5 Advanced On-Page SEO Strategies For Higher Rankings in 2019
Search engine optimization (SEO) will always remain the most vital website promotion and marketing method. Search engine’s algorithm is relentlessly altering which is the reason why it is continuously evolving.
The question is, how are you optimizing your online presence to make your website seen or heard? It starts with ensuring you are doing your on-page optimization well.
Now some of you might be asking, what is on page SEO? On-page SEO is the practices done to optimize your website in order to get it ranked high and earn relevant traffic.
Google has come a long way when it comes to intelligently evaluating your website and placing them where they should be. There are several advanced on-page SEO strategies you need to adopt right now, or you’ll be left behind in this noisy marketplace.
Understanding how search engines work by learning about the fundamental aspects of SEO can give your website the utmost potential for endless exposure and high rankings. With that being said, we have to keep ourselves up to date when it comes to SEO.
At the end of the day, Google is getting smarter each passing time. Your on page SEO techniques must be too.
Right now, let’s look at 5 of the advanced on-page SEO strategies for higher rankings in 2019.
1. Search Intent Optimization
The goal of search engines is to give more relevant results by trying to understand the human language. Search intent is not about who the searchers are but what they really want or are looking for online.
To adapt your content to how people perform search these days, you also need to pay attention to search intent optimization. Successful on-page SEO strategies must include understanding how to create content and deliver experiences that are appealing and relevant to your users.
This intent can be broken down into three core categories:
- Navigational – searchers are looking for a specific brand/person/entity
- Informational – where the user’s intent is to find more information on the topic
- Transactional – searchers with purchase intent
(RankReveal, Amazon, Queen Elizabeth)
(How to increase blog traffic)
(Buy Samsung Galaxy S10)
Read more on the 8 destructive on-page SEO mistakes and ways you can avoid them.
As more people are exposed to technologies, it is critical to optimize your pages for search that has a different nature. You need to analyze all the possible intents that a person reading your content may have, and try to address their needs by outlining the phase itself.
It’s pretty easy as to how Google views this:
Let’s say a searcher comes to your site and spends a full five minutes reading your content. Then he proceeds forward signaling he is satisfied with what Google has shown him. Knowing this behavior, Google gives the post a rank up.
On the other hand, if he exits your site in less than 10 seconds, this shows Google that your content is not solving his query. As a result of having a high bounce rate, you may get a rank drop.
By putting users first and putting yourself in their shoes when managing a website and content, you are giving your site the best chance of success with not only people but search engines too! Chances are, your content will be dominating Page 1 of search results in no time!
2. Semantically Related Terms
Now that you’re done identifying search intent, it’s time to start researching for keywords that will bring people in.
Back then, search engine optimization was much simpler. Pick a targeted keyword and use it on the page as much as you like. Literally anywhere. Pretty straightforward for anyone without much SEO basic to understand what needs to be done.
Then, a shift in algorithm made SEO more subtle, more complex and interesting. It is done to battle the misuse of keyword stuffing. Rather than spamming your article with the same keyword over and over again, you need to learn using related keywords. These “related keywords” are better known as “LSI Keywords” or “semantic keywords”.
Have you ever came across the word LSI Keywords? LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing. It is the key point of your ranking formula.
They are essentially a list of related keywords under the main keyword’s umbrella. Before you start wondering if it is the same as synonyms, no it is absolutely NOT. They are normally found together because they share the same context.
There are various ways as to how you can find these keywords. Just give Google a search and scroll right to the bottom of the page to see “Searches Related to….”. Now, if you’re writing an article on “online marketing”, the LSI keywords you should include in your content are “online marketing examples”, “types of online marketing” and so on.
Besides relying on the big G, you can find unlimited LSI Keywords by making use of the LSIGraph tool. To date, it has a database of over 30 million LSI keywords for you to search from, in one search. Isn’t this a much simpler way to base your keyword research on?
LSIGraph is my first stop when investigating and vetting ideas for my blog posts. It’s incredibly easy to use and saves me ample of time in content development!
Simply type in the main keyword you want to rank for and you’ll be served with a list of LSI keywords that are semantically related. In the free version, you’ll be able to enter a seed keyword and receive a list of related keywords.
Allow me to show you an example of this:
However, if you sign up for their premium feature, you’ll even get full access to the keyword search volume, cost per click (CPC), competition and Latent Semantic Value (LSV).
Like this!
What you have to do next is to identify the most suitable LSI keywords and include them in your content. By discovering terms and phrases that are related to your primary keyword, you can unlock a fresh source of targeted traffic to your site.
