On-page Strategies to Improve Your Local SEO (2)

On-page Strategies to Improve Your Local SEO

Improving your website can be done in many ways. All of the approaches you take can be divided into two categories – on-page and off-page SEO. The main difference is that, with on-page SEO customization, you have full control of what goes on your website’s pages. Simultaneously, the off-page process mostly refers to your website’s ranking based on its popularity and authority. With that in mind, let’s look at the best on-page strategies to improve your local SEO.

Focus on the keyword frequency and keyword position

When you start researching ways to optimize SEO for a website, the first thing you learn is the importance of keywords. Keywords tell search engines that your website focuses on a specific topic. As a result, people interested in what you are offering will be lead to your site.

When writing articles for your blog, always remember to use the keyword in the first 100 characters. Furthermore, the keyword should also be present in at least one heading or subheading, alt and caption attributes for images, in the last paragraph, and a couple of additional times throughout the article.

Keyword frequency helps Google understand the content of the article. If the frequency is low, the article will look too vague.

Set proper tags

Every article is divided into sections and subsections. The three most essential parts of an article are the title, headings, and subheadings.

As a rule of thumb, the title should always be set within the H1 tag. Headings should carry the H2, and subheadings the H3 tag. This is the correct way to build a structure within your articles. Optimized headings can be of great help in boosting the overall ranking of your website.

Use external links to turn your website into a hub of valuable content

When browsing the web, the number one way to end up on another website is by clicking on external links. While the goal is to keep visitors on your website, you have to understand they have a wide array of interests. If they are going to leave your website at one point, you do everything you can to send them to another quality website.

Whenever you are referencing other websites in your articles, make sure that they are verified. This is a great way to present your website as a hub that will help visitors find valuable content, no matter where they are.

Still, a word of caution. Even though link building is one of the most effective on-page strategies to improve your local SEO, remember not to overuse external links. This is not a viable way of promoting your website. The ratio between internal and external links should be 65% to 35%.

URL structure

Here is one of the on-page strategies to improve your local SEO that often gets overlooked. When you visit a page, study what the URL looks like. If you are visiting a blog, it will look something like this.

“https://yourwebsite.com/blog/categories/category_name/this-is-an-article-title”

This is an example of a well-structured URL. Have this in mind when building URLs for your articles. The structure of your website plays an important role, so pay attention to these three things:

  • always honor website structure
  • build shorter URLs
  • use the keyword in every URL

Focus on the quality of the content above all

No matter how well-made your website is, no one will spend time on it if you don’t have quality content.

Quality content is your best on-page strategy to improve your local SEO. To create something unique and interesting to the readers, take a look at these tips:

  • valuable content must offer a solution to a problem
  • it should be concise, well-structured, explanatory, and easy to follow
  • do not use unverified sources for your content
  • pay special attention to the grammar and the overall writing style
  • stay informed on the latest technologies, trends, and topics of interest
  • use images and videos to add visual and audio elements to your content
  • hire experts to help you write compelling articles

On-page Strategies to Improve Your Local SEO (1)

If you follow all of these suggestions, you will do more for your website’s SEO than by using any other approach. Readers like quality; if you provide them with it, they will continue to return.

Create article titles that attract attention

If an article title is not interesting enough, no one will click on it. One of the most effective ways to create an article title is to use the how to prefix. Readers already know that the article will be instructional and will help them learn to do something.

We’ve already mentioned earlier that quality content offers a solution to a problem. That’s why having a question in the title plays such a crucial role.

Image optimization

The last piece of the puzzle is image optimization. This is such a wide topic of discussion, but here are a couple of important pointers:

  • The size of the images should be between 70-100 KB. This helps your website load faster.
  • Remember to always use the correct format for an image. For example, the logo should always be a vector, made out of solid colors and simple shapes. You should only use JPG and PNG if you want more depth and texture.
  • The alt attribute should explain what the image shows, and the caption should be an interesting description associated with the image and the corresponding paragraph.
  • All images should be clear and sharp, with good use of contrast.
  • Never use images that are not free for use, unless you pay for them.

On-page strategies to improve your local SEO made easy

And there you have it, a few simple and effective on-page strategies to improve your local SEO. These approaches produce the best results when combined. With that in mind, do not focus on just one strategy, but try to mix them, and find a combination that works best. Good luck!