A Quick Guide to On-Page SEO: How to Get Started

On-page SEO is optimizing a website for search engines to improve the site’s visibility and ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs). On-page SEO consists of optimizing the content and structure of a website as well as the HTML code, which is the code that tells a search engine what a website is about.

With Google’s latest release – your In Front Marketing team agrees. Here is why:

Why Does Your Website Need an On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO aims to make a website more visible and easier to find by search engines. This is important as this drives your digital presence. By optimizing the content and structure of a website, a website can improve its visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). The main goal is to be shown in relevant search queries. 

How to Get Started with On-Page SEO

Here are a few tips to get started with on-page SEO:

Step 1. Do Your Research

Before you start making changes to your website, it’s essential to research and understand what on-page SEO is and how it works. There are a lot of different factors that contribute to on-page SEO, so you need to make sure that you’re familiar with all of them. 

A few metrics that we use are:

Content Audit 

Positioning 

Competitors 

Keyword Analysis 

This can be done with a primary market analysis, either internally or by a marketing agency providing a comprehensive SEO audit. This will help establish a foundation of where you currently are, where you have been and goals for the company moving forward. 

Step 2. Understand Your Audience

Understanding your audience and what they’re looking for is also important. What kind of information are they searching for? What are their needs and wants? By understanding your audience, you’ll be able to optimize your website for them better.

Evaluating your audience teaches you many things about how your customer confidence and journey are currently working. Some questions that it will help answer are:

What device is the most commonly used? 

What are the highest ranking pages?

What are the key target personas? 

How long are users staying on site?

Where are the factors that could be impeding conversions?

Step 3. Choose Your Keywords Wisely

Keywords are an integral part of on-page SEO. They’re the terms or phrases people search for when looking for information. When choosing keywords, it’s essential to choose ones that are relevant to your website and that are not too competitive. 

During an SEO audit, our In Front Marketing SEO team works to establish a consistent strategy that incorporates keywords that work together. Creating a holistic marketing approach allows our clients to gain traffic and provide quality content with a purpose. 

Step 4. Optimize Your Website’s Title and Meta Tags

Your website’s title and meta tags are some of the most important aspects of on-page SEO. The title tag is the text that appears on the search engine results pages (SERPs), and the meta tags are the short descriptions that appear beneath the title. Both of these should be optimized for your chosen keywords.

Don’t worry – we take care of this part for you. Our team of search engine specialists are quite skilled with ensuring that all Rich features of SEO are working together. These work behind the scenes, so it is easy to underestimate the value.

Step 5. Use Keyword-Rich Content

For your website to rank high for your chosen keywords, it’s essential to use those keywords throughout your website’s content. It includes your website’s title, meta tags, and body text. However, it would be best to be careful not to overuse keywords, as this can result in search engine penalties.

Keywords are used for intent purposes, as the purpose is informational, commercial, navigational and/or transactional. Creating an approach that builds customer confidence is key, as this provides value when creating your content. 

Establishing a strategy will help you curate content that provides information which Forbes speaks to factors that businesses should consider. 

Website Elements You Can Optimize

Several factors can be optimized on a website for on-page SEO. These include the title tag, meta tags, header tags, keyword density, and the website’s content.

The title tag is the text that appears on the search engine results pages (SERPs) as the website title. The title tag must be descriptive and include the target keyword for the website.

The meta tags are the HTML tags that provide information about a website to search engines. The meta tags include the meta description, a brief description of the website, and the meta keywords, which are the keywords associated with the website.

The header tags are the HTML tags used to structure a website’s content. The header tags include the h1 tag, h2 tag, h3 tag, and so on. The h1 tag is the most important header tag and should be used to structure the main content on the website.

The keyword density is defined as the number of times a keyword appears on a website divided by the total number of words. Ideally, the keyword density must be between 1% and 2%. That means using one or two keywords for every 100 words on the page.

OK, so if you are still with us, you most likely learned a lot of terminology that sounds like greek. That’s ok, as that is what we are here for – to get you to the top of search. 

Conclusion

On-page SEO is a great starting point for any business looking to improve its search engine visibility. Optimizing your website’s title tags, meta descriptions, and content can make your site more visible to search engines and potential customers. So what are you waiting for? 

Should you need marketing strategists in Calgary to start your on-page SEO tactics and bring them to life, we can help. Our team at In Front Marketing is dedicated to helping our clients achieve their advertising goals. We focus on providing clarity and confidence to our clients so they can be satisfied with the results we produce. Contact us today!

Important Components of an Effective Marketing Plan

The internet has brought with it an unprecedented amount of competition. The internet of things is becoming such a large tool for so many businesses. This allows us to find, evaluate and choose products and services at our fingertips, which also means that businesses are having to utilize more of these tools to have the competitive edge to draw and engage their potential customers. By using digital marketing, companies can offer customers access to products and services that they simply could not get any other way.

