On-Page SEO Hacking Techniques
After over a decade of doling out penalties, Google has caused the rise and demise of manipulative SEO methods. Many professionals have nearly forgotten the broad space for manipulation enabled by on-page SEO, and are acting on a very basic level, be it as a result of added caution or perhaps habit.
No, this isn't another article about title optimization, keyword optimization, and the importance of tags. Below, I intend to present a list of problems and solutions that will help you improve search engine rankings using on-page elements from less talked about, yet still significant, angles.
To draw a parallel, envision your site as a brick and mortar store. Your off-page SEO would be equivalent to reputation management and PR efforts, while on-page is more about what your store contains: the shelves, the cash register, etc. Each element varies in importance, but all are crucial to the store’s success.
Often, business owners insist on getting quotes for off-page work only, usually content-based, without performing any on-page changes. They may feel extremely confident in their conviction that they’ve done all that could be, but the reality is often very different. A quick analysis typically yields unprofessional and/or non-SEO compatible coding and insertion, which can damage rankings. Advanced implementation of on-page SEO techniques strengthens the site and can have a quick, almost immediate effect on rankings, unlike off-page efforts which usually take longer to bear fruit and are conditioned upon many factors we cannot control.
After nearly 10 years of experience in the field, I’ve stumbled across a lot of strange situations and interesting facts. In this article I’ll round up a few key tips for effective on-page optimization. As you might deduce from the title, this piece is intended for somewhat experienced SEO professionals, so I’ve made certain assumptions about base knowledge and technical ability. If anything is unclear, feel free to ask me questions in the comments section.
The following list of on-page methods is ordered randomly, and not according to significance. Take a deep breath, and let’s dive in.
1. Internal Link Structure Doesn’t Tell a Story
2. Confusing Root Folder
3. Duplicate Content Right Under your Nose
4. Site Loading Speed
5. Full Transparency and Disclosure of Malicious Features
6. Broken Links and Lost URL Recycling
7. Correcting Mistakes and Removing Superfluous Code
8. Latent Semantic Index and Necessary Keywords
The Takeaway
The above tips should get you well on your way to optimizing your site’s on-page aspects, after taking care of basic on-page factors you should all be relatively familiar with. However, note that no site is ever ‘finished’ – maintenance should be ongoing and frequent. Through experience, we should strive to prioritize the on-page tasks and focus on those that yield the best results. Good luck, and get to work!
Got more expert tips? Sound off in the comments!
