There are many on-page elements that are important signals to the search engines. Often the first course of action following a site audit that can turn the traffic trend around quickly are adjustments to these important elements.
HTML Title
This element is the blue line of text found in the search engine results pages. It is also the text that can be seen in the top blue bar of most browsers. The words that search engines find here are very important. Because they are visible to the user, and less likely to be manipulated with, they are trusted as an accurate representation of the overall theme of the content.
Meta Description
This tag is the snippet of content that is found under the title in the SERPs. This tag has been manipulated by aggressive SEOs for so many years that it no longer has a direct impact on search engine algorithm. However, it is very important as a way to entice searchers to click through from the SERPs to your webpage. If there is no meta description in the code, search engines with arbitrarily select pieces of content from the webpage itself. It is always better to control the messaging in the SERPs rather than leave it to Google to decide.
Headers
These tags are headlines and subheadings in the content organized just like a term paper we used to write in college. The Header 1 (H1 tag) is used as the main headline for the entire body of content. Headers 2-6 are used as subheadings within the various specific thoughts within the entire page. The words used here should be written to accurately describe each sub-section while containing highly searched for words. The word “Headers” above is an H3 tag.
Content
All content should be written for website visitors not specifically for search engines. There are various points of view on how many words are needed to be most effective. However, my position is that there is no magic number. The entire length of content should have a single main theme and include all of the information necessary to develop the goal or fulfill the purpose of the page. I will review the page content and suggest opportunities to improve the performance of the page for both users and search engines.
Internal Links
Two specific categories for internal links are those found in the main navigation structures of the website. There can be several which are often located in the header, footer, navigation bars, side rails or even floating within a page. Search engines assume that the links found in navigational structures, often placed sitewide or throughout important sections of the site, are very important to the business and then likely also important to visitors. Search engines also give a boost for link found within the content body, especially if they are relevant with the theme of the page.
As mentioned, often performance can be turned around just with simple adjustments to these important elements. Reach out and we can take a look at how much more traffic you could drive to your webpages with on-page SEO adjustments today.