Blog Post December, 2011 - On Page SEO
On-Page Local SEO
On-page local SEO – that’s all the things that need to be done directly on website pages to enhance ranking in the search engines. There’s a lot of writing and research involved in good on-page local SEO work, and here’s a brief outline of what we do for good SEO Springfield, MO.
Keyword Research and Usage
People are using specific keyword phrases when searching specific businesses. To be found in the rankings, you need to create content that includes those specific keywords. To keep visitors on the pages, be sure to use these words naturally in your sentences. For example, if someone is searching for “Springfield, MO web design,” a local web designer needs to drop that phrase easily onto the page. Okay, that’s an easy one. If a popular keyword is something more complex –for silly example, “website building, Springfield, MO.” Lots of designers come up in Google search that ranks each of those words, but how would you work that into your pages as a keyword phrase so you could rank first with it?
Compose/Update Page Titles
These are the titles that appear at the top of your web browser pages.
You’ve done your keyword research –now put those search terms in your page titles. It’s best to keep the titles as brief as possible while at the same time making them appealing to searchers, which is, honestly, easier said than done. Put the most important keywords at the beginning of the title, once again trying for a natural sounding word order. Do you want to focus on your service: SEO, Springfield, Missouri? Or your location—Springfield, MO SEO? Maybe you can use both.
Make Each Page Title Unique
A title tag lets both users and search engines know what your page topic is, but Search Engines may not index pages that have the same title. Anyway, using unique titles lets you use the keywords in different ways. Website Content, Web Content Writing and Website Content Writing are all similar, but the main element-- Website Content -- is in each.
Add Your City Name to the Title
Sounds so obvious, but so often overlooked! This is particularly important for local businesses, as visitors often search for businesses by geographic location.
Add Your Address to Every Page
Your address and phone number belong on every page, especially for local search. If your business has multiple locations, you can create a separate page for each location, or lists all locations on one single page. This helps your visitors while reinforcing your location for the search engines. It’s a good idea to link to the multiple-address pages from as many other pages on your site as possible. Go ahead and list as many of your locations as possible on the home page, too.
Meta Description Tags
Back in the day, Meta tag information could help with page ranking, but these days most search engines don’t use it as a ranking signal.
Still, there are reasons for including it. For one thing, they are used as part of the description of your page if it shows up in the search results. And when Google shows “extended site links” for your site, meta tags are often used for description. In fact, they are also often the default description in Facebook and Google+.
Keyword Rich Page Content
Each page should contain content relevant to the topic, but also be infused with your targeted keywords. Important components of the page include header tags, anchor text tags, and image alt tags, particularly clickable images.
Add Internal Links
No, they’re not as important as backlinks from other sites, but anchor links connecting website pages can enhance the impact of the keyword. The number of links a page has within its own site-- and which pages link to it—are actually important. The home page is the most important on the site, so the pages that link to and from the home page have extra value.
Figure out which pages you want to rank the most, then add links from other pages to them, using relevant keywords in the link text.
Get Blogging!
A blog is nothing more than articles or posts, relevant to your business or profession, with the newer ones showing up first. At its simplest, this is a way to add pages and fresh content to your website. And remember to include keywords! Be sure to add your blog’s URL to blogsearch engines.
Add Video Content
In Google's words: "Are you a content publisher? Video Sitemaps are the best way to tell Google about your online videos so that they can be included in search results."
Sometimes it’s actually easier to rank in the search results with a video than with traditional content. There are so many affordable ways to generate and post video content these days, so see what you can whip up. Be sure to submit a video sitemap, embed your videos on your own site, and post to YouTube.
Solve Any Technical Issues
You won’t be surprised to learn that technical issues can sometimes prevent your website from ranking. Problems with Flash, JavaScript, canonicals, frames, or redirects can play havoc with ranking. For these issues, you most likely need an expert.
So that’s the story. Most business owners don’t have the time to do what’s needed to keep their site up in the rankings.
Call or email us today, and ask how we can provide On-page Local SEO services for you.
