on-page seo Archives

On-Page SEO Checklist: Optimize Your Content and Pages for Search Engines

Posted on January 9, 2025August 5, 2024 by avintivmstg

The digital landscape that we know today is a battlefield. Every business and entrepreneur is locked in a relentless struggle for attention. With many websites competing for the same audience, the key to success lies in searchability.

On-page SEO goes beyond creating great content; it’s about meticulously crafting your website to resonate not only with your audience but with search engines as well. By implementing strategic optimization techniques, you can inform search engines precisely about your content and explain why it deserves a prime spot. The result? A surge in organic traffic – the lifeblood of any website.

This article is your ultimate on-page SEO checklist. We’ll break down the essential steps to optimize your content and pages and transform your website into a search engine magnet for digital success.

Conduct Thorough Keyword Research

Millions of conversations happen online daily, with people actively searching for information. Keyword research, the bread and butter of any effective SEO strategy, unlocks the potential to reach this vast audience. It involves discovering the exact words and phrases your target audience uses to search for information online.

When conducting keyword research, consider your ideal customers’ questions or the information they desperately seek. Keyword research helps you answer these questions by revealing the specific search queries your target audience uses. By understanding their search intent, you can craft content that directly addresses their needs and enhances your website’s relevance in their eyes.

Utilize a combination of tools and analyze the search volume, competition level, and relevance to your target audience. Tools like SEMRush or Google Keyword Planner help you identify high-volume keywords with lower competition. It ensures your content cuts through the noise and ranks prominently for relevant search queries.

Craft Compelling Content

Having a solid keyword foundation is crucial, but the quality of your content truly captivates your audience and search engines alike. Here’s how to craft content that excels:

Informative and Engaging Content

Prioritize creating informative, engaging content that genuinely addresses your target audience’s needs and interests. Focus on providing valuable insights, answering their questions comprehensively, and solving their problems. Refrain from regurgitating information readily available elsewhere. Conduct thorough research, inject your unique perspective, and strive to be the go-to source for your audience’s specific needs.

Target Keywords Naturally

Remember those valuable keywords you identified in Step 1? Now, it’s time to integrate them seamlessly into your content. Strive for a natural flow that prioritizes user experience rather than forcing the keywords. Integrate your target keywords naturally and relevantly throughout your content but be mindful not to overuse them. Include them in your title tag, headings (H1, H2, H3), meta description, and organically throughout the body text.

LSI Keywords for Context

LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords are semantically related terms that contextualize your content. They are synonyms or related concepts that further explain your main topic. Including LSI keywords demonstrates to search engines that your content comprehensively covers a subject. For instance, if your target keyword is “social media marketing tips,” relevant LSI keywords could be “engagement strategies for Instagram,” “content marketing for Facebook,” or “measuring social media ROI.”

Write Enticing Titles & Descriptions

Crafting engaging titles and meta descriptions is essential for on-page SEO. These elements act as your content’s digital storefront, enticing users to click while simultaneously communicating value to search engines.

Compelling Titles

Strive for clear, concise meta titles (50-60 characters) that incorporate your target keyword naturally. Don’t sacrifice clarity, but prioritize keywords and intrigue. Instead of a bland title like “Social Media Marketing Tips,” consider “Unveiling Powerful Social Media Marketing Strategies to Boost Engagement.” This title communicates the value proposition (increased engagement) and uses strong verbs to pique reader interest.

Optimized Meta Descriptions

Write clear and concise meta descriptions highlighting your content’s value. Focus on user benefits and incorporate a call to action (CTA) to encourage clicks. Weave your target keyword naturally and prioritize a natural reading flow. A compelling meta description may be, “Discover proven social media marketing strategies to skyrocket engagement by 20% and cultivate a thriving audience. Click to learn more!” Highlighting the benefit of a “20% increase in engagement” grabs attention and emphasizes the value users will gain.

