Post-click On-Page Optimization

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Just to recap, the key elements covered in post-click on-page optimization are:

• Headings
• Main body copy
• Images

Let’s now turn our attention to how we optimize each of these key elements. 

Headings

Importance of headings

Headings are important because they help to outline what a web page is about. They are the first thing a user notices since we typically scan a page’s headlines before reading the whole page. That means the heading really needs to be relevant to the user. For clarification, headings are not the same as title tags. Headings can be multiple instances and they are seen on a page, while title tags are the blue clickable links seen in SERPs.
Headings are a medium weight on-page SEO signal and add relevancy to the page. There are six header tags – H1 through to H6 – which can be used to outline the hierarchy of content on a web page.
Based on this content hierarchy, the main heading should be in a H1 tag, while secondary sub-headings should be in H2 tags. H3 to H6 tags aren’t used as often in body copy but work in the same hierarchal sub-heading way.

Keywords

When creating headings for a web page, it is important to ensure that they are meaningful to the user and not just geared towards SEO. The keywords used should be tailored towards user intent, but adding keywords can work differently depending on the page type: 

• Transactional or sales pages, for example, tend to be more keyword focused and usually include the main keyword or a close variant. 
• On the other hand, informational pages like blog posts tend to be more user focused, and sometimes include the main keyword or a close variant.

The keywords used should also be targeted accurately. Look for opportunities to add your targeted keywords or similar meaning keywords as part of a heading.

Hierarchy

Historically, it was considered bad practice to have more than one H1 tag, so that’s why it’s recommended to have secondary headings as H2 tags and tertiary headings as H3 tags. 

Since HTML5, however, it can be technically correct to have secondary and tertiary headings as H1 tags and still be search engine friendly. This isn’t always easy to implement correctly, so we recommend the traditional way of using hierarchal header tags, which are still valid and widely endorsed as best practice.

In this example, we have used two exact keywords from the targeted keywords list. This is because it makes sense to do so – and it helps the user.

Main body copy

We can now turn our attention to the main body copy, or body text, and examine why it is an important part of on-page optimization. 

Importance of copy

First, body copy is a heavy-weight on-page SEO signal that adds relevancy to the page. The body copy is basically where users should find what they are looking for, so search engines pay close attention to it. This is one of the most important parts of your page when it comes to SEO, so we need to include keywords throughout the paragraphs of your web pages in a meaningful way in order to rank better on search engines.

Copy length

There are no strict guidelines for optimizing body copy length, but again it should meet the user’s expectations, satisfy their intent, and contain what they have searched for. It should also be long enough so that search engines can understand what the page is about. E-commerce queries can be as little as 100 words, for example, while informational queries can be more than 1,000 words. Bear in mind, if the content on your page is too long the user might not read it all, so it’s important to strike a balance to find the ideal length for both the user and the search engine.

Keywords

In terms of keywords, do not pay too much attention to density, which is the number of times your keywords appear on a webpage, but avoid keyword stuffing in your main copy. However, it’s fine to use synonyms or close variations of keywords if they can be incorporated while still keeping the language natural and human friendly. 

Best practice is to mention your primary keyword early, in the first couple of paragraphs, and depending on content length you can repeat this. As a loose rule for 500 words, you could mention the primary keyword two or three times, secondary keywords one or two times, and tertiary keywords one time or so, here and there.

You can also consider adding secondary and tertiary keywords in a way that sounds natural to your customers, since this helps search engines understand what the page is about while retaining that important ‘human language’ feel.  

Links

When it comes to post-click optimization via hyperlinks, the way you link to pages internally plays a key role in search engine rankings. For example, linking to pages with descriptive and easy-to-understand anchor text will pass more relevancy to the receiving page. So, make sure you are linking to your important pages regularly. 

In a similar respect, linking to pages internally is important for increasing reputation. This means that the more internal links your web page has, the more important it is deemed to be and the better its chances are of ranking. 

Images

Importance of images

Image optimization is relatively important because it is a lightweight on-page SEO signal that adds relevancy to your web page. When using images, it is therefore a good idea to consider giving the image a description in the Alt text, and the filename. Search engines scan the alt text of images, providing a good opportunity to include additional keywords on your webpage. It’s not as important as optimizing titles and body copy but it will add incremental optimization to already well optimized pages.

While image optimization is only a lightweight on-page ranking signal, and it is often overlooked, it does add relevancy to the web page and helps visually impaired users that use a screen reader. 

Optimizing images

There are three simple ways that you can optimize your images. 

• One, add a description in the Alt text. Try to accurately describe the image, including keywords if appropriate, and make them concise – typically between two and five words.
• Two, give images meaningful filenames. Again, make file names concise, sticking to that two-to-five-word target you had for Alt text. And while filenames and Alt text can be the same, they don’t need to be. Keeping them relevant is the main priority.
• And finally, three, make your images web friendly. Use traditional formats such as .gif, .jpeg, and .png, or newer formats such as. svg and .webp, which balance small file size with good quality.
  • SVGs are becoming more common. And because they are scalable vectors, they benefit from high image quality and low file size, although they are mainly used for computer-generated images, rather than photographs.
  • Webp is the most popular of what Google calls next-gen image formats. Like SVGs, not all CMSs support them, but they can be used to produce higher quality images in smaller file sizes.