Furthermore, digital marketing allows businesses to position themselves from the competition through niche targeting, often referred to as “micro-targeting.” By pinpointing certain groups of people within their targeted audience, businesses can cater their marketing campaigns directly to their consumers. Does your marketing strategy have focus pages? Do you know what the next 6 months brings?

If you want your business to have a successful venture into the online world, you need to ensure that your digital marketing plan has the following components:

1 – Responsive Website Design

Your online presence begins with an attractive and functional website. A user-friendly website is vital to building a powerful and long-lasting relationship with your potential customers. User friendly across different devices allow you to have the dynamic ability to reach your customer base.

A website is the first aspect of your digital marketing plan. The overall design of your website says a lot about your brand, as it’s usually where customers and clients first encounter your business. A professionally designed website will make consumers want to do business with you. Understanding your needs and budget is simple with a discovery call with our team. We can provide a quote based on your company and scope of work, while working to create a strategic plan that includes your website and potential marketing phases.

Responsive web design is a technique that allows designers to create a website that will look good on any device. This means that the user journey will be smooth and conversion points will be clean. It also means that the website will generate traffic and bring in leads for your business. See where this is going……..

Creating a smooth user journey is key when it comes to building your brand, audience and executing your marketing plan. Think Conversion rate optimization strategy while also realizing that you can not break the bank on the marketing plan – at least until we do our job and prove our return on investment.

2 – Solid SEO Strategy

A strong search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is a vital component of any digital marketing campaign. Your website exists only to convince your customers to buy a product or service. The only way to do that is to make your website visible to as many potential customers as possible.

SEO, which entails putting your website in the best position possible to be found in search engine results, is arguably the most effective way of reaching an organic audience. That search function on browsers comes in handy for so many reasons.

SEO campaigns include keyword research, website optimization, links, and other factors that search engines can utilize to determine your website’s relevance to a search query. Once again, looping back to that search function.

A good way to start an SEO campaign is by using the right keywords in your content, backlinks, and social media posts. Having a content strategy will help you create more compelling content that will rank higher on search engines. Optimizing your website can be done with various tools like Google Webmaster Tools or the Yoast plugin for WordPress. Lastly, technical SEO includes things like having a sitemap or XML site map and making sure your URLs are readable and not messy.

This is also not a short term goal – this strategy is a long term and solid foundation to your marketing strategy. We advise clients this phase is at least 6 months to see solid results, so with communication and transparency – you will have the opportunity to grow and build your brand on your website to achieve the goals that you want.

3 – Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is an integral part of any digital marketing campaign.  With Social Media being widely accessible to the majority of people, across different devices and platforms, it creates space in the digital world for social media marketing. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn are valuable marketing platforms – especially for social advertising.

It is a great way for businesses to reach out to people and get their attention. Social media marketing has become one of the most popular ways for companies to advertise themselves, especially because it is free and easy to use. Businesses can use social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn in order to market their products or services by engaging with customers, building an audience or educating.

Companies can display their products and services through social media platforms, connect directly with consumers, and build a following of engaged and interested consumers.

4 – Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is a form of marketing that involves the purchase of space in media to promote a product or service. It is one of the most inexpensive and competitive platforms for driving traffic and lead generation.

The main objective of paid advertising is to increase sales by driving potential customers to a company’s products or services. Paid advertising can be carried out through digital channels such as social media, search engine optimization, and display ads.

Digital marketing campaigns that neglect to include paid advertising are incomplete. Paid advertising is cheap, simple to set up, and can provide a significant return on investment. Especially on large and competitive platforms such as Google Adwords, paid advertising can effectively drive targeted traffic to your website. There are so many tools when it comes to paid advertising – that it really comes down to asking your company:

How fast can we handle growth?

How much is our budget?

What are our goals?

Then it becomes the magic of creating a digital marketing strategy to execute the above – now that is what we call a win-win.

5 – Video Marketing

Video is another growing form of marketing that is valuable in a digital marketing campaign. Online videos, such as YouTube videos, can be a powerful form of communication and presentation. It can show consumers that your company is dynamic, engaging, and relatable. Videos are often an effective way of branding a company to engage consumers.

There are many different forms of video content that are used on a daily basis. Educational, introductory, short form, long form, documentaries, case studies, testimonials and personalized videos are at our fingertips – it just becomes the question of how do we use these to benefit our brand! 

Content Creation is crucial to building your website and other channels, which can also include blogs, social media management, and as mentioned – Video

Conclusion

In the modern business landscape, digital marketing is an essential tool. With the explosion of the internet, consumers have unprecedented access to products and services. To be successful, businesses need a competitive edge over the competition. By using digital marketing and having these key components, companies can offer customers access to products and services that they simply could not get any other way. 

If you’re looking to work with a reliable Calgary digital marketing agency, In Front Marketing has you covered. We develop effective strategies backed by data and make sure you get the results your business needs. Call us today so we can find the perfect strategy for your business.