Blog

Onsite SEO Tactics

Onsite SEO includes multiple tactics to help your website rank higher for targeted keywords and phrases. Tactics range from keyword selection, to content creation to technical elements within the website. As you work through the various elements, having a plan in advance will help keep your efforts on point.

Keywords

The first step in a solid onsite SEO strategy is to carefully consider your keywords. Keywords and phrases should include branding elements, content targets and a geographical consideration. Branding elements include the business name, owners’ names and key employee names. Be sure to use words and not just logos or graphics to represent your company. Google understands words far better than pictures. Using owner and employee names helps is someone may know you and that you are part of your organization, but may not remember the organization name. A search for John Smith accountant may not display your website if John Smith is not included in your keyword content.

Content focused keywords are the words people will enter into Google related to what you do. For a landscaper, think words like “lawn maintenance”, “grass cutting”, “irrigation installation”, “sprinkler systems”, etc. Multiple variations of a term will help capture a broader range of search inquiries. Geographical keywords are where your business is located and the different areas you serve. With keywords, always think “what will someone enter into Google when they are looking for my website?”

Website Content

Now that you have your list of keywords, begin using them to help craft the written content on your website.  Keywords should repeatedly be woven throughout the content on your website. Include keywords in headings. Include keywords in paragraphs. Include keywords in image captions. Do it repeatedly, but also do it naturally. Keyword stuffing is a black hat tactic and can get your site banned. (Don’t do keywords, keywords, keywords to get more keywords.)

Technical Elements

Each page of your website has a <title> tag. Titles should absolutely use keywords. Website pages should also include <meta> tags including the meta description. The meta description is a snippet or summary of your page content that should be more readable but also include keywords. Images should use [alt] attributes to describe what the image represents and are another opportunity to include keywords. 

Page Load Speed

How fast your website page loads is a factor for search engine ranking and for user experience.  While not tied to your keywords, be mindful of practices to make your website load faster. Use properly sized images and next-gen image formats like WebP, AVIF and SVG for faster image loading. Use “extras” sparingly. Items like popups and other website widgets may be valuable for your user experience, but be mindful of the impact to load time and use these tools strategically.

SEO Summary

Keywords and their repeated but natural use throughout the content on your website is one of the strongest SEO tactics available to a website. Using those keywords throughout the technical elements on your website increases the keyword impact. A focus on these onsite, organic SEO tactics will help your website rank higher.