Target Keywords

Include your target keyword strategically in both titles and descriptions for optimal relevance. Consider incorporating LSI keywords for additional context, but prioritize a natural flow to avoid keyword stuffing. While including your main keyword is crucial, consider incorporating long-tail keywords (more specific phrases) within your titles and descriptions. It can attract users with more defined search queries and demonstrate content relevance.

Structure for Readability & SEO

A well-structured website enhances user experience by effortlessly guiding readers through your content. It also assists search engines in comprehending your content effectively, boosting your SEO. Here’s how to optimize your content structure.

Headings (H1, H2, H3)

Think of your headings like a roadmap that helps users navigate your content. Use clear and concise headings (H1, H2, H3) to create a hierarchy that breaks down your content into easily digestible sections. The H1 tag is your main title, acting as your piece’s prominent billboard. H2 tags function as subheadings for critical sections, and H3 tags provide further granularity within those sections.

When crafting headings, prioritize user-friendliness. Ensure they precisely reflect the content of each section at first glance. It improves readability and gives users a quick understanding of each section, allowing them to scan for specific information they might need.

Craft User-Friendly & SEO Optimized URLs

Website URLs function as unique identifiers for your content. Imagine them as digital labels attached to each webpage, guiding users and search engines to the specific information they seek. By crafting them strategically, you can enhance user experience and boost your SEO efforts.

Readability

Imagine users scanning search results – can they instantly grasp the content a webpage offers based solely on the URL? Strive for crystal-clear and concise terms that accurately reflect the page’s content. For instance, a URL slug with “marketing-tips-for-small-businesses” offers a clear understanding of the content compared to the generic “marketing-resources-7”. This user-centric approach fosters trust and encourages clicks, as visitors are confident they’re landing on the content they seek.

Structure for Search Engines

Search engines analyze your content and evaluate your website’s structure, including URLs. Including your target and relevant LSI keywords (related search terms) within your URLs can help search engines understand the content’s theme. It could improve your website’s ranking for relevant search queries. Remember to keep your URLs concise while maintaining clarity, as search engines favor shorter URLs.

Mobile-Friendliness

With a significant portion of traffic now coming from smartphones and tablets, a clunky mobile experience translates to high bounce rates and decreased engagement – both detrimental to SEO.

Responsive website design addresses this challenge. It ensures your website’s content and layout adjust effortlessly to any screen size, from desktops to smartphones. This seamless adaptability goes beyond aesthetics; it fosters a positive user experience by keeping visitors engaged with your content.

However, the benefits go beyond user experience. Search engines generally consider mobile-friendly websites more user-friendly and trustworthy, potentially leading to higher search results rankings. A website’s mobile-friendly nature significantly influences user experience and engagement, making it a critical on-page SEO factor. By ensuring a flawless mobile experience, you improve both and position your website for tremendous SEO success.

Page Speed Optimization

Page speed is crucial for both enhancing user experience and boosting SEO performance. A fast-loading page keeps users engaged and reduces bounce rates, while search engines favor websites that load quickly.

To improve your page load time, start by minimizing HTTP requests. Each element on your page, like images, scripts, and CSS files, requires a separate HTTP request, and reducing the number of these elements can significantly enhance your page’s speed.

Another way to increase page load time is to enable compression to make your files smaller and quicker to download. It is especially beneficial for users with slower internet connections. Reduced file sizes lead to faster load times, which improves search engine rankings and enhances user experience.

Image Optimization

Images are a powerful way to enhance your content’s visual appeal and user experience. But large, unoptimized images can slow down your page load speed. Here’s how to optimize your images for both user experience and SEO:

Optimize Image File Names

Instead of generic file names like “IMG_0987.jpg,” use descriptive file names that incorporate your target keyword and accurately reflect the image content. For example, “social-media-marketing-strategy.jpg” is a much more informative file name.

Write Informative Alt Text

Alt text is essential for accessibility as it describes the content of an image to users who cannot see it, such as those with visual impairments or in cases where images do not load. Search engines also consider it when indexing your content. Write clear and concise alt text that describes the image accurately and includes your target keyword naturally.

