- #SEO
- #resources
Introduction to SEO techniques
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This post introduces SEO techniques to improve your search engine ranking. It first describes how search engines work before listing the factors that affect search ratings. It then recommends on-page techniques for developers to apply to their webpages.
How search engines work?
The main player in the search engine business is Google. It enjoys 90% of the worldwide market share, with Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and others competing for the other 10%. There are differences in how each engine works but we will focus on the main player.
Google’s web crawler, Googlebot, discovers and indexes web pages across the internet. It follows links from one page to another, exploring billions of pages including this one. The information gathered is stored in an index, with each web page being indexed by a unique identifier and categorised by topics and keywords.
When a user enters a search query, the algorithm matches the query against these indexed pages. The search algorithm ranks the pages by relevance and quality before displaying the list to the user.
Factors affecting search results
To rise up the search engine ranking the following factors should be considered when developing or running a website.
Relevance
‘Content is King’ is an old saying that holds true today. A user’s query will be used to determine your site’s relevance. Does the keyword or phrase appear in your website’s body, headings and text? Are there any other resources on the website such as images or videos related to the keyword? Your website will be only be ranked if the content closely matches the search query.
Quality
The search engines expect and seek quality web content. The engines rank pages that ‘seem most helpful’. Quality can be boosted if other prominent websites link or refer to your content. From Google’s perspective this is a ”good sign that the information is well trusted “.
Links to your site from less trusted sources can be detrimental to your ranking.
Good user experience
Web pages will gain a higher ranking if they are compatible with and readable on mobile devices. Fast loading pages are included in compatibility. Slow loading pages will also turn users away.
On-page SEO techniques for web developers
The following on-page SEO techniques focus on achieving high relevance, quality and user experience standards. Combined, they can increase the odds of reaching high search engine results.
SEO-friendly content
The importance of headings in SEO
The main heading <h1> of a page is one of the most important SEO elements. It describes the page topic and should include a highly searched keyword. There must only be one <h1> tag per page.
Sub headings describe the structure of content and should accurately describe the content beneath. Key words in sub headings can help with SEO.
Writing good content for the web
Use concise sentences when writing for the web. Users will not thank you for long reams of text. The abbreviation TLDR stands for ‘Too Long Didn’t Read’!!
Tell a story with short paragraphs and lists, making sure you incorporate key words or phrases. Use <strong></strong> or <em></em> to emphasise key words or phrases. Do not do this too much otherwise it could be confusing to the reader and be deemed ‘key word stuffing’.
- For SEO purposes, I have found it useful to start and finish page content with similar phrases using
<strong>. Take a look at the start and end text on this page.
Images
Use meaningful alternative text for images, perhaps with a key word or two.
Inappropriate file sizes for images can seriously slow your page performance. Optimise any images for fast load times. Modern image formats like webp and avif are useful. There are online tools to convert .png and .jpg files. For example TinyWow offers image type conversion tools.
The HTML loading=‘lazy’ attribute can be used to defer the loading of off-screen images until the user scrolls near them.
<img src="URL" loading="eager|lazy">Links
Create internal, logical links within your website to help the search engines crawl your site.
Make sure your URLs have purposeful, descriptive meanings. Break up words in the URL string with hyphens rather than underscores. See my URL in the address bar for example.
SEO-friendly structure
Useful metatags for SEO
The title and description metatags are the shop window of your website. It is this information that appears in the search engine listing.
Provide a compelling title and description for every page. Make sure there are no spelling errors!
Title tag for this page
<title>Improve your ranking with on-page SEO techniques.</title>Description tag for this page
<meta name="description" content="Understand how search engines work and the on-page SEO techniques to improve your search engine ranking.">While we are on metatags, use the following to encourage the search robots to crawl your site. All this meta information must be placed in the <head> section.
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
<!-- All Search Engines -->SEO-friendly user experience
Mobile by design
Ensure your website responds seamlessly to different screen sizes (desktop, tablet, mobile) and screen formats (portrait, landscape). Within the <head> element of every page the following metatags must come first.
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">Sans serif fonts are the most readable on small devices. Font size of paragraph tags should be a minimum of 16px and the largest heading tag 1.3 times bigger. Google fonts is a great resource for finding your favourite font face.
Accessibility and user experience
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The use of semantic HTML elements to structure the page really does improve accessibility.
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Design intuitive navigation to guide users towards prominent Calls to Action.
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Ensure users can navigate your website using only a keyboard.
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Anchor text (links) should be clear and informative to the user.
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Use sufficient color contrast to make text and images readable.
Sitemap
A sitemap highlights all pages on a website allowing the robots to crawl the site efficiently. This makes your site as search engine friendly as possible.
Test your page with Lighthouse
In the developer tools of Google Chrome you will find the handy Lighthouse page analyzer. It produces scores and a report for you in terms of page performance, accessibilty, best practices and SEO. Use this information to tweak and adjust adjust your page as required.
The Lighthouse scores for this page are shown below 💥💥💥💥 !
Does on-page SEO really work?
The answer is yes BUT not immediately. It takes time for a website to get noticed and climb the ratings.
Well over a decade ago I hand-coded a website with the purpose of selling paintings. For a number of years it could be found on Page 1 of Google, Bing and Yahoo. It resulted in sales and a number of commissions.
How did I achieve Page 1? I made sure that the techniques I have shared with you above were covered off. Content was king. The back-links from reputable artists and art retailers were the queen.
Later, due to life and work getting in the way, the website fell into disrepair and sank down the ratings. One day I shall revive it and bring it back to Page 1. 🚀
Good luck!
Useful references
How Google search works - ranking results
A simple guide to HTML head elements
Thank you for stumbling across this website and for reading my blog post entitled Improve your ranking with on-page SEO techniques
