How you design your website is critical for successfully getting customers to spend time looking at the product or service you offer. But it does not matter how well your website is designed if you don’t get the important SEO details right. SEO on-page optimisation is just as important as your off-page optimisation in 2015, and is likely to be for quite some time. Keep reading for a list of on-page SEO elements that you need to employ on your website.
1. Optimised URLs
Search engines really like specific URL’s that give details about your site. Here are the most important things that an optimised URL consists of:
- It should contain under 100 characters.
- It should separate the words with hyphens and dashes.
- It should contain no more than three subdirectories.
- It is a good idea to include location based keywords in your URL.
- If you have an e-commerce website then make sure you have product identifying numbers at the end of the URL (these should not be used as replacements for keywords).
2. Google Authorship
This is something that Google has promised to put more emphasis on in 2015. As more and more people come to your website and don’t bounce straight back off, you will get ranking credit for this as a reputable content provider. Having a known authorship will enhance your websites ranking factor by establishing you as an expert in your websites area of specialisation.
3. Blog Content
Of similar importance to Google Authorship is the quality of content on your website. Google and other search engine algorithms are starting to place a much higher emphasis on quality content. They determine the quality of information on your website not only by how many hits it gets but by how long each visitor views each webpage. That is why it is so important to have web content that is engaging to the reader and gives them the relevant information they were seeking in their search.
4. Keywords
Keywords will continue to be a huge factor in determining search ranking in 2015 as they have been in the past. Although Google and other search providers are constantly changing their algorithms to try and keep people from beating the system, they still are placing a high emphasis on them. So be sure to keep your keywords properly placed in your content to raise your search ranking as high as possible. But remember not to overload your pages with keywords – if it looks spammy to a reader, it will to Google as well.
5. Topical Authority
In 2015, establishing your topical authority will be even more important. Google does a nice job of accessing the sites that it deems are the most knowledgeable about the subject matter that is presented on them. Once again, you can see the new shift towards having relevant material on a webpage more than ever.
These are areas with which your company must be proficient at to drive traffic to your website. They are important enough that it is always a good idea to look at hiring outside SEO help if you feel your company is lacking web design experts in this area.