Compress Image Sizes

Large image files can significantly slow down your website’s loading speed. Utilize image compression tools to reduce file sizes without sacrificing quality. It ensures your images load faster while maintaining a crisp visual appearance.

Internal Linking

Internal linking acts as your website’s web, strategically connecting your content to create a cohesive and informative user journey. It’s a win-win for both users and search engines.

Link Relevant Internal Pages

Imagine your website as a comprehensive encyclopedia. Internal linking allows you to seamlessly connect related articles and resources, guiding users on a path of discovery. For example, a blog post on “Social Media Marketing Tips for Beginners” could strategically link to a separate page detailing “Crafting Compelling Content for Social Media Engagement.”

Use Keyword-Rich Anchor Text

The text you click on within a hyperlink is called anchor text. When linking internally, prioritize clear and concise language enriched with relevant keywords that accurately reflect the linked page’s content. It can result in higher organic traffic and enhanced overall website performance.

Monitoring and Analyzing for SEO Success

On-page SEO requires continuous attention, not just a one-time adjustment. Consistent monitoring and analysis are essential to maintain your website’s ability to attract organic traffic and improve its search engine rankings over time.

Utilize website analytics tools like Google Search Console to track essential metrics like organic traffic, keyword rankings, and user behavior. These valuable insights offer a window into the effectiveness of your on-page SEO efforts. Are your target keywords attracting the right audience? Is your content keeping them engaged? Analyzing this data allows you to pinpoint areas for improvement and refine your SEO strategy for long-term success.

Taking Away the Challenge of On-Page with AVINTIV

We understand the power of on-page SEO in driving organic traffic. However, deciphering website analytics and translating data into actionable strategies can be challenging. With over 12 years of experience building and growing over 400+ brands through our award-winning SEO services, our team of SEO veterans at AVINTIV goes beyond the surface, uncovering hidden patterns and trends within your website’s data.

If you’re ready to unlock the true potential of your on-page SEO and achieve sustainable organic traffic growth, contact us today for a free consultation. Let’s discuss how our expertise can empower you to dominate the digital landscape!

Steps to a Google-friendly site: Your SEO Checklist

Posted on May 13, 2020November 30, 2024 by avintivmstg

Search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t a marketing buzzphrase anymore. It’s one of the most important pieces to ensuring that you have a Google-friendly site.

It’s the strategy required to connect your brand’s online presence with your intended audience, and it drives your site’s design choices as well as its content development.

There is no off-the-shelf solution to SEO; your strategy must adapt to your industry, market segments, and brand. Here’s what you need to know to put search engine optimization into context.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” SEO is the action of optimizing your website and its pages to make them rank higher within search results of Google or other search engines. Optimizing your website and its pages with SEO in mind will help you get more traffic and convert more sales. SEO is a very important piece of your marketing plan.

In our other blogs, you’ll learn about on-page SEO, off-page SEO, backlinks, and how to write content that boosts SEO.

How Does SEO Work?

One thing you need to understand about Google and other search engines is that they want their users to have the best customer experience possible. This can mean many things. For one, Google wants you to have a well-built site that abides by their rules and criteria on how they crawl your site. In seeing how well your site is built and how much authority you are in your space, they want to deliver results on the search engine page that are relevant to what the searcher is looking for. Once the user clicks on your link, Google wants your website to be of the utmost quality and delivers a great experience.

Google and other search engines will scan or crawl your site to understand what your site is all about. It mainly reads lines of code, which is why it’s very important to make sure your website is up to par, and your SEO is updated to Google’s standards. Those same crawlers bring all of that data back to the search engine to build an index. The index is then put through an algorithm that data with the query.

This will help Google and other search engines deliver more relevant results when users are searching for certain topics, keywords, or phrases. Google rewards those who have a user-friendly website that is optimized for a user’s experience.