It’s also simple, yet highly effective to rank.
3. Topical Relevance
It doesn’t make a lot of sense for Google to rank you based just on the number of times you’ve used a keyword in your content.
Over the years, Google has evolved to serve content based on searcher’s intent and relevancy. With search engines, topical relevance is mainly used in conjunction with backlinks. Websites that carry similar content are said to have topical relevance.
There are two takeaways that you must understand when dealing with topical relevance:
- Google prefers to rank domains that have multiple pages on a given topic
- When you try to rank a specific page, Google expects to see that there are other supporting articles on the same site using it as a reference (linking to it)
Let’s look at a use-case. Say you are in a fitness related industry and for the past 4 years, you have diligently published articles related to workout. In the eyes of Google, you have built up so much authority and topic-relevance on fitness that if you were to toss up a new article today about “High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) exercises”, it would rank so much faster than your competitors.
As you can see, the writer has included supporting yet closely related articles along the lines of fitness and HIIT.
Search engines now analyze and interpret each unique query, meaning topical relevance is the key to a modern SEO strategy. Topical relevance remains important and will grow more as Natural Language Processing (NLP) improves. Always make sure to write the best possible resource on the Internet for whichever topic that you are covering.
4. Content Breadth and Depth
This is another important on-page SEO strategies you need to remember while crafting SEO-friendly content.
Content breadth = how wide the range of content or pages is. When you are discussing any topic, you need to cover all the subtopics imaginable. Only then you are able to address the intent of each and every person visiting your site.
Content depth = how deep your explanation is when it comes to a specific topic. You should not only touch the surface of the topic but dive deep into each subtopic you are covering.
If an article is researched in 10 minutes and written in 5, then it doesn’t do much good to the readers and search engines. But an article that takes a few days to research then write, is truly a valuable gem. Who knows you’re actually providing a great deal of information that even the professionals missed out on.
Remember, to deliver content that provides insights and targets a myriad of different search phrases, you need to not only ensure that it:
- It conveys authority on the topic,
- Matches the audience’s intent for this information,
- Presents in-depth information that covers the breadth of the topic space
All of us should know this by now, Google rewards in-depth and relevant content. After doing a thorough research about the topic you are going to write, it’s essential to outline your complete blog post with subheadings (keeping content breadth and depth in mind).
If you have trouble coming up with intriguing topics, head over to Blog Title Generator that’ll give you an endless supply of content topics in a matter of seconds. Just enter your keyword and you’re off for a spin!
5. Internal Linking
This is one of the on-page SEO factors that are most under-utilized and often overlooked.
From both a usability and a search engine optimization standpoint, internal link structures matter. And they matter a lot. For starters, you are in complete control of the internal linking structure of your site and by setting it up correctly from the beginning, you can ensure the maximum possible SEO benefit.
These internal links serve two purposes when it comes to on-page SEO:
1. Facilitate the process that enables search engine spiders to discover pages on your website
2. The quantity and quality of links are treated as a ranking signal. Google clearly states that “the number of internal links pointing to a page is a signal about the relative importance of that page”.
Let’s face it, it’s not easy to link back to a post you’ve written 2 years ago, let alone searching and linking to them manually (if you have hundreds of articles written). Even if you have all the time the world, it’ll probably take decades to get it done.
But I’ve found an easy solution to this very problem. Here are some action steps for you to emulate:
- Orgnanize internal link structure by topic
- Organize your internal linking strategy: home page, pillar pages, their supporting pages
- Make use of LinkVector.io to achieve a great on-page SEO profile
- Analyze your domain and observe your overall internal link profile score
- Head over to the tool and view the 3 sections of optimization: link building, improve relevancy and fixing broken links
- Manage and monitor your internal linking improvements over time
All these are done thanks to the creation of the mighty internal linking tool by the team from LinkVector. Internal linking has never been easier with this!
Conclusion
SEO is an industry, and it’s huge! Many of the world’s most successful SEO campaigns are in line with what Google is aiming at basing from their search quality rater guidelines.
To conclude, the 5 best SEO techniques that you need to implement right now are:
- Search Intent Optimization
- Semantically Related Terms
- Topical Relevance
- Content Breadth and Depth
- Internal Linking
Using these on-page SEO strategies will give your current tactics a boost and help you gain higher rankings in search engines. So, give them a try today if you’ve not done so. They are actually pretty easy to implement!
If you have other on-page SEO strategies that work for you and I’ve not included them, feel free to drop your comments below! I’d be absolutely happy to discuss with you.
Updated: 9/5/19