On site optimization techniques and On Page optimization processes have a very important role in basic website SEO. It is one part of SEO activity which ensures that your site is ready and is optimized for search engines to crawl and yield maximum results.
On Site or On Page optimization is in your control. You are the webmaster and web designer and you can change the page structure and its elements the way you want. So making it perfect is your job. But what are the points to remember when you start doing on site seo optimization? Is there any checklist to follow?
Well, in this article let us discuss about the most important and top 20 On Site Optimization Checklist that may help you to carry out your on page optimization successfully.
All these points are simple to implement. You just need to be careful while creating your individual pages and posts.
Top 20 On Site Optimization Techniques and Checklist
A Good Title
A good title is mandatory for each of your pages. What makes a title “good title”? Ideally the title should have between 10 and 70 characters including spaces, and contains few of your primary keywords or phrases. Please remember that too many keywords that make it look spammy. Ensure the uniqueness of each page title.
Meta Description
Well, does this have an impact on SEO? For the most part it does affect your page’s ranking in the search engines. Google may choose to display Meta descriptions in the search results. You may check this for your SERP pages. The Meta description helps the users to get an idea about the content of the page.
What should be the length of the Meta description? Ideally it should be between 60 to 160 characters.
Heading tags
Al the heading tags helps search engines recognize the important sections of your page. Use H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 based on necessity. Try to include your main keywords in the headings. Avoid using more than one H1 in one page.
Bold and Italic tags
Use bold and italic tags for keywords. Search engines will give importance to bold and italic words in the page.
ALT attribute or alternative text for images
Add alternative text to help search engines better understand the content of your images using the image ALT attribute.
DO you have more HTML that text in your page?
If yes, then you need to focus on adding more content. This will increase the keyword density as well as good in terms of SEO. In case of blog posts or articles make sure that you write a minimum of 350 words.
Avoid using Frames and Flash objects if possible
Full flash website may not be a good idea as of now in terms of SEO. Also minimize using frames in your page as they are not treated well by search engines.
Improve the load time
There are many ways to improve the page load time. Slow loading websites usually gets penalized by search engines. Here are some tips.
- Top Tips to Speed Up website – Website and Blog Optimization
- File Caching to Speed Up Website and Web Page Load Time
- Minify JS (JavaScript) and CSS Files to Speed Up Your Website.
- Speed Up websites by enabling .htaccess Caching using mod_expires and mod_headers
- Check website/ web page for css/script Gzip/ Deflate compression – Optimization Tips -Part 3
- 7 steps to Speed up website loading – Website Optimization Tips -Part 1
- How to Test your Website Speed Against Benchmarks?
Use CDN to distribute resource loading
Using content delivery network improves page load time to a great extend. You can use even sub domain as a CDN as browsers will start downloading page components parallel.
Check broken links and Fix them
Broken links negatively affect your website search engine rankings. Fix all the broken links in your website.
Use customized 404 pages
Use a proper 404 page to avoid getting de-indexed from search engines. Read more about 404 page tips and designs in the below articles.
- 404 Error Page Design How to Guide and Best Practices
- Best Plugins to Manage WordPress 404 Error Page Conditions.
Avoid keyword stuffing and target specific keyword per page
Avoid using too many keywords all over your content. Use it as and when required and uses it in the first paragraph for better results.
Use robot.txt file
Use robot.txt file to block and allow certain pages or folders from search engine crawl.
Use HTML and XML sitemaps
XML sitemap file helps search engines to find and index your pages more quickly and efficiently. HTML sitemaps helps your readers to find out the structure and content of your website.
Meta Keywords for others
Google may ignore these. But few other search engines still gives value to Meta keywords. Ideally, your Meta keywords should contain no more than 256 characters, and separate the words or phrases using a comma.
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So many people ignore or don't know about CDN, thanks for mentioning it here. Its so important for increase page load time, and thus directly affecting page rankings.
Customized 404 page is essential. It is important for SEO also