Here are Some Actionable Steps to Make Your site Google-friendly

Provide Quality Content

No matter your industry or business model, content will always be king. If you’re like us and you don’t want your revenue stream contingent on a social media platform, then we highly recommend writing quality content.

You have to understand that most people that are going online are either searching to buy something specific or wanting to learn about a topic to eventually buy something. If you’re just focused on the sale and not providing people with value, it’s going to be very hard for you to outrank your competition.

Google and other search engines want relevant pages coming in the SERPs when a user is searching for something. The more quality and niche-focused content pieces that you have on your site, the likelier your site is to rank higher on the search engine results page. This will also create a relationship of trust and relatability with the visitors engaging with your content. This could result in that visitor making a purchase down the road.

When creating content, you want to keep two things in mind. Write your content for humans reading it, but also make sure it’s optimized properly for SEO. A good way of doing this is by providing many different types of content.

Blog posts and articles
Whitepapers
eBooks
How-to-guides
Infographics
Videos or Podcasts

You want to make sure you’re constantly updating new and fresh content. Google doesn’t want to rank a site that has 10-year-old articles that don’t have any relevance to the current date. You can also go through old posts and update the content to make it current.

One of the most important things when writing content is understanding SEO keywords and phrases. Now that you have quality content that you know someone will want to read, you must make sure that the content has relevant words and phrases so that a search engine will pick it up. You should start the article with your keywords and phrases in mind, so you can write the content around them. This will result in a higher chance of ranking higher in the SERPs.

Site Easily Accessible

Google recently stated, “build your site with logical link structure.” Every page on your website should be reachable from at least one other link.

Google also wants your site to be built for everyone. Your website should be able to be accessed and learned by literally anyone. It’s important that users who may experience some type of impairment or disability can still access your site.

Quality On-page SEO

Title Tags

Title tags are extremely important for your on-page SEO. These tags have a drastic impact on your search rankings and are visible to the average user searching Google and other search engines. The words will appear at the top of each tab in your browser for both organic results and paid ads.

Title tags explain what the page is about. Google and other search engines look at the title tag and compare that to the rest of the content on the page.

If you’re working inside WordPress, we highly recommend the Yoast SEO plugin. The SEO plugin allows you to create a custom title tag within each page very easily. Make sure to keep your title tags descriptive and short.

Think of this as you standing outside next to your competitors with billboards in your hands. What would you say about your webpage versus your competition? Make sure to add in your relevant keywords and location if you’re a local business.

Meta Descriptions

Google and other search engines determine the page’s topic and the audience that will find value through your meta description. The meta descriptions also explain what users will find on the page, which is very important when you only have a split second of their time.

When writing meta descriptions, keep in mind quality is still king (or queen). A very well-written meta description can generate higher rankings in the search results, which will create a higher click-through rate for the user.

We recommend keeping your description between 165 and 175 characters long.

Add in your brand’s name, a keyword or two, and what users will find on the page. This could be the first interaction visitors will have with your brand. Make it a great experience.

Heading Tags

Heading tags are important for on-page SEO success. Your landing pages and blog pages should include multiple heading tags, ranging from H1 to H6. The most important heading tag is the H1.

The H1 heading is usually the page title or name of the page or post, which should be used only once per page. On a category page, your H1 would be the name of that category. On a product page, your H1 would be the name of that product.

As you write your content, you can also use the H2 and H3 headings to introduce different sections of your page or content. An H2 heading is like a chapter in a book. The section you’re reading now is an H3 heading since it’s a sub-section of a chapter (H2).

It’s rare for typical content to get ‘deep’ enough to need the use of H4 tags and beyond unless you’re writing extremely long or really technical content.

Internal Links & External Links

Links are extremely important to the success of your overall SEO. Earning high-quality links from authoritative domains will strengthen your SEO greatly. We’ll go into more detail when we talk about off-page SEO.

Internal links throughout your site and blogs will deliver a better user experience for your visitors and will also enhance your SEO.

