On-page optimization explained step by step
In a small survey on my Facebook page, I wanted to know why SEO optimization, whether onpage or onsite, fails. In addition to the lack of foreign language skills, yes, SEO would need its own foreign dictionary, there is no instruction on how to optimize your page for the search engine. That is why today I have my guide and a few explanations. So that SEO no longer remains a book with seven seals.
Onpage and onsite, what’s the difference?
I am literally seeing your question marks reading my headline. “What, you can not only optimize on-page, but also on-site? Do these SEOs spin completely? Where does that come from now? ”Hit? No fear. Basically, you already know both. Only the term may not be familiar to you.
Dictionary entry
The on-page optimization affects the individual sub -pages of your website.
The onsite optimization analyzes the performance of your entire website.
Start with the big picture. First, check on-site optimization
Does Google know your site?
Only when Google has indexed your page will it appear in the search results. So now is the time to find out if Google has taken you to heart.
- Go to the Google Webmaster Tools .
- If you already have a Google account, log in with your access data. If not yet, now is the time to set up an account. Google provides you with all the necessary data for free. Directly from the control center. It couldn’t be easier and cheaper. Of course, you can also use other tracking providers.
- Analyze your pages and rankings for key keywords.
- Find out if your entire website is indexed and find any errors.
You can save yourself legal problems
Even if data protection and the imprint are not directly a ranking factor – now is the right time to make sure that everything is correct. If you are unsure, contact a lawyer about the privacy policy.
- That the explanations are up to date. Sometimes the necessary information changes almost overnight. So keep an eye on the legal side.
- Has the privacy policy listed all the services used? Google Analytics, social media integration, the newsletter?
Do you have any advertising on the site?
Work on it can often be refinanced with advertising on your own site. Popular as “residual income”, there are a few pitfalls to consider.
Tip 1:
Ensure a good relationship between advertising and content. The content should also be really good. Otherwise Google, or even worse, the user, could classify your page as inferior.
Tip 2:
Check to see if there is any hidden advertising on your page. You can find out, for example, by entering your website together with words such as “partner search” or “Viagra”. No, I’m not kidding. You will surely think of a few other words that should not be associated with your site.
Now it goes to the technical details of your page
- Fast loading times are mandatory. Check the server speed of your site regularly.
- Do you have an SSL certificate? No? Then quickly. From the autumn of 2017 at the latest, secure encryption will have an impact on the Google ranking.
- Now it’s getting a little technical. Sorry, I’m also doing this very quickly. Have you decided on a cheap hosting provider? Then this will probably use shared hosting. A large number of websites fall back on a server pool. The counterpart to this is free hosting. I like to compare shared hosting with a row of houses. If one of the residents has a lot of visitors, there are no parking spaces left. Maybe it’s constantly loud and dirty? This is roughly the same with shared hosting. If one of your “neighbors” is “bad”, this will also affect you. Because you share the same IP address.
- Are you still using flash programming? Replace them with HTML5 programming as soon as possible.
- I can’t say it often enough: Black hat SEO is ugly. Avoid such tricks.
- iFrames are helpful. They reproduce the content of other pages on your website. BUT, Google has some difficulties with that. Therefore, you should use this rather restrictively.
- Your side had to move? It happens. But make sure that 301 is forwarded correctly. This way you will not lose valuable search engine rankings.
- You should avoid chain forwarding. Sooner or later you will delete one of the linked pages and you will have an unnecessary error on your website.
Tracking duplicate content
Ok, you shouldn’t copy texts from other sites. But the texts should not be repeated on your own page either. According to Google guidelines, duplicate content is not bad (on your own page), but Google will not rate all pages equally well. With duplicate content, you leave it up to the search engine which content is displayed and which is not. Not practical, is it? Better hold the scepter in your hand and simply do without duplicate content. A little but: If you use widgets that should always display the same information on your blog, for example, you will also produce duplicate content. From an SEO perspective, this content, usually only a few words long, is absolutely unproblematic.
Also important:
- Check your published texts from time to time. Just enter the text in the Google search box. Are your texts being copied? Off to the lawyer.
- Only one URL per keyword? Please do not. This is SEO from the past decade.
Noindex - specifically exclude pages
- You can simply delete unnecessary URLs or at least set them to noindex. Because the more (redundant) pages there are, the weaker your PageRank becomes. By the way, I simply use Google Analytics to identify unnecessary pages. Here I look at the pages that have hardly found any visitors in the past 12 months and / or have a very high bounce rate. I then rigorously delete them.
- Do you have pages with little text, a shopping cart? You should exclude such pages from the index.
- Avoid 4xx and 5xx errors. If pages cannot be found, this frustrates your visitors. Better redirect them. In the unlikely event that a page cannot be found, insert an individual text. Depending on the topic, it can be funny. In any case, make sure that the user does not jump off and still finds what he is looking for.
- Cookies, JavaScript and CSS make your site interesting. Search engines cannot do much with it. Therefore, make sure that all important information is provided via HTML.
With or without www?
I think the question of where your CMS installation lives doesn’t matter. You always read an opinion about it. There is sometimes no opinion from Google itself. But it is much more important that there is a proper redirect. Otherwise you produce duplicate content.
Do like Breadcrumbs
Sprinkle breadcrumbs to make it easier for your visitors to find their way around. Breadcrumbs make navigation easier. Show your visitors where to go. Your links should be visible. The user should be able to immediately notice that things are going on there.
Text links are better than URL links
That doesn’t have to be explained additionally, does it? Make sure that the link texts match the link.
You are the architect of your side
Like a house, a website depends on the architecture and the internal connection. You can actually visualize it: a house with three floors, for example. The living rooms are below. They are particularly important. These rooms are mostly seen by visitors. The bedrooms are on the middle floor. Only a few visitors can enter here. Upstairs, under the roof, you have your hobby room, or the big children have their private rooms here. Your guests will rarely find their way up. It’s the same with Google and other search engines. Your site’s first hierarchy, the ground floor, is particularly important. The most important rooms should be located here. The further away content can be found, the less important it is for Google.
In addition to the architecture and arrangement, your rooms should also be well connected. So that every room is accessible. It is the same with the internal link. Create these “hallways and doors”. Then a foreign visitor can find his way. The link should be both vertical and horizontal. In this way, every floor and every room is easily reached. Oh, right where we are in page architecture: links that are higher are better than the ones below. Therefore, data protection and imprint should be placed in the footer. Check your outgoing links regularly. Broken links, because the page no longer exists, for example, take the link power from your page and should be replaced.