In any game, you want to play your top contenders, right? The same goes for the game of SEO.
Reminder: SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization -- the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine.
Basically, it’s how to get your website to rank higher in the different search engines. There are many key tools in achieving this. The goal is to gather the best players, strategize a solid offense and knock your website out of the park.
On the defense is an algorithm. This is how search engines filter what content is quality and relatable to your search results.
Enter the SEO game with a strong, starting line up that’ll boost rankings and attract fans. Introducing the MVP, top 3 on-page SEO factors:
- Metadata
- URL Optimization
- Outbound Links
- Keywords
Here’s how they play.
Anchor Text
On deck is the anchor text that describes your site to visitors and search engines. Sort of like the common goal the team declares in before taking the field – why they’re there and what their purpose is.
Optimize SEO with relevant, compelling and accurate URLs on your internal pages. Aim for the keyword or keywords that describe that page and stick in the URL format.
Outbound Links
Hyperlinks that point to any domain other than the source are considered the MVP in ranking power. They’re like third-party votes – an outside source that values a webpage’s content enough to give direct navigation to it.
When an outbound link is up to bat, the algorithm analyzes…
- Trustworthiness:
- What is the linking domain?
- Relevance:
- Does the anchor text reflect the content target/source?
- Does it validate the importance of the webpage?
- Popularity:
- Stable, easy metric to measure
- Hard to manipulate
Wrapping up the game, we have the reoccurring players, found in almost every factor: keywords. The actual words used in the metadata, URL structure and links can make or break a webpage’s rank.
Keywords are used to not only attract visitors, but also attract the RIGHT visitors. The words used should describe the very essence of your page, which means you must understand what your page is all about.
Climbing SEO with a keyword is not a simple task. Many sites use the same words for the same products, and only a few can reign the top ranks. Monitor sites that are frequent, top contenders for certain words and which words rule the ads alongside.