Internal linking to other pages of your site will strengthen the keywords and have Google and other search engines determine where to rank a particular keyword. The crawlability of your site will improve drastically when you internally link your pages, products, categories, and blogs. This will result in Google and other search engines showing the site’s most important pages.

When you add a new link to your homepage, it becomes easier for Google to see that you’ve updated your site with new content instead of crawling the entire site again. The more you do this, the more Google realizes that you care about the user’s experience.

Internal links also provide a higher chance of your visitors staying on your website longer. Google takes notice when there is more engagement across your site and relevant pages.

When doing internal links to other pages on your website, we recommend staying between 4-6 links. You want to make sure that these links open in the same tab so the user can see the flow.

While doing internal links to external websites, we recommend staying between 2-5 links depending on the size of your content. When these links go to external websites, you want to make sure they open up in a new tab, so the user doesn’t leave your site.

Make sure you’re using anchor text that relates to the URL that it’s pointing to so you don’t get penalized by Google.

Optimize Images (Alt Tags)

Make sure you don’t spend all of your juice on writing the content and then slack on providing high-quality images. When choosing what images to use with your website or post, make sure they are unique and page relevant. Users are much more likely to engage with an image before they begin reading a post.

With how popular Instagram is, our society is trained to look at images first and content second.

Same as social media, when using images on your site, make sure you’re using the highest quality images possible. Google and other search engines prefer higher-resolution images.

You always want to keep page speed in the back of your mind when adding images. Scale down your images below a 150KB file size to ensure that it doesn’t affect your website speed in a negative way.

When adding an image, you want to make sure that you always add in the image alt-text. An optimized alt-text gives Google another clue about what your page is about. The alt tag should be used to describe what the image is about so it’s visible to Google’s crawlers.

Page Speed

Google now expects every website that wants to rank higher to have its website built properly with an amazing customer experience with quicker page speed.

Over 47% of users expect a website page to load in two seconds or less. Even worse, over 40% of users won’t wait more than three seconds before leaving the site. Everything is customer-centric, and to win in a competitive market, you must focus on the customer and not the competition.

You can always get a FREE SEO Audit from our team to see what needs to be done to speed up your site.

Quality off-page SEO

Links and Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO is extremely important for any brand that wants to dominate its industry.

One of the most important aspects of off-page SEO is building backlinks. Google and other search engines use backlinks to indicate the quality of the content that’s linked. A site with many high-quality backlinks will usually rank higher than the same site with fewer high-quality backlinks.

There are three main types of links for off-page SEO:

Natural links are given from no action being done on your part. Once a brand or site has authority, other sites will want to link their content and pages to the brand or site. Example: Entrepreneur.com is writing an article about an entrepreneur, and they reference your company in their article, backlinking it to your site.
Self-created links are created by the business owner or marketing team when adding backlinks from sites like online directories, forums, blog comments, press releases, etc. Just make sure you stay away from black hat SEO techniques.
Manual links are acquired through planned link-building initiatives. This can be done through a variety of third-party outlets. One major one is content syndication.

Links that have the most value are the ones that Google and other search engines will be ranking the highest in the SERPs. There are quite a few variables that define “value” to Google and other search engines. Some of those variables are:

The authority of the linking site
The relevance of the linking site’s topic to the topic of the site that created the link
The “freshness” of the link
The number of other links on the linking page
The trustworthiness of the linking site

In Conclusion

There is a lot of information to go over when thinking about the perfect SEO strategy or campaign to launch. Don’t get overwhelmed, as there are a lot of great SEO agencies that can help you accomplish everything that we’ve gone over in this article. If you have any questions or would like to schedule an SEO audit, feel free to contact us.

The Ultimate Guide to Meta Descriptions

Posted on October 21, 2019January 22, 2025 by avintivmstg

A meta description is a snippet of up to 155 characters that summarize a page’s content for that exact page. Search engines show the description in the search results when a user is searching for a specific word or phrase. For that reason, optimizing your meta description is crucial for your on-page SEO success.

