On-page SEO Checklist- Practical Guide For Bloggers

On-page SEO Checklist- Practical Guide For Bloggers

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Leading bloggers don’t only possess outstanding writing skills, they also make sure their content performs well in search engines. They have acknowledged the fact that bloggers need to write both for readers and search engines. The writer needs to use techniques to reach the maximum audience.

While the search engines have started working more efficiently and learned to understand the context, rather than mere keywords, the need for SEO remains unavoidable. A better comprehension of content and the focus on search intent of the user is making it feasible for the websites to reach the target audience than it was a few years back. However, running a successful blog requires research, data collection, observation of competitors, and effective use of data.

To make blogging easier for you, we have gathered a list of On-page SEO requirements for blogs (Seo strategy). Keep reading to know how to optimize your blog and make your content reach the right kind of audience.

1.Focus on your Title

A blogger needs to understand the importance of a good title. Title tops the SEO checklist and plays a major role in attracting the reader’s attention and increasing the page CTR. Your title shows on SERP to the readers. If your title fails to catch the attention of the readers, they will most likely skip your article and choose some other.

From the SEO perspective, putting your keyword in the title is better only if it is short and high-volume.

Your title should not be selected focusing your readers only, but crawlers also. So make sure to have title tags on your blog. Also keep in mind that while your H1 tag and title should not inevitably be repeating each other, they should still be linked with each other.

2.URL

Your URL should be one of your top-most priorities. It should be descriptive and evocative Adding random letters and unnecessary numbers is not a good idea. Keep in mind that your URL is a suitable place for your keywords.

Make sure your URL is such that it can apply to slight or even majorly different content if you ever decide to switch from one type of content to another. If you choose to change the URL, keep redirection in mind to avoid 404 mistakes.

The length of the URL is also important. Try keeping its length up to 3 to 5 words. As far as the URL structure is concerned, it is not a good practice to use underscores as word separators.

3.Meta Description

The meta-description is not directly linked to your search engine rankings, but it has a great impact on convincing the readers to click on your page. A well-written meta-description elaborates on what your article or page is about, and it helps increase the click-through-rates.

When Google picks the meta-description for you, it may pick some random phrase from your article that won’t help your readers understand what your content is about. Copying meta-descriptions from other pages, having similar content like yours is not recommended.

4.Keywords and Semantically Related Words

It is usually advised to include a keyword on the page several times which creates confusion over keyword usage.

Many people develop this misconception that including a keyword within their page’s content repeatedly will automatically improve its ranking. In reality, although Google searches for mentioned keywords and similar concepts on your site’s pages, the page itself needs to attract readers besides pure keyword usage.

The readers will find a page valuable when it doesn’t seem like it is written by a robot. This is why you need to add your keywords and phrases in natural ways to make your readers understand your content better.

5.H1...H3

Structured text is more readable and is easy to navigate through. There are several methods you can use to structure your text.

If you are dealing with mass information, it is better to make a list of numbered or bullet points. This formatting makes the scanning process easier for the readers and helps them find what they are looking for.

The second way is writing an introduction highlighting the main context and then divide the text into 3 to 5 subheadings.

In technical SEO terms, keep in mind to use H1...H6 tags for your subheadings. It is better if you place your target keyword in your subheads in natural ways. Learn to use H1-H6 HTML elements appropriately.

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6.Internal Linking

Internal linking improves your content quality by providing your readers with additional useful information. It also helps draw attention to the content you’ve created.

Internal linking is one of the essential components of on-page SEO. It has a huge impact on search engine bots’ behavior. The crawler starts visiting sites that could be lost. If you don’t have time to dig into link building, internal linking is good to start with.

7.Crawlability

Can’t find your article in search engine result pages, even after doing everything right? Ensure that your page was not blocked from crawling. Otherwise, all your effort will be wasted away. Crawlability is a hard technical question which most content creators are not familiar with, so discuss this with your webmaster to find a solution.

8.Mobile-Friendliness

If your website is still not mobile-friendly, you are for sure missing a mass of traffic flow. In simple words, you’re losing a number of readers.

It is true that receptive design and mobile website development indeed take time and effort. It’s not something that can be done in a day but it is worth investing your time in. Mobile-friendly websites have a strong priority in mobile Search engine page results.

9.Markups

You already know about the significance of your content's SERP appearance. Application of markup can increase your click-through rates in times, and the best about it is, that micro-data can be implemented in various types of content no matter what topic you are covering.

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10. Anchor text

Anchor text is the text with which you add a link to other pages.

The anchor text is an indicator to search engines about the content of the destination page. For instance, if I link to a page on my website with the anchor text “SEO tips,” it will send a signal to search engines that people can find SEO tips on the targeted page.

Be careful not to stuff your page with anchor texts though. Unnecessary internal links using the same, keyword-stuffed anchor text can appear manipulative to search engines. It is recommended to make the anchor text look natural rather than formulaic.

Conclusion

Google is putting effort into trying to help unique and helpful content get better ranking. But the ranking of your content just doesn’t depend on Google, it depends on your readers as well. Google doesn’t read your content and gives you high grades for your better choice of words. It simply evaluates a level of interest for your article considering users’ behavior and your text’s availability.

Also, check out:

Free SEO tools and guest blogs

Reason For Blogging Failure In Hindi

About the Author:

The Author is a freelance writer, SEO blogger, Industrial Engineer and Six Sigma specialist. He can be contacted at ssznotes1@gmail.com

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