Do you have a sound SEO strategy for your website? If not, then there’s a good chance your site’s SEO rankings are suffering. And unfortunately, when your site doesn’t rank within the first page of the search engine results, there’s a 75% chance that you won’t reach your target audience at all; that’s because 75% of users typically won’t look beyond the first page of the search results for any given inquiry.
Still, with so many different SEO tips and recommendations floating around out there, how can you know which are legitimately going to be worth your time? We’ve taken the time to put together a few of the best SEO on-page optimization techniques you can implement today to begin seeing results.
What is On-Page SEO Optimization?
Specifically, on page optimization refers to the process of working on specific pages of your website in order to optimize their search engine rankings. This is essentially a more narrow, focused approach than your typical off-page optimization techniques, which tend to apply to an entire site as a whole. Implementing a mix of on-page and off-site optimization techniques is a great strategy for boosting your search engine rankings.
1. Boost Your Page Speed Score
Are you aware of your Google page speed score? If not, then now is the time to do a little testing. You may not realize it, but Google factors in the average amount of time it takes a given page on your website to load into their ever-complex SEO algorithms. If a particular page on your site is sluggish for whatever reason, you’ll probably have a hard time getting that page to rank regardless of how great the content may be.
Once you’ve measured a page’s score using Google’s online tool, some steps you can take to improve that score include:
- streamlining your overall page design and HTML
- allowing browser caching (if you haven’t already)
- reducing image file sizes as needed
2. Convert to an HTTPS URL
When you visit a particular page on your website, does the URL show up as beginning with “HTTP” or “HTTPS”? It might not seem like this should matter too much, but in the eyes of Google, it sure does. Specifically, pages starting with an “HTTPS” URL indicate that the site is secure for browsing. This, in turn, means that your site is more secure and therefore viewed as being more trustworthy than a traditional “HTTP” page.
If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to switch from HTTP to HTTPS URLs for better on-page optimization in SEO.
3. Implement SCHEMA Markup
Finally, consider implementing SCHEMA markup on your site if you haven’t already. This simply refers to code that you include in your HTML to help search engines better find (and rank) each individual page. For example, the right SCHEMA coding can help a search engine identify a relevant article, product, or other types of information on your site and thus increase that page’s chances of ranking higher. And considering most websites don’t currently utilize SCHEMA markup, you can really get a leg up on the competition by making this change.
There are plenty of ways to go about boosting your site’s overall SEO, but when it comes to SEO on-page optimization techniques, keep these tips in mind:
- focus on improving page speed
- switch to HTTPs URLs
- implement SCHEMA markup
If you need assistance with carrying out any (or all!) of these techniques, our experienced team at Ballantine is here to help! Our experts can handle just about any imaginable aspect of maximizing your print, digital, and creative marketing efforts, so reach out to us today to find out more about our services or to get started!
I'm the Director of Digital Services and Partner at Ballantine, a family-owned and operated direct mail & digital marketing company based in New Jersey. and started in 1966 by my great uncle!