Search engines determine the page’s topic and the audience that will find value through your meta description. More importantly, the descriptions explain what users will find on the page.

When writing meta descriptions, keep in mind quality is still king (or queen). A very well written meta description can generate higher rankings in the search results, which will create a higher click-through rate for the user.

We recommend keeping your description between 165 and 175 characters long.

Meta Description, on-page SEO, Scottsdale SEO agency, Avintiv Media

Add in your brand’s name, a keyword or two and what users will find on the page. This could be the first interaction visitors will have with your brand. Make it a great experience.

How to create the right meta description

1. Include a call to action

Just like any type of marketing or advertising, action-oriented language is key. A meta description tells the reader exactly what they can do if they click the link. You can try out starting your meta descriptions with words like “Discovery,” “Learn,” or “Shop,” and list what they’ll get if they click.

2. Containing the focus keyword

Google will be way more inclined to use your meta description in the search results if the keyword being searched matches a part of the text in your meta description.

3. Unique to page content

One thing you don’t want to do is copy someone else’s meta description. Odds are if you’re the one taking it, their website is ranking higher than yours which puts you at a loss, to begin with. You want to focus on the user experience instead of winning at the ranking game. You want to make sure that each of your pages has a unique meta description to give the user a phenomenal experience. After all, this could be the first time they’re interacting with your brand.

4. Up to 155 characters

We recommend keeping your meta description under 155 characters. First, you should focus on the message that you want to convey. Keep it short and to the point while making sure you have your focus keyword listed in it. After you create your new meta description, show a couple of friends or team members to see if they get the point off the first glance. If not, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

5. Make it specific and relevant

People searching online are pretty seasoned by now. They’ve seen meta titles and descriptions showing up in search results for quite some time now. If you use a generic meta description, you won’t stand out at all. Users are wanting a site that cares about their user’s experience. Using descriptive words to connect with your target audience is key to having a high click-through rate.

6. Provide a solution or benefit

When writing content or creating new pages, you should always aim to provide a solution or benefit. Your meta descriptions are no different. Make sure you tell the searcher what to expect if they decide to click on your link. The last thing you want is an increase in your website’s bounce rate.

You can list the clear benefit of clicking the link and what they could potentially get in return for doing so. Valuable content is a huge benefit in a marketplace of so much noise nowadays.

If you’d like assessing how your meta descriptions are, contact us for a FREE SEO Audit.

The Ultimate Guide to Meta Titles

Posted on October 21, 2019January 22, 2025 by avintivmstg

A meta title or title tag is an HTML element that specifies the content of a web page. SERPs display title tags as the clickable headline for a given search result. Meta titles are both helpful to search engines and users. An internet user needs a website title so they can see an accurate description of what the page’s content entails before clicking on it. Search engines need a title to determine the relevancy of a web page, so it can show the user the content they’re looking for.

Title tags have a drastic impact on your search rankings and are visible to the average user searching Google. The words will appear at the top of each tab in your browser for both organic results and paid ads.

The title tag explains what the page is about. Google and other search engines look at the title tag and compare that to the rest of the content on the page.

on-page SEO, Scottsdale SEO Agency, Avintiv Media, Title Tag, Meta Title

If you’re working inside of WordPress, we highly recommend the Yoast SEO plugin. The SEO plugin allows you to create a custom title tag within each page very easily. Make sure to keep your title tags descriptive and short.

Think of this as you standing outside next to your competitors with billboards in your hands. What would yours’ say about your webpage versus your competition? Make sure to add in your relevant keywords and location if you’re a local business.

Why are Meta Titles Important?

1. SERPs Rankings

One of the biggest reasons you want to spend some time choosing the right meta title is two-fold. First, you want to make sure the SERPs are ranking you correctly but second, you want the title to be clearly relevant to what they’re searching for. You can rank high but have no conversions because your title doesn’t match what the user is searching for.

