Basic Technical Elements You Need to Know to Enhance SEO Performance
Search engine optimization (SEO) has evolved into one of the most important web marketing strategies that any business with an online presence should have.
Among the SEO elements that can optimize a page are several technical on-page elements that can significantly increase a site’s overall optimization.
Meta Title:
The meta title tag on a website is the most important element that will impact the SEO on your page.
The meta title is what shows up as the part that someone can click on when they enter the keywords into a search.
It should contain the keywords as well as the general idea of your page.
The purpose of the meta title is to communicate to the user in less than 60 characters how relevant your website content is to what they are looking for.
The title will hugely impact the ranking of your site in search engine results as well as the likelihood that people will visit and click on your site, thus generating further visibility for your business.
Meta Description:
It is just as important to have a good meta description as this is the text that the user will read under the meta title that tells the user an idea of what they will expect to find on your site.
If you do not choose to add a meta description, what happens is that the search engine will automatically pull content from your page to generate one which decreases the likelihood of the information that you would want to appear first to a reader will actually be what they see before they click on your page.
Schema Markup Tags:
Search engines use schema markup data to determine how relevant your content is in relation to what the user is looking for.
Essentially, it is reading your website and looking for certain elements.
Making it easier on the search engine, who is relying on microdata to do this “markup,” will increase the likelihood of your content appearing before your intended audience.
However, implementing data markup does not directly affect your ranking on search engine.
Data markup allows search engine to pitch your website as an answer to a query in a more accurate manner, which brings high quality traffic to your website.
See how Google explains it!
Everything in web marketing is moving towards the social environment and structuring data accordingly is very important.
Considering the layout of photos and the meta title and the meta description to line up somewhat like a Facebook layout, can be extremely helpful.
You want to have the key image on the left, with the meta title at the top right, and below the meta title is the meta description, thus making your tags easily communicated throughout social media and further increasing the visibility of your site.
Twitter Cards:
The use of Twitter cards allows users to extend beyond the limitations of a typical tweet by using this format and allows users to communicate their message in a limited amount of characters, but enough to give a summary.
The Twitter card allows information to be clicked on and then communicated and shared throughout social media.
Website Loading Speed:
Website loading speed is also extremely important to the overall search engine optimization.
Your website can potentially rank lower due to slower loading speed.
Because it affects the users’ experience, sites with slower loading speeds will be naturally put lower on the search results than sites with faster loading speeds.
Some tips for increasing site loading speed are:
- to compress images or even host them separately
- to load fewer objects that are hosted externally
- to use a compress and minimize code.
Duplicate Content:
Thoroughly check your site for duplicate content.
Having content appear multiple times on a site makes it difficult for the search engine to decide which is most important and thus causes lower rankings as well.
See what Google says about duplicate content.