Ranking On Google: On-Page SEO Guide

Imagine what ranking on the first page of Google will look like for your business. For most businesses, it means an increase in visibility and awareness. Other than that, it will also bring in more traffic, leads and even sales.

These are all examples of why SEO is so important for modern-day businesses.

In this article, I will be guiding you on the steps to optimize your website so you can start ranking on Google and increase your website traffic. Let's get started.

1. Keyword Research & Planning

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. By conducting SEO on your website, it allows search engines like Google or Bing to understand your website better and show up on queries more often.

So let's say, someone is searching for basketballs on the internet. They might go to Google and type in a certain keyword into the search bar, such as:

• 'Basketball store near me'

• 'Buy basketballs online'

• 'NBA basketballs for sale'

• 'Cheap basketballs'

• 'Basketball shop in [your city]

These are all legitimate search queries that they might be typing into the search bar to solve their problem.

That's why conducting keyword research is an essential step to find what your customers are looking for so you can start ranking for those keywords.

Ideally, you want your business to show up when they search for these terms and potentially convert them into customers.

You can use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest. Both are free tools you can use to find valuable keywords for your business.

2. Long-Tailed Keywords

Before we dive into how to optimize your website's SEO, let's first talk about long-tailed keywords and why you should use them.

Long-tailed keywords are phases with 3 or more words in a sentence.

Remember our previous examples?

Keywords like 'cheap basketballs' might not be the keyword you want to rank for if you're just starting out.

Although it brings lots of searches, it's also hard to rank for because of it's competitiveness. Chances are, thousands of other similar businesses are already ranking for that keyword, so you probably want to avoid broad keywords at the start of your SEO journey.

That's why we want to target long-tailed keywords instead. Phases like 'basketball store in [your city]' or 'NBA basketball for sale' are much more easier to rank for and is more specific to your business.

3. Updating Title Tags & Meta Descriptions

Now you've done your keyword research and understand why you should target long-tailed keywords, let's go over how we can apply it to your website.

If you're using Wix, then go on to your website editor > menu & pages > SEO basics. If you're using other website hosting platforms, you should also be able to update your SEO settings in your page settings.

There, you are able to update your page's title tags & meta descriptions. Ideally you want to include your keywords in your title and also your meta descriptions. But make sure not to do keyword stuffing and avoid repeating the same keywords over and over again.

Search engines might view that as spam and penalize your website, resulting in lower rankings.

4. Use Best Practices

Make sure you are following some of the best practices when optimizing your pages title tags and meta tags.

Title tags: Include primary keywords, your business name & keep it below 80 characters

Meta descriptions: Re-include your primary keywords and keep it below 155 characters.

Remember, you are writing titles and meta descriptions for humans. So make sure it's catchy, short and click-worthy.

Finding a balance of SEO and interesting titles is your main priority, because at the end of the day it's people who will be clicking on these search queries.

5. Inserting Image ALT Text

As Google can't see images, it relies on your image file names or the ALT text to know what the image represents.

ALT text helps search engines understand what your images are about and their relevance to your content.

You can easily do this by clicking on the image settings on your website editor and insert descriptions of your images in the ALT text.

Best practices: Instead of just providing a general description of the image, provide more specific information to help search engine understand it better.

Don't just put in 'basketball', try 'Molten basketball size 7'. Things like the brand, color or other features should also be included in your ALT text so it makes more sense to search engines.

6. Fixing Missing or Broken Links

You also need to fix any broken links in your website. Having any missing or broken links on your pages will make your website appear less friendly to both users and search engines.

So it's always best practice to find any links that don't point to anything or points to a page that no longer exist and remove them from your site. You may also want to fix them so they redirect them to the correct pages instead.

That way search engines are able to crawl your website much more efficiently and understand your website content better.

7. Increasing Word Count On Pages

Words and content helps search engine understand a purpose of a page. For pages with a low word count, it hard for Google to tell what exactly your page is about.

But it's not only about how many words your page has either. If your pages are just filled with unnecessary rephrasing and meaningless text, Google might also view that negatively.

So you might want to find a balance of quality and quantity when building out your website contents. Make sure to also use H1, H2, H3 titles to help search engines understand the structure of your content better.

8. Constantly Optimize & Improve Your Site

So there it is. This should provide you with enough information to start optimizing your website to start ranking on Google.

But remember, SEO is a continuous process. You'll always want to constantly improve your website and optimize your contents. There are always more things that you can improve on other than just your on-page SEO.

You should also keep in mind that your website won't get instant results and magically rank on the first page immediately. Usually it takes around 3 months to start ranking for low volume keywords, 6-8 months for medium sized keywords and over a year for high volume keywords.

Just make sure you're following these best practices, then you're well on your way to increasing your web traffic in no time!