5 On-page SEO Techniques That You Should Start Exploring this Year

By Jason Acidre
5 On-page SEO Techniques That You Should Start Exploring this Year

 

Search engine optimization has two vital parts – on-page and off-page optimization. Each is needed to complement the other’s end goal, when being implemented, in order to work efficiently. 

When we say off-page optimization, or “link building”, we mean the process of making the website/webpage popular through citations from other websites; on-page optimization, however, refers to making the website/webpage relevant to the targeted search term, so it is returned by the search engines when users searches for a specific term.     

Nowadays, however, it seems that there’s more than just relevance and popularity needed to achieve better rankings in search engines; search engines, especially Google, are stressing the use of high quality content for sites that are aiming to be visible to their users through search results. 

Several other aspects have started to emerge and begun to be used as factors when ranking pages on search engine result pages (SERPs), such as the authority of the domain hosting the content, the amount of trust search engines genuinely see in the site and the overall experience that the site is able to offer to its users (if the experience is worthy of being shared through their service as a search engine). 

So below I’ve listed some of the optimization techniques that can help increase a website’s chances of getting more visible in the search results:

1. Schema

A few months ago, Google, Yahoo and Bing introduced Schema.org, a site that hosts a large list of website markup, which can be used by webmasters to mark up their content/pages, so search engines can better understand what their content is about. 

Schema.org uses Microdata as its shared markup vocabulary; it’s composed of a new set of HTML tags that can help search engines classify a web content’s relevance through its important segments such as: author, topical scope and content type; you can view their full list of schemas.      

Basically, using Microdata or Schemas in your web pages’ code can increase the chances of having your page show up on SERPs in rich snippets, similar to this:

To make sure that you’ve done the code on your pages correctly, you can use Google’s rich snippets testing tool to test what your listing will look like once Google parses your page(s).

One of the main benefits of employing Schemas on your pages and in aiming to get rich snippets for your landing pages’ Google’s search results is that it can somehow affect search engine users’ judgment when seeking for information, as these rich-looking snippets often result to high SERP click-through, which means your search listing is very capable of attracting highly targeted traffic to your site, even it’s not in the highest position.

To learn more about schemas, and how to use Microdata, you can check out Schema.org’s getting started page.

2. Authorship Markup

Another great addition to Google’s search results landscape that you might see more often this year is the display of the author’s profile image alongside the page’s search listing:

The objective of the profile image is to help Google determine the quality of a site’s content through the reputation of its author; Google knows that great content comes from great authors and that users are more likely to select content that they can see is written by a highly trusted/reputable author; therefore Google wants to show your image as a sign of trust.

In order to have your Google profile image be displayed on search results, you’ll first need to implement an authorship markup on your website or on other websites where you contribute content to, and to confirm your authorship by including a reciprocating link to those websites from your Google profile.  

Here are some steps on how you can implement Authorship markup on your site:

  • Your articles on your website should all link to your “author page” using rel=”author” – HTML5’s version of link relationship for authors.
  • A link to your Google profile from your author page must be present and use the XFN link attribute rel=”me”.
  • Your Google profile should link back to your author page to confirm ownership of the site. You can check the “this page is specifically about me” checkbox for it to create a rel=”me” attributed link to your site’s author page.

To learn more about authorship markups, you can check out Google’s Webmaster Tools Help page for Authorship.

3. Page Speed

Last year, Google added the page’s ability to load faster as a factor in ranking pages in their search results, since improving a site’s usability improves the site’s quality score -  the faster the website loads, the faster its users can access the information or use the service being offered.

Determining how fast a page loads, and figuring out how to make it load faster,  has been made easier by Google with their launch of Page Speed Online. It’s a free web-based tool which webmasters can use to track their web pages’ flaws, and aspects that could be affecting its loading process. 

In using this tool, you’ll basically just key in the URL of the web page you want to test, and after a few seconds, the tool will display a score from 1 – 100, based on how it sees the page’s performance. It will then give suggestions on how you can further improve your page’s performance. 

4. Trust Indicators

Before search engines vouch and place a web page higher on their search results to be returned to their users, they first want to make sure that your site and its content is trustworthy. Inclusion of trust indicators on your site can help enhance your content’s visibility/rankings on search engines, especially if they can be sure that you are providing authentic and high-utility information through your site.

Trust indicators may come in form of a privacy policy, disclaimer, disclosure and a detailed about page. However, there are also other forms of it that can substantiate trust to your site such as social proof – in which your site is connected or linked to your social media profile pages, seeing that these sites are highly trusted by search engines.   

Another way to exemplify trust signals from your site is with the use of Humans.txt. It’s a text file that you can upload in your site (pretty much the same as Robots.txt, but this file is both for humans and web crawlers) that includes information about the creator of the website.

5. Length of Content

Lengthier documents seem to perform well when it comes to ranking highly on search engine result pages, as the content is evident to carry more value/quality through its extensiveness in nature. With the recent Google Panda update, search engines appear to be stricter in this area of optimization, in which the size of the content/document somehow affects its search rankings, especially if it is competing with thinner web pages.