2. Social Networks

When posting your phenomenally written blog or web page on social media, you want to make sure that it’s a title people will want to click on. This is the same as searching online. You have a split second to capture someone’s time on social media before they scroll right past your post. Make your title catchy but relevant to what they may be wanting to see.

3. Web Browsers

Your title tag will show up at the top of your web browser. More than likely, your user has many tabs opened up at the top of their website browser. A good way to make sure they don’t accidentally close the browser window is by clearly listing what the title is.

How do I write a good Meta Title?

1. Write unique titles for every page

Just as your website has unique pages, your title needs to be unique to that page as well. Your title should reflect exactly what’s on that specific page. You want your title to catch the user’s eye but also to make sure that search engines know what that specific page is all about. Make the title super easy to read so there is no confusion for the user or a search engine.

2. Watch your title length

Each search engine has its own number of characters they’ll display in the title tag. Google and other popular search engines will usually display 50-60 characters for a title tag in the search results before cutting it off. You should have for right around 50 characters.

Make sure that your most important keyword is toward the beginning of the title. Avoid using ALL CAPS for your titles as it makes it harder for search engines to read.

If your brand name is smaller, you can always add a “| brand name” at the end of your title to get more brand authority.

3. Use your target keyword but don’t overdo it

Yes, it’s true that keywords in your title help you rank higher in the SERPs. There is a right way of adding keywords into a title and the wrong way of doing it. You want to make sure that you’re only adding in keywords that have to do with that specific page. It wouldn’t look good if you ranked for a keyword that has nothing to do with that specific page.

It’s a great opportunity for you to rank higher when you include the main keyword(s) of that page since Google’s algorithm uses the title tag as one of the main ways it determines what the page is about.

This helps Google determine how relevant that specific page is to what the user is searching for. This is another reason you don’t want to add too many keywords in the title so Google doesn’t get confused about what the page is truly about.

4. Put important keywords first

Just like anything else in life, you have a split second to catch a user’s attention. Adding keywords closer to the beginning of your title tag may have more impact on them clicking the title and also search rankings.

Research has shown, people may scan little as the first two words of a headline to tell if it’s worth reading or not.

Good example: Buy CBD Oil | CBD Hemp Oil | Pure CBD Oil | Goat Grass CBD

Bad example: Brand Name | Major Product Category – Minor Product Category – Name of Product

5. Write with your customers in mind

As you now know, title tags are very important to SEO and search rankings. Also, remember that it is even more important to get users to click on the title. Make sure you think about the user experience when you’re creating title tags and meta.

6. Leverage your brand

If you’re trying to get your brand more well-known, it’s smart to add your brand name or site title to your title tag. We recommend putting your brand name or site title at the end of your title.

Learn more about Meta Tags or if you’d like us to take a look at your SEO, contact us for a FREE SEO Audit today!

The Ultimate Guide to Meta Tags

Posted on October 21, 2019January 22, 2025 by avintivmstg

One of the most important aspects of your on-page SEO is meta tags. Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a page’s content to search engines and crawlers.

Meta tags provide more relevance syncing between your content and a search query searching for similar content. You will get higher rankings if the relevance of your meta tag matches the user’s satisfaction.

These are common meta tags that should be on every page of your website. It’s a small list but they pack a lot of power for your basic SEO needs.

Canonical Tags

A canonical tag is a way of telling Google and other search engines that a specific URL on your site represents the master copy of a certain page. Using the canonical tag prevents issues caused by content appearing on multiple URLs.

If you have a page with multiple URLs or different pages with similar content, search engines might see those pages as duplicate versions of the same page.

Example: you might type in “www.google.com” or “https://google.com” and it’ll point to the same page. Google sees “www” and “https://” as duplicate versions of the same page so you need to make sure you identify which is the original source page.

For this exact reason, it’s important to include a canonical tag, which tells Google to disregard other content other than this page. This is especially important for your homepage.

Robots Meta Tags

The robots meta tag is an HTML tag that gives instructions to web crawlers to either index or no-index a web page. If you don’t specify a robot meta tag, search engines will choose the default index.

