SEO website optimization
SEO on-page optimization involves optimization measures that can be carried out on your website to ensure a better ranking in Google searches. This involves content, structural and technical improvements. With the following browser extensions, you can easily check the optimization suggestions for your website:
For the Chrome browser:
SEO META in 1 CLICK
For the Firefox browser:
SEO Analysis and Website Review from WooRank
Title Tag
The title tag should provide a brief insight into the content of the website.
On the one hand, this should be written for the user, and on the other hand, the most important keyword for which the respective page should rank should also be included. A title tag should not appear twice on the entire website, as this describes the content of the website and you should not have duplicate web pages.
The following example shows how the title tag looks in the source code of your website.
1 | <title>MISSION OM | Online Marketing Agency Stuttgart</title> |
The second example shows the result for the search term “MISSION OM | Online Marketing Agentur Stuttgart”. It shows the title tag as it is displayed in the Google search results.
When creating the title tag, it is important to pay attention to the length. Approx. 65 characters are recommended. However, this is only a rough guideline, as the pixel width is decisive here, as a “W” takes up more space than an “I”.
Meta Description
The meta description is a description of the individual website. Although it has no direct influence on Google’s ranking, in most cases it is displayed by Google as a description text in the search results and thus influences whether a searcher clicks on the result. It is therefore important to create a meaningful and appealing meta description for each web page. These are then best provided with a call-to-action, such as “Find out more now”.
The following example shows what the meta description looks like in the source code of your website.
1 | <meta name="description" content="More leads and sales with the help of performance marketing. We help you plan and implement your online marketing strategy." > |
The second example shows the result for the search term “MISSION OM” in the Google search engine. The text “More leads and sales with the help of performance marketing. We help you plan and implement your online marketing strategy.” shows how the meta description is displayed in the Google search results.
Like the title tag, the meta description can be maintained in most CMSs or the option can be created via an extension.
Language
The Language “Lang” should be set to the language in which the content on the website is written. For a page with German content, such as mission-om.de, “de-DE” should be entered here for German. For a page with English content, “en” should be entered here accordingly.
Heading structure
An optimal outline and a structured layout form the basis of a successful website. For an optimized page, you should pay attention to the structure of the headings. The heading structure should be similar to that of a book. The book title is the H1 heading and should only be used once. Ideally, the “h1” (main heading) should contain the keyword for which the page should rank.
Headings should not be used as a visual tool, but rather to structure the content. Visual adjustments can be made with the help of CSS.
1 | <h1>Online Marketing Agency</h1> |
The headings on the second level are declared as H2, those on the third level as H3 and so on. In contrast to the H1 heading, several of these headings can appear per web page.
1 | <h2>Services</h2> |
1 | <h2>References</h2> |
Content
A very important element of on-page optimization is the optimization of the content on the page. This includes texts, images and videos. The content should be unique and perfectly adapted to the needs of the target group. The content should be clearly structured and the text should contain important and appropriate keywords for which the website should rank. However, excessive use of keywords should be avoided. The most important thing is that the content is designed to appeal to the user.
Pictures
There are also opportunities for optimizing images. The file name of the image should be adapted accordingly and say something about what can be seen in the image. Upper and lower case letters can be used. However, a “-” should be used instead of a space and umlauts should be rewritten – “ä” becomes “ae”.
The same applies to the ALT tag, where “ALT” stands for “Alternative”. The ALT tag describes what can be seen in the image and is displayed if the image cannot be displayed for certain reasons. It is also important to enable people with a visual impairment to access the internet without barriers. In these cases, the ALT tag is read out by a screen reader.
1 | <img src="https://mission-om.de/wp-content/uploads/SEO-Suchmaschinen-Optimierung-300x300.png" alt="SEO - Search engine optimization"> |
Mobile display
Due to the continuous spread of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, the optimal display for mobile devices is becoming increasingly important when evaluating websites for search engines and is therefore a key ranking factor. The decisive factor here is the extent to which the site is optimized for different devices. The aim is to prevent the user from having to zoom in to read texts and to determine whether all links can be clicked on without any problems. This also offers mobile users the best possible experience and a high degree of usability.
To test how responsive your website is and how it is displayed to mobile users, you can carry out Google’s mobile friendly test.
Pagespeed - loading speed of the page
A good page loading speed not only has a positive effect on the user experience, but also on the ranking. You should therefore make sure to keep the data size of content as small as possible.
Are you unsure how to optimize the loading time of your website? Test your site with the Pagespeed Insights tool from Google.
Canonical Tag
It can happen that pages can be reached via different URLs or that different pages with very similar content exist. If, for example, the website uses dynamic URLs where the content is not significantly changed, such as session IDs or different representations of a category page, Google sees these as duplicate versions of the same page. This phenomenon often occurs on the homepage.
Example:
- https://mission-om.de/
- https://mission-om.de/index.php
The canonical tag is used to indicate which URL is the canonical, i.e. the original page. The other URLs are then regarded as duplicate URLs and are not indexed. If no canonical tag is specified, Google independently determines which of the pages is the original page. The canonical tag prevents the indexing of identical websites.
1 | <link rel="canonical" href="https://mission-om.de/"> |
robots.txt
You can use the robots.txt file to tell the search engine crawlers which pages or files should be taken into account and which should not. Here you can exclude pages, such as the shopping cart or the checkout, from the crawl, as these are irrelevant for the search engines. You also have the option of telling the crawlers under which URL the sitemap can be found.
Every website should have a robots.txt file. If your site does not yet have such a file, it is advisable to create one.
If a robots.txt exists, you can find it by appending “/robots.txt” to the URL of the start page.
Example: https://mission-om.de/robots.txt
Sitemap
The sitemap helps search engines to crawl your website. The sitemap is a file that is located on your website and lists the individual subpages of the website. It is used to inform the search engines about the structure of the website content and thus make crawling easier for them. It also informs the search engines about new or changed pages on your website. For this reason, it is advisable to create such a sitemap for every website.
Do you need help with SEO OnPage Optimization or in other areas of online marketing?
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