   

 
130 Comments

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Ramon Polo 13 years ago
Hey I like these tips a lot.
I liked the one on Schema.org... I'm the website right now learning more about it ;)

And also I didn't the one about the author!

I love SEO... I think it's the best strategy to bring traffic and income on autopilot.

I would also recommend to put keywords related to your main keyword throughout the content AND website.
It seems Google likes this a lot because it seems you're not looking for ranking for that keyword... And Google likes that ;)

I learned this tip and more in this really cool SEO course :)

I love Affilorama!

Thank you ;)
Rob Wallace 13 years ago
Old dog -- new tricks. THX
Dane Christian Belarmino 13 years ago
my site is www.excelformulas.me" rel="nofollow">http:///www.excelformulas.me an seo freelancer here. but i still dont get how to do the rel=me from my author page. all my post have links to my author profile. but how do i create link from my author profile to my google profile? any thought?
Iris 13 years ago
Very very useful tips. Thank you.
Oliver Partridge 13 years ago
Has anyone ever tried to use the Open Graph Protocol? Something invented at facebook http://ogp.me/
Bill Wynne 13 years ago
These are some great fresh and cutting-edge points.
Thanks for the tools to stay ahead of the masses.
Dane Christian Belarmino 13 years ago
first time to hear about humans.txt but rel="author" is someting i've already implemented. but is there a way to point the author link in my post to my about page instead of the author page?
Clommo Trust 13 years ago
I was thinking that Link building is the main factor of seo but after reading this page, now i get better understanding. by the way just came across this title after receiving a webinar invitation from one of my guru. thanks a lot.
phucn guyen 13 years ago
Very good article.
I think best seo
Technomela 13 years ago
Please suggest any improvements for my website, would be of great help.1
Klara 13 years ago
thanks for the useful information. i didn't even know that page speed so important is...
Ben Bradley 13 years ago
Wow! great stuff. Since I don't come from a real techie background, information like this is really helpful.
Kent Mauresmo 13 years ago
Ohhh!! This is crazy! I got an email from Travis Traffic telling me to check out this post and look who it is...KaiserTheSage! Yeaa!

I can vouch for you. You know what you''re talking about and have helped me alot...so much so that I linked to you a while back ago. Keep it up man. Its much appreciated.
rabbi starak 13 years ago
nice post man...I like the Humans.TXT ideas..so I am going to try it on my site as I am a very experienced seo expert I can say that You really know what you are talking about..
Norman Gifford 13 years ago
Boy! Am I glad I joined...
Tom Myers 12 years ago
Great Article i really ejoy it.
Pankaj Saraf 12 years ago
Hi. This post is very nice.
Steven Donea 12 years ago
I very much like your article and have been trying to give Google an understanding of the content on my website using Microdata or Schemas for this page www.webdesignsinspiration.com but so far I only get errors for all tags I have added when I want to validate my page with XHTML 1.0 Strict.

Now, how do I validate correctly the Schemas tags on my web pages here validator.w3.org?
Neil 12 years ago
I enjoyed your article, I was unaware of the humans.txt and the authorship markup. I will definitely investigate this further.
Steve Donea 12 years ago
I like your article and have been trying to give Google an understanding of the content on my website using Microdata or Schemas for this page About Web Designs Inspiration, but so far I get only errors when trying to validate my web page with XHTML 1.0 Strict.

Now, how do I validate correctly the Schemas tags on my web pages here validator.w3.org? Would it make any sense to mark up web pages uses Microdata tags if on the other hand this will create issues when using The W3C Markup Validation?
Jim 12 years ago
I'm personally reluctant to let Google have any more leverage and dominance in the search space at this point, which is why I am ignoring schema.org and encouraging others to do likewise. Google does things to benefit Google, not the SEO industry. Exploiting a new feature to gain a temporary advantage in the SERPs, which exposes even more information to Google and the other SEs, just adds to the burdens a search savvy client needs to handle and pay for.

That being said, I'm pretty sure that everyone that comments on this article will pursue the short term advantage, however tenuous it might be. Hope it works for you
Allison 12 years ago
Thanks for the great post!
hanz gama 12 years ago
Interesting topic. Thanks for this mark.
Bop da 12 years ago
True, I didn't even have the time to implement Schema and authorship markup yet. Unless a client pays for it I have to make time for testing new techniques.
Robin 12 years ago
Pretty much useful. Thanks for the great tips for on page seo techniques. Gonna try one by one.

Robin.
Gary Stevens 12 years ago
Thanks for this informative and useful article. I have only just started working online with various websites so this is a great resource for me.
Regards
Gary
Allison 12 years ago
Thank you for the great post, you can never have too many ways to increase SEO. Got me thinking about some ways we can implement these suggestions on our own website
Deepak 12 years ago
I am so bad in on page SEO before reading this article.After reading this i manage all my on page seo. Thanks for info/
Margarita 12 years ago
U know, I really appreciate your post and all your teaching methods. Everything is clear and essential. Maybe one more thing like "titles"?! It is very important for Internet SEO. And each of posts or texts should have only unique titles. Thanks for recall about page speed, couse there is still a part of site owners, who don't pay attention to this factor, but in this time wait for high traffic. So, on-page SEO is the first way to success and your post is a proof of this.
Agraj Ss 12 years ago
On page seo is about the changes you have to made to your webpage. In According to me the best On page SEO tips and technique are:-

1. Page Title
2. Meta keywords
3. Meta Descriptions tag
4. URL Structure for each page
5. Structure Your Website For Easy Navigation
6. Write Useful Contents
7. Header Tags For Titles
8. Alt Text For Images etc.



