors” urls. By real competitors, I mean, ignore any massive authority sites, eg Amazon, BBC, Fox News, Facebook, etc, as these authority sites don’t play by normal SEO rules due to their sheer power, so you only want to compare real competitors.
Pop the list of your competitors urls into: https://www.seoreviewtools.com/bulk-web-page-word-count-checker/ click the “I’m not a robot” and click “perform check” and review the “corrected word count” and aim to be a few hundred words more than the competitor with the highest word count.

6. Headers (now critical, used to be mid range)

H1 and H2 tags etc (header tags) are now critical for max success. The rules are…

a. put the exact keyword in your H1 tag, at the top of your content, you can put other words before and after, for example, if the keyword was “Blue widgets” your H1 would be “We sell the best blue widgets with free shipping”

b. H2’s, this is where we can really give Google a nice, natural “vibe” about the keyword “theme”. We don’t want to keep repeating the keyword in the H2’s, that’s too much, we want a theme, so if I use another example keyword, “SEO Consultant”, its best to plan out the keyword variations for your H2’s first, e.g.

UK SEO Consultant (I added a word before it)

Benefits of SEO (I used just one word from the target keyword)

Search Engine Optimisation Consultant (I replaced SEO with “search engine optimisation” as google know the same thing)

Professional Internet Marketing (internet marketing is a broad, high level niche keyword)

Expert Consultation Services (I took one word from the keyword target “consultant” and changed it to “consultation”

etc, etc – try to aim for at least 4-5+ H2’s (if your page used other headers, ie H3, H4 etc you can work these into those.

7. Silo’s (mid range)

Not critical, but wow does this pack a punch, so once all your SEO target pages have all critical tasks above done, ideally this is the next thing to do – I have a blog post on 3 tactics for silos at: https://www.scott.services/the-internal-silo-strategy/

8. Voice search and snippets (mid range)

Voice search traffic is increasing all the time so when you look at your content, if you can think of any questions that users might use around your keyword, eg “how much do blue widgets cost” then this is a great way to get more voice search and feature in googles “snippets” where it tries to answer users questions at the top of a Google search>

To do this, pop the question in a header tag, eg h2, and then under it, answer the question – Google will read this and it will increase your chances of being found for keyword variations for voice search and potential of being included in the top search snippets as well (https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9351707?p=featured_snippets&hl=en-GB&visit_id=637170263245804833-210412761&rd=1)

9.Embed youtube videos (mid range)

If you embed a youtube video onto your page Google will give it a boost, ideally it’s a video from your own youtube channel that is also optimised for the same keyword so both the SEO target page and youtube video can be SEO’d within your SEO budget

10. images & alt tags (small benefit)

Images = If the file name of some of your images on the page include the keyword this helps a little bit, eg: blue-widget.jpg only do a few though a mix up keyword variations, don’t over do it

Alt tags = If you add alt tags to your images and some of these contain a nice sentence that has your keyword in, eg “here we see a lovely blue widget” this helps a little bit as well.