1. Overview
2. Content Structure
3. Keyword Research
4. —>On-Site SEO <—
5. Voice Search
6. Off-Site SEO
7. Local SEO

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On-Site SEO Guide For Small Business

On-site SEO is where we step from traditional content-based SEO into SEM – or Search Engine Marketing. This encompasses your entire search engine optimization strategy, not just content and keyword management.

On-site SEO is the practice of optimizing your website and its pages for SEO ranking and performance. It contrasts with off-site SEO, your strategy for increasing your SEO strength through off-site links and authority building outside your website domain. We’ll talk about off-site SEO in a future chapter. Let’s take a closer look at how small businesses can hone their on-site SEO to rank better for performance, metadata, and internal linking. This is often an area where an attentive brand can pull ahead of the pack while competitors focus on keywords alone.

• Essentials of On-Page SEO
• Internal Linking
• Speed, Performance, and Mobile Response
• Metadata for Search Engine Crawlers
• Fine-Tuning On-Site SEO

The Essentials of On-Page SEO

Your on-site, also known as on-page, SEO is made up of several essential elements. This is because Google itself (and many other algorithms that follow Google’s trends) rates websites on a variety of criteria. Therefore, your on-page SEO strategy is to meet each of those criteria as listed and exceed expectations in every way possible.

Elements of On-Site SEO

• Keyword Strategy
• Performance
• Navigation
• Metadata
• Credentials

Keyword strategy will always play a core role in both on-site and off-site SEO. However, on-site SEO strategy goes beyond keywords to the functioning of the page itself. Page performance in the form of load speed, load stability, and mobile performance play a major role. Web crawlers use the metadata of your site to better refine search results, and navigation forms a more subtle ranking in the practicality of your internal links.

As for credentialing, this is most important for brands that fall into YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) content categories. Google prioritizes authority vetting for YMYL websites and content, so displayed and verifiable credentials can be essential to winning that SERP (search engine results page) ranking.

Internal Linking and Navigation

• Sitemap
• Informational links
• Product and service links
• Natural navigational value

First, let’s take a closer look at internal linking. Most brands have an external link-building strategy, but your internal links also matter. Internal links are often used to navigate smoothly through the site and to create a subtle conversion funnel through content. 

The easiest place to start with link navigation is a site map in the footer, a popular choice in modern and traditional web design. In addition, try to link related pages and products each time they are mentioned – or the first mention per page. Practical internal linking can provide both better SEO and more engaged customers exploring your website.

Speed, Performance, and Mobile Response

Page performance now plays a large role in modern SEO strategy. Google has been rewarding better-performing page load since around 2009. SEO considers three primary categories of website performance; the speed your pages load, how stable that page load is for user experience, and how well each web page performs on mobile.

You will need to combine both built-in functionality and server-wide optimization to achieve your page performance goals.

Page Load Speed

Page load speed is essential to a good reader experience. This is why Google has prioritized it so strongly in high SERP-ranking results. If you want to be in the top three, or even the top ten website results on most modern search engines, your page will need to load snappily, with full functionality in less than a second of processing time.

There are many ways to achieve faster page load, starting with a lightweight framework or theme, proper use of settings, and server-wide optimization.

Page Load Stability

Page load stability is a completely different factor in user experience regarding how your page elements load in.  Google has only recently prioritized page load stability, showing an increased consideration for the experience immediately after selecting a search result.

Bad page load stability is exemplified by the leaping image-load. Consider that you have just selected an article to read from your search results page. You begin reading the paragraph when suddenly, the words are missing or moved because an image has loaded in and pushed the paragraphs out of the way. The more elements load in, the more the page jumps around. Readers can’t even continuously read the quickly-loaded text because it won’t stay put.

Page load stability rating is meant to solve this experiential problem. A stable page load establishes a position for all elements, even if they take a little longer to load in. page stability creates some forgiveness for loading heavier assets by designing the page’s loading process with the reader’s experience in mind.

Mobile Performance

Mobile performance, sometimes called mobile responsiveness, is how well your website pages work when accessed through a mobile browser. Mobile browsing is typically done on much smaller screens of unique resolutions. With nearly 60% of searches performed on phones instead of PC browsers, your SEO success will hinge on how nicely your websites appear and navigate through mobile.

The most important element of mobile responsiveness is page elements that rearrange themselves to suit the resolution of the screen. Google will be more likely to recommend your website if it can guarantee that both PC and mobile searchers will find a satisfying on-site experience.

Metadata for Search Engine Crawlers

Metadata is the hidden data on each web page that relates to the page itself. Metadata is stored in meta tags in the HTML element of each page document. While readers do not see your metadata (except for alt tags), web crawlers can see it. Meta tags make it easy for search engine crawlers to find the most important elements of your page and accurately list your pages for relevant searches.

Important Meta Tags

• Content Types
• Title
• Description
• Viewport
• Language
• Geo
• Captions and Alt-Text

It should also be noted that metadata tags must align with the content. Google will flag pages that attempt to add unrelated keywords or information through metadata without representing similar information in the content text.

Fine-Tuning On-Site SEO

On-site SEO is a never-ending effort. There are always improvements you can make to the performance, features, and page design of your website. Once you have begun to achieve your initial SEO goals, you can fine-tune your on-site SEO by tweaking up performance and page load, improving your load stability, refining your metadata policies, and working on mobile performance.

In order to reach the top of every related search page, on-site SEO is an essential part of your strategy. To begin assessing and improving your on-site SEO, contact us for an initial consultation. We will be diving into voice search strategies for small businesses in the next section.

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