The Complete On-Site SEO Strategy Guide
Total Read Time: 9 Minutes
There are only two prods to the fork of SEO: on-site and off-site factors. On-site SEO includes everything we can work with that is on your website – the SEO we can create from your content, images, inter-page linking structure, and keywords that are directly on your website. All other factors that are off of your website are opportunities to strengthen off-site SEO factors.
In today’s article we are going to cover 5 Easy Steps to completing the on-site SEO for your website. The topics we’ll be covering today include everything.
Outline of The Process here:
1) Where to Find Your Best Keywords
2) Placing Your Keywords Strategically
3) Optimizing Your Images
4) Local Signals and Reputation Management
5) Optimizing Your Website Structure
Bonus: Your Content Strategy
Why is On-Site SEO Important?
Without proper on-site SEO, you’ll never be able to correctly tell Google what your website is about! Afterall, they are a search engine so they will be looking for the best search phrases to match your website. Optimizing your on-site SEO, for keywords that have a lot of monthly search volume, will in turn make you a better candidate for Google to show at the top of the search results for those high value search phrases – which means organic traffic for your website that turn into paying customers.
Without any further adieu, let’s get right into things:
1) Where to Find Your Best Keywords
Look up your best keywords by using any popular SEO Agency tools such as Ahrefs, Spyfu, Google Adwords Keyword Planner, ‘Keywords Everywhere’ Google Chrome Extension, SEM Rush, Mangools kw finder, Traffic Travis, or any similar keyword finding tools.
Your best keywords hands-down will be the ones with the highest monthly search volume. It’s also important to strategically pick ‘low-hanging fruit’ keywords, or those that won’t be difficult to rank for. After we have successfully found even a few of your best keywords, we can get started with your on-site SEO campaign immediately.
If we were looking to build a website in Las Vegas to rank for pool cleaning, we already have a couple great keyword ideas immediately by searching with the Keywords Everywhere (Google Chrome extension). As illustrated in the image above, ‘Las Vegas pool cleaners’ gets 210 searches per month.
With these newly found niche relevant keywords that have high monthly search volume (and preferably have buyers intent, or intent of action for your service), we can now build a strategy to strategically place them in your website.
Opt for finding 5-10 keywords with 50-100 searches/month or higher, we’re about to place rocket fuel on your website’s search potential!
2) Placing Your Keywords Strategically
When it comes to placing your keywords in the content of your website, including the Title/Header Tags, body text fields, encoded meta description, and website images; it is invaluable to utilize the best keywords that you found in the prior step.
In the image above, you will notice a pink box with an H3 tag for the “Content Marketing” section of this website. This is a great example of segmenting your content with various Header Tags, which run H1-H6 and stand for a ‘Heading Tag’. The act as a ‘Title’ for the next section of content.
These are great opportunities to include keywords that you want to rank for, and let Google know that your website is about a certain topic. An example of the ‘body text’ is the white text in the image above, or the supporting text of the Title/Tag above. Think of it like ‘Title & Subtitle’, with each of your paragraphs being supporting evidence for your topic.
Below is a great example of how to properly structure your Header Tags:
Structure your website content like this and you will be able to place your keywords in many various H1-H5 Tags as well as the supporting text below each header tag.
You only need to use the H1 tag once, H2 for large section breaks, and otherwise use H3-H5 for most of your keywords.
Use each of your main keywords in a ‘Title’ and ‘Text Body’ style. When you have many keywords that are very similar, you only need to use each keyword about 2x for Google to pick up your on-site topical relevance.
When your best keywords are: ‘pool cleaner las vegas, pool cleaners las vegas, pool cleaning las vegas, las vegas pool cleaners, pool cleaners, pool cleaning, and pool cleaner near me; you can easily see why you only need to use each keyword variation twice. We start to get a multiplying effect when they are so similar and we don’t want to over-optimize.
Once you’ve added each of your keywords twice (one time in a Header Tag and another in the text body below the Header), you’ll want to link some header tags to their inner service pages of your website. You also want to link from your inner service pages back to your home page, and to each other!
One important thing to mention here, is we do want the content to appear very natural and easy to read for our customers, and not robotic sounding.
Any time you backlink to another page with blue hyperlinked anchor text, it is an opportunity to use a keyword in the anchor text, to describe that page.
Don’t undervalue the importance of interlinking between your website pages using strong relevant keywords as anchor text to describe to Google and your customers what that page is about, those SEO points are worth a lot in the grand scheme on on-site SEO.
You can pack a lot into just those three words: ‘Pool Cleaning Service’, as illustrated in the image above.
Next we’ll need to quickly create the meta description:
Something as simple as the example above is pretty spot on. I like to add the state in there if I’m going for local, but again, utilize your best keywords and optimize for them slightly more than your other keywords.
Depending on how competitive your market is and how many pages, products, and services you want to rank for, you’ll want to repeat each of these steps for the inner pages of your website (that you want to rank).
3) Optimizing Your Images
Now that we’ve placed our keywords strategically throughout our website, we’re going to want to properly optimize the images on the website. There are tons of great opportunities to raise our search potential in the images including adding local signals, niche signals, inserting keyword variations multiple times in an image, and much more.
GeoTagging Photos:
When working on image SEO, it’s easy to take the images directly into a tool that will help you optimize the image all in one location. I use GeoImgr.com to optimize all my images quickly and effectively, including massive local signals meant to push Google My Business (GMB) Listings up the Map Pack rankings.
Leveraging Local Signals:
Using the GeoImgr Tool, we’re able to GeoTag your photos anywhere in the world. We can also quickly name and describe your image with two keyword variations maximizing relevance and passing local signals.