Here are a couple of common robot meta tags

Follow – The search engine crawler will follow all links on the web page
Index – The search engine crawler will index the whole web page
Nofollow – Stops Googlebot from following links on this page.
Noindex – Stops the page from being indexed.
Nosnippet – Stops a text snippet or video preview from being shown in the search results.

There are many reasons you could use robots meta tag. You could input the “nofollow” rule if your web page has a comments section. Due to how many spam comments can come in, you can eliminate search engines from following any links left in the comments section.

The most popular attribute used is the “noindex” tag. A lot of developers use the “noindex” tag when they are developing a brand new website on a development server and they want to make sure Google doesn’t index the site too early.

You can also use a “noindex” tag if you have gated content that you don’t want users to be able to find through search engines.

Title Tags

The most important meta tag we’ll be discussing is your title tags. These tags have a drastic impact on your search rankings and are visible to the average user searching Google. The words will appear at the top of each tab in your browser for both organic results and paid ads.

The title tag explains what the page is about. Google and other search engines look at the title tag and compare that to the rest of the content on the page.

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Meta Descriptions

Search engines determine the page’s topic and the audience that will find value through your meta description. More importantly, the meta descriptions explain what users will find on the page.

We recommend keeping your description between 165 and 175 characters long.

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Add in your brand’s name, a keyword or two and what users will find on the page. This could be the first interaction visitorsTitle will have with your brand. Make it a great experience.

Heading Tags

Heading tags are a necessity for any success with on-page SEO. Your landing pages and blog pages should include multiple heading tags, ranging from the H1 to the H6. The most important heading tag is H1.

The H1 heading is usually the page title or name of the page or post. On a category page, your H1 would be the name of that category. On a product page, your H1 would be the name of that product.

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It’s extremely rare for most content to get ‘deep’ enough to need the use of H4 tags and beyond unless you’re writing extremely long or really technical content.

If you’d like assessing how your meta descriptions are, contact us for a FREE SEO Audit.

What is On-page SEO?

Posted on August 29, 2019January 22, 2025 by avintivmstg

You might have heard the term SEO but a lot of you want to know, “What is on-page SEO?” On-page SEO is the practice of individual webpages in order to rank higher in search engines, earning more relevant traffic. On-page refers to the content and HTML source code of a webpage that can be optimized, versus off-page SEO, which refers to links and other external signals.

One of the biggest factors that Google makes as it becomes more sophisticated is relevance. How relevant is your page or content to the search query? Google doesn’t want to give its user a bad experience by showing a page that has nothing to do with what they were wanting.

Think of it like you’re at a restaurant (Google), you order a hamburger (search for local hamburger restaurant) and the server (search engine) delivers a taco (local taco restaurant). Tacos are still delicious but it’s not what you ordered. Get the point…

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With how fastpaced the world operates today, it takes a user about 50 milliseconds (ms) to form an opinion of your website. Even scarier is the average of 6-8 seconds before a visitor leaves your website. The more relevant and interactive your website and content are, the more the visitor will engage with your site. It’s all about the visitor’s experience.

What You Need to Know about On-page SEO

There are more companies now than ever before. It seems like everyone is blitzing to either launch a new online business or carry expand their business to online sales. Google averages over 40,000 searches every second, which equates to 1.2 trillion searches worldwide per year.

What are you doing to optimize your online presence so your brand’s voice can be heard? It all starts with the basics. You can’t plop your brand-new dream house on a piece of land without drafting the blueprint and then building the foundation. On-page SEO is the foundation for your SEO campaign. On-page enhancements will provide peak performance to your website which will result in greater visibility to your target audience.

Over the years, Google SEO has changed quite a bit. We’re currently working with ranking algorithms that include Hummingbird, Panda, Rankbrain and semantic importance within the page.

Meta Tags

One of the most important aspects of your on-page SEO is meta tags. Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a page’s content to search engines and crawlers.