Have you been working hard to publish articles on your website, but are finding they aren’t reaching your audience and receiving the traffic you expected?
Ensuring your website appears when users search for terms related to your business is essential for sustained traffic. This process, called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), can seem complex, with many assuming it’s purely technical.
However, while there are technical elements, there’s a broader scope to SEO. In this guide, we’ll break down on-page SEO tactics that can elevate your articles’ potential for organic traffic. By the end, you’ll be equipped with actionable insights to optimise your written content for search engines effectively.
What is SEO?
SEO is the practice of optimising your website to increase its visibility on search platforms such as Google, Edge, and Bing.
It revolves around understanding your audience’s queries and demonstrating to search engines that your content is valuable.
Ideally, your articles should appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), ensuring your website is the primary resource users encounter when searching for topics relevant to your device or therapy area.
Why is this so important? A study by Sistrix found that the first organic result on Google results pages have an average click-through rate of 28.5%. The significance drops sharply after the first position, with the second and third positions having click-through rates of 15% and 11%, respectively. There’s a reason why SEO companies are always talking about those top 3 positions!
Let’s have a look at the techniques you can put in place to improve your article’s organic performance.
Researching keywords
Keyword research involves the identification and analysis of terms and phrases that your audience is searching for. Beyond just understanding popular search terms, it’s about tapping into the mindset of your target audience and understanding their needs, questions, and desires.
By aligning your content with these keywords, your articles will resonate more with your target audience (as this is what they’re asking for) and search algorithms.
Why are keywords crucial?
Tailoring your content to specific keywords enhances its visibility, making it more likely to be discovered by those who are genuinely interested in what you offer.
Moreover, search engines, with the aim of delivering the most relevant results, reward content that aligns well with user intent. Essentially, optimising your articles with the right keywords doesn’t just improve your SEO health; it builds a bridge of trust and relevance between your brand and its audience, ensuring that your voice is heard in the conversations that matter most.
Begin by conducting thorough keyword research to identify phrases your audience is searching for.
Strategically using keywords
Once you’ve gathered the keywords you want to rank for, you can start writing articles for each of them and ensure the target keyword is strategically placed throughout. This means including them in the titles, headings and main bodies of your articles.
It’s key to avoid keyword stuffing, which can negatively impact rankings. Instead, the emphasis should be on crafting insightful, reader-centric content where keywords are integrated seamlessly.
You can also incorporate keywords into areas of web pages that may not be visible to readers but are accessible to search engines, such as meta descriptions and file or document names.
Additionally, you can vary the use of your keyword, incorporating synonyms and phrases that often accompany your main keyword. This not only enriches your content but also provides clearer signals to search engines about the article’s subject matter.
Optimising your URL
A well-optimised URL is more than just an address for your article; it’s a strategic tool that speaks volumes to both search engines and readers.
By choosing clear, concise wording separated by hyphens, you create a URL that’s easily decipherable, enhancing its appeal to search engines.
Moreover, readers are more likely to click on and engage with articles that have straightforward URLs, as they convey clarity and instill confidence. It’s essential to avoid long, convoluted addresses which can confuse search engines and deter potential readers.
Providing a meta description
Optimising your article’s meta description is vital for attracting readers. It’s a concise summary displayed in search results, enticing users to click.
To optimise, craft a compelling meta description that incorporates your target keyword naturally. Keep it under 160 characters to ensure full visibility.
Address the reader’s questions and offer a glimpse of what your content delivers. A well-crafted meta description enhances click-through rates, boosts search engine rankings, and provides users with a clear expectation of what they’ll find. It’s a valuable tool for driving organic traffic and ensuring your content stands out in search results.
Optimising your headings and subheadings
Using subheadings in your article enhances the reader’s experience and boosts your chances of achieving higher search engine rankings.
These subheadings act as navigational markers, directing both readers and search engines seamlessly through the content. As a result, readers can effortlessly find the sections they’re interested in, a fact that search engines value and reward.
Furthermore, the presence of clear subheadings increases the likelihood of your content being showcased as a ‘featured snippet’ (often referred to as ‘position zero’) at the top of SERPs. This is highly significant, given that featured snippets attract a substantial 35.1% of all click-throughs.
Compressing your images
The load speed of your website articles is one of the key determining factors for where your article will rank on SERPs.
Articles that load quickly not only keep readers engaged but also indicate to search engines that your site is efficient and user centric.
One straightforward way to enhance load speed is by compressing the images in your articles, reducing data load without sacrificing image quality.
Adding alt text
Incorporating alt text into your articles is a subtle yet impactful strategy for bolstering your SEO.
Alt text, short for “alternative text,” describes the content and function of an image, providing context to search engines and accessibility for users with visual impairments.
When search engines crawl a website, they rely on alt text to understand the relevance of images within the content. By adding descriptive and keyword-rich alt text, you enhance the discoverability of your article, as it becomes indexed more accurately.
Moreover, it ensures compliance with web accessibility standards, broadening your content’s reach.
Using internal and external links
Integrating both internal and external links within your articles is a strategic move that significantly enhances your SEO efforts.
Internal links, which connect to other pages within your website, help in distributing page authority and guiding visitors deeper into your content, reducing bounce rates. They also encourage search engine bots, which crawl the internet for new web pages, to index more pages on your website.
External links, on the other hand, connect to reputable sources outside your domain.
By linking to authoritative sites, you not only provide readers with additional valuable information but also signal to search engines that your content is well-researched and credible.
What’s next?
On-page SEO tactics are fundamental tools in the arsenal of any website owner or content creator.
By optimising elements directly on your web pages, from meta descriptions to image compression, you can significantly improve your site’s visibility and ranking on search engine results pages.
As the digital landscape continues to evolve, staying updated with these tactics ensures that your content remains relevant, accessible, and at the forefront of user searches.