With so many significant changes in the world of SEO over the last year, it can be difficult for non-professionals to keep track of what is still relevant and what isn't anymore.
Fortunately, although Google has made significant changes to its algorithm with Humming bird, best practices for webmasters have not changed: Big G wants us to provide the best content and the best user experience possible.
But what does this mean in 2014? What on-page factors are still relevant for both readers and search engines?
1. A frequently updated blog with great content
This is perhaps the most important rule of all. Today, more than ever, the SEO is not just a technique. The algorithms of the search engines are increasingly sophisticated in determining the quality of content on your site.
Just a few years ago, blogs are not meant as a way for companies to publish content, build brand reputation, grow their audience, increase visits and build the authority in their field. Now they are an absolute necessity.
In my personal experience, I saw an average increase of more than 90% of the organic search traffic to the websites of companies that consistently publish content on their blogs, with helpful articles and insights valuable to users. For more information on how important it is to a blog for SEO and beyond, you can read "why is it important to have a blog and not just for SEO" and "short 50 SEO tips for your blog".
2. integration of Google Authorship
The Authorship Markup is the way Google to verify content authors to establish skills (and authority) of each individual author. This introduces the concept of author rank,the idea that authors with Google integrated Authorship gain credibility or "rank"based on their publication history. Currently it is unknown whether the author reallyexists, but rank is a pretty safe bet that Google will eventually implement it as a factor in ranking, if not already done.
Other benefits of Google integration Authorship are enticing. Perhaps the biggest advantage today is the authorship markup, which translates in Google profile + imageof author that appears next to the result, within the search results page. Studies haveshown that this helps to draw the eye, thus attracting more clicks to your site. Here'swhat it looks like:
Google markup authorship
To implement the Authorship Markup connect your site/blog to your personal profile on Google +. You don't know how to do it? Read "how to put the photo author in Google's search results".
3. optimized URL
We're still seeing the Google preference for keyword-rich URL static, and I don't see this in a big change for 2014.
Best practices for URLs are:
Under 100 characters in length;
Static URL and containing the keywords (so:/service-seo/and not so:/post.php? post =& 1207 action = view);
Words separated by hyphens (so:/service-seo/not so:/service_seo/or:/serviceseo/);
The URLs must include no more than 3 sub-directories;
The structure of your URLs must reflect that of the site, using folders and sub-folders.Here is an example:
Homepage: www.academyomakingmoney.com/
Level 1 page: www.academyomakingmoney.com/category/
Level 2 page: www.academyomakingmoney.com/category/sub-category/
Tier 3 page: www.academyomakingmoney.com/category/sub-category/article/
4. Title Tag
The title tag has always been one of the most important ranking factors, and remains so for 2014. Your title tag is the clickable text that appears in the search results (almost always, instead Google rarely generates it in a completely automatic way), so itsoptimization is important for reasons that go well beyond SEO: improve your placement in search results, but if it is not, you will have less chance to be clicked.Here's how it looks:
title tag
When choosing your title tag, make sure you include the main strategic keyword in a natural way. It is usually advisable to use your company name as part of the title tag of your homepage (e.g.: "Studio hakan: services and web marketing courses"). For internal pages, include it at the end of the title tag rather than at the beginning, preceded by a separator (– or |), this will help branding. Here's an example: "SEO Course in hakan-Studio ".
Your title tag should ideally be less than 65 characters, and if you want to go with the local keyword, be sure to include the name of the city (e.g. "SEO Course in New York –Hakan Study").
5. Heading tags
Header tags (heading) are still one of the key factors that Google uses to crack what isthe content of the page. Are HTML elements which serve to define the main title andsub-titles in web pages and are useful for improving the reading experience by splittinga paragraph text and paragraphs. Here is how they are made:
Heading Tags
Where <h1>defines the most important item, <h6>defines the least.
Fortunately, if you know how to use appropriate headers to improve the reading experience, you can apply the same principles to what they like to search engines.
Every page should have one – and only one – H1 tag. Your H1 tag is the main topic of the page, and should be the first item on the page. In fact, the H1 tag often will automatically become the title tag, depending on what software you're using CMS (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, Prestashop, etc.), and what plugins you haveinstalled custom SEO. This is generally considered a best practice.
Break up long blocks of content with relevant headers will ensure that your readers can
quickly look up the text, and will also help Google to understand the progression of content.
6. Alt tags in images
The alt tags in your images are still important for SEO, not only reinforce the relevancewith the textual content on the page, they give you also the possibility to classify themin Google Image Search. But if some time ago the alt were commonly thought of as a tool for SEO (i.e. were filled with keywords), today we must be well aware of their use,i.e. mainly as a tool for the visually impaired.
Where appropriate, the alt of images must contain the keyword. If you find that the images are not relevant to the keyword, then maybe it's time to rethink what picturesyou're choosing, rather than trying to "make them look".
It is also useful to assign to pictures of relevant file names, to give Google clues about the subject of the image. Try to rename your image files with names that describe the subject of the image (for example: seo-header-on-page.jpg instead of:IMG00051.JPG).
7. Keywords in content
This is a factor which is much changed in recent years. Once they talked about keyword density, which today goes forgotten. The correct integration of key words in the textwill be the natural result of a good copywriting.
The keywords must be used in a natural way, i.e. without forcing reading by repeating them too many times, well distributed throughout your content. Keyword variations(known as LSI keywords) are also important (see point 9). Main article: read these 14SEO copywriting tips and these other 10 tips.
As with all other points in this post by following these guidelines you will be well on your way to attract both human visitors and search engines.
8. Content Depth
We are definitely seeing a trend of Google to prefer the more "meaty" content,otherwise known as the "long form" content. Anyone is able to throw down a post by 4rows and optimize it for one or two keywords, and Google is well aware of this.
If your site is not currently well positioned, and primarily consists of short articles, it might be time for a renewal of the current content. Make sure your content is well-written, and bear in mind that the blog post should normally have a minimum of 1,000words. This will be even more important in the future to have hopes of ranking forGoogle Search In-Depth (for now only available on Google.com).
9. Focus more on issues and less on keywords
This point may seem quite strange, we have always focused our SEO efforts basedsolely on the concept of "key words", but with the update Hummingbird we are witnessing a gradual shift towards the concept of "subject". Rather than focus onoptimizing a page for one or two specific keywords, we should think of addressing aparticular topic or theme.
This in practice means that our pages will be optimized for multiple related keywords.Although this has always been a best practice in the SEO industry, has often beenignored in favor of hitting one or two specific keywords.
Organize your content for themes is not only good for SEO, but it's also useful toenhance the experience of your readers, and thus attract incoming links, and can significantly raise the number of shares on social networks.
Conclusion
As you can see, some important SEO elements actually have not changed much over the years, while others Yes. Maybe it's more our understanding of their importance to be changed, but the goal of Google remained the same during all these years: to provide the most important and relevant content for people who are looking for them.
Make sure that your keywords are clearly identifiable in the content, URL and alt tagsof images is not difficult (although it takes time), and will increase the chances of goodpositioning of your content. But the most important thing of all is be sure to publish content that provide real value and on a regular basis. This is the Foundation of on-page SEO today.
Would you like to help improve this post? If you think I've forgotten something, write your fundamental point for SEO on-page in the comments below!
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