We can get pretty dangerous with this, as we can save many keyword variations in the images, and we also get the opportunity to dominate local signals:
The image above is from LocalFalcon.com and will show us our local map pack rankings among the entire city and surrounding areas that our website services.
We can see the orange and red colors are in much lower positions than where our GMB Listing address is located. Let’s work to improve these using the GeoImgr tool!
If you look closely at the image above, you will notice ‘pink stars’ located on the outskirts of the city that we service. Utilizing the GeoImgr tool, we can quickly geotarget images to those areas on the outskirts of the city to help improve our rankings in the local map pack (as shown in the Local Falcon image earlier).
After geotargeting images for local relevance, including many keyword variations, our images are fully optimized and ready to be placed on our site.
Adding Niche Relevance Signals:
When you’re creating and saving your images, make sure you have plenty of keywords that directly relate to your niche in the Image Title and Descriptions.
Upload these images to your Google My Business (GMB) page and your website to maximize your on-site SEO and place yourself in the Local Map Pack ranking box with the relevance needed to also snag the top of the organic search terms list!
4) Local Signals and Reputation Management
Now that we have our keywords strategically spread throughout various Header Tags and text body, strategically located in images, meta description, healthy interlinking between pages, with supporting unique content, there are only a few ways we can optimize from here.
If you’re focusing on local niches, you can add a NAP citation directly to your website (as illustrated by a large Franchise lead generation website below).
If you look closely at the image above, you will notice ‘pink stars’ located on the outskirts of the city that we service. Utilizing the GeoImgr tool, we can quickly geotarget images to those areas on the outskirts of the city to help improve our rankings in the local map pack (as shown in the Local Falcon image earlier).
After geotargeting images for local relevance, including many keyword variations, our images are fully optimized and ready to be placed on our site.
Adding Niche Relevance Signals:
When you’re creating and saving your images, make sure you have plenty of keywords that directly relate to your niche in the Image Title and Descriptions.
Upload these images to your Google My Business (GMB) page and your website to maximize your on-site SEO and place yourself in the Local Map Pack ranking box with the relevance needed to also snag the top of the organic search terms list!
4) Local Signals and Reputation Management
Now that we have our keywords strategically spread throughout various Header Tags and text body, strategically located in images, meta description, healthy interlinking between pages, with supporting unique content, there are only a few ways we can optimize from here.
If you’re focusing on local niches, you can add a NAP citation directly to your website (as illustrated by a large Franchise lead generation website below).
When creating a Local Citation on your website, make sure the Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) are clearly visible in text on your website. Place the information exactly the way you have it in your GMB.
Whether you’re focusing on affiliate websites or local niche websites, it’s wise to increase the reputation of the website by adding Guarantee stickers, or other social proof that will help the conversion rate of your website.
For instance, you can install a ‘Reviews Widget’ to help obtain more reviews that can help your map pack rankings significantly. At the very least, strongly tying your website to your local business address that you have listed in GMB and many other online local directories is going to pass even more local relevance to your website, beating out the competitors.
5) Optimizing Your Website Structure
Now that we have all the pieces of the puzzle we can put them together in one neat and easy to repeat framework:
- Gather your ‘best’ keywords (highest search volume, lowest difficulty)
- Use your top 10 best keywords in Header and text body on your site
- Utilize proper Header Structuring, add keywords when appropriate
- Use Main Keywords in the first sentence after each subsequent Header Tag
- Interlink between pages from various keywords pertaining to that page
- Strategic Image Optimization for niche keywords and local signals
- Strategically place images in GMB and website corresponding pages
- Strategically geotag photo coordinates on outskirts of the city for optimal rank
- Add local relevance by creating a NAP citation listing on your website
- Add social proof and increase reputation management with reviews
- Focus on Conversion Rate Optimization to obtain even more clients
That’s pretty much everything on the subject of on-site SEO for local. Remember to have your phone number and customer acquisition forms readily place early on your website for easy access to your customers.
Nobody likes having to press back on your web browser because you can’t find a way to contact the business whose website you’re on.
Some Final Thoughts:
In closing, optimizing your on-site SEO shouldn’t be something scary at all. By following the detailed guidelines we’ve laid out in this strategy guide, you are on your way to being able to quickly optimize just about any site on the web.
Don’t overthink it and don’t overstress it. There is always something more you ‘can’ do, but generally, nine times out of ten, this is more than enough to properly optimize your on-site SEO.
Bonus: Your Content Strategy
Alright, I caved. Here’s another bonus on the heezy:
Your content strategy can be huge depending on the market and niche you’re in. Having hundreds of thousands of pages with detailed keyword rich content properly optimized can amass a powerhouse website baked in high Authority, Power, Relevance, and Trust signals that Google loves to see.
All the while providing valuable content that engages the users. This is invaluable to the success of your campaign. Having natural organic traffic, of those whom navigate through many of your website’s pages ultimately place you in great light with Google because they want to provide the highest value to their users and customers, the searchers.
By providing great valuable content that keeps users engaged and active on your site longer, and overall boosting everything from Trust, to Relevance, Authority, and Power – all being passed around your website similar to a wrecking ball tearing the innards of an old city building cutting right through like butter. You never know which piece of your content will get picked up – maybe snag a link from Forbes or get featured on a major news outlet. Heck, you may even have something go viral. All of this will bring more visitors, users, and traffic to your website – people who are interested in your services and who want to be your customers.
As it goes with all marketing, there are many various channels and sometimes even just having your email opt-in feature installed on your website might provide enough business for you to accomplish your revenue goals and then some. “The money’s in the follow-up”, as they say!
Please let us know if you would like any help with your SEO campaigns as we do provide full concierge done-for-you SEO services to the highest level for SEO professionals and large agencies alike.
Thanks for tuning in fam, we’ll see ya on the next one!
– IN
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