Margarita 12 years ago
I have a question about "meta keywords" some tutorials says that it's a vain time spending...so, now it's useless for search engine optimization. What do u think about it? Thanks a lot
Bradley Burnie 7 years ago
I've tested this, meta keywords are not used by google, but other bots do scrape that data. Personally I don't use them.
Mark 12 years ago
Wow, these are really some "out of the book" techniques. I read somewhere that with the implementation of Panda, Google will rank posts with medium-length content higher as compared to posts with lengthier content. Can't say how much truth it has but the argument behind the logic seemed quite strong.
admin21 12 years ago
Thank you for this information.. it has explained a lot of things for me. :))
Anuj sharma 12 years ago
This one is quite helpful for doing proper off page optimization. Another useful tip in doing off page work is to target social interaction sites, aside from search engines. Since these are the places where users go, you will be able to target your audience directly.
12 years ago
A very helpul article, I've been reading it line by line so I won't miss anything. I just have a few questions. We've been hearing Schema and it's part of HTML5. There's some issues regarding html5 like browser incompatibility,etc. is it true?. I think the authorship markup can only be useful if the author is popular which can pass influence to the page, right? I've been using page speed tool since last year and the result always vary, my website has page speed of 85 the other day and today it has 80 and I don't even touch my website. Do results vary that fast?
For trust indicator, do visitor really read your privacy policy, disclaimer and disclosure?
Steve Crossley 11 years ago
speed results which vary by a small amount are inconclusive. Speed is always dependent on numerous factors, such as: your connection speed, Your ISP service performance, network traffic. If the variations were fluctuating from 80 to 150 then I would look into it.
Jose 12 years ago
This was great insight. I had no idea that lengthier content is taken into consideration. I'm glad I always do a minimum of 500 words. Thanks for the info.

aaa bbb 12 years ago
All the information and the tools are very much useful for the SEO beginner.......Thanks.....
tinku 12 years ago
does social media promotion includes in on page seo optimization techniques category..
Alex 12 years ago
No, Social Media Promotion will come under OFF page services
Rohan Advani 12 years ago
Hi, is there a set criteria for content. What does usually google prefer? any idea or a rough estimate on the word count for an article?
Sheldon Lobo 12 years ago
Authorship markup was a good addition to SEO. It makes a person alive with website :)
kinni 11 years ago
informative and good one...congrats....
Gretchen 11 years ago
I doubt very seriously you can aorffd the best SEO company on the internet even if someone could narrow it down to just one. Companies like SEOmoz.org get $1000/hr or more. I am an independent SEO consultant with no where near the resources of a company like SEOmoz.org, and I charge $100-125/hr depending on the job and type of work. Most people online looking for SEO think $5-15/hr should get them a good SEO. But most of the people willing to market themselves that low are either 1) VERY inexperienced or 2) live in a 3rd world company, have learned a few buzz words related to SEO, and now "claim" to be SEO experts.Figure out how much money you're willing to invest in SEO and then search for the best SEO firm that fits within your budget.
Jj dez 11 years ago
google has been banging on about micro data for about a year now ..discreetly .. but its definetly getting more mentions in reputed blogs now .. ive already implemented the schema plugin in my wordpress blog ages ago ..seeing increased traffic .Its awesome
applylogo com 11 years ago
this is really good article !
cheng qci 11 years ago
this site is mine www.puppytrainings.net" rel="nofollow">www.puppytrainings.net an seo freelancer here. but i still dont get how to do the rel=me from my author page. all my post have links to my author profile. but how do i create link from my author profile to my google profile?
Carl Baker 11 years ago
I Really want to thanks this forums If they Suggest some Good On-page Tricks for my Web-site Its Will be Helpful for me...My web-Page is : http://www.d-designstudio.com/seo.html
peter 10 years ago
A great article for anyone want skill SEO :) , Thanks for post
Ram Mehra 7 years ago
Hi,
I really appreciate this forum if I get some good SEO point for my website http://www.eskonwebsolutions.com/
Justin Golschneider 7 years ago
Hi Ram,

It looks like you’re doing a pretty good job with your SEO already! I’d say one thing you could do to improve it further would be to make better use of images. Right now, there are a lot of pages with no images, or with only very blurry images. Including at least one attractive, high-resolution image on each page with relevant, keyword-targeted alt text will improve your SEO while helping you convert more visitors into customers at the same time. :-)
5 years ago
I will increase my page speed will it be helpful
harrymartin_53 3 years ago
Can you Suggest me some off-page SEO techniques .

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