February 9th, 2018

Improving your on-page SEO strengthens your inbound marketing efforts immensely by helping you attract the right visitors to your website. Structuring your pages to help search engines understand who you are, what you do, and what you’re writing about increases the organic rank of your websites and search engines results pages (SERPs). Therefore, it may be in your best interest to optimize your website with relevant and target keywords.

Before marketers can choose the best keywords for their websites, they first need to understand who they are optimizing for. Understanding the topics that show importance to customers establishes the first step to narrowing down the keywords that will draw them to your site.

Including a healthy mix of head terms and long-tail keywords is important. Head terms refer to short and simple keywords while long-tail keywords typically contain three or more words. Here’s a quick example:

• Head term: SEO tips
• Long-tail keywords: How to optimize your website

Modern SEO strategies should have a balance of head terms and long-tail keywords. You’ll be better off if you mix it up and don’t put all your keywords in one place.

Therefore, avoiding keyword stuffing is crucial when optimizing your website. Keyword stuffing means repeating keywords in the text, whether it’s in titles, heading, or descriptions. In terms of SEO, search engines have been developed specifically to detect it. Keyword stuffing looks poor and is not search engines don’t approve it.  This will result in penalties.

Furthermore, search engines love when you feed them clues about your page. Including keywords in the image description of an on-page image helps accomplish this. Avoid naming files a random combination of numbers and letter and name them something relevant to your page. If you help search engines out by using descriptive file names, it will have a positive effect on your on-page optimization.

Content marketing guru Marcus Sheridan advises marketers to use different keywords to say the same thing when it comes to SEO strategy. For example, including the keyword phrases, “structuring your on-page content” and “SEO optimization” in your company’s blog allows search engines to recognize both without being penalized. Thus, creating posts optimized for both increases the odds that customers will find your content, no matter how they search for it.

Keyword optimization is the first step towards ranking high in the SERPs. Not only does it help you rank well, it creates opportunity for future clients and success. Applying these keyword tips to your website will certainly help you do just that.