5 Lesser Known On-Page SEO Optimization Techniques in 2017

What does On-page Optimization actually means in easier terms?

“Anything that you do on a web page/website using White-hat SEO that directly (or indirectly) increases SERP is called On-page Optimization.”

You might have already read about:

Improvising meta tags/description
Responsive design
Faster loading webpage speed
Effective keyword density
Shorter and easy URLs
Proper image optimization
Header tags
Internal linking

and lot of other things about On-page Optimization Techniques and they are crucial and go a long way in optimizing a web page to rank high on Google.

But there are few more On-page SEO techniques that are not very well known. These things are lesser known but still can have a huge impact on your organic rankings.

So should we start? Here we go:

Number 5 – Embed Interesting Content Related Videos

Videos are an easy way for any human to understand something. Human mind is wired to remember visual information more effectively compared to text.

Now the question would arise in your mind like how is embedding video in an article help in On-page Optimization, isn’t it?

You can add an image and put keywords in its alt tag and increase keyword density but what can you possibly do to an embedded video?

Well! The answer is NOTHING.

But…

We all know that Google records every piece of information about the user. Information like IP addresses, country, browser, a position at which the mouse pointer is kept or moving on a webpage, how much time he spends on a website and a lot of others.

The indirect answer lies in the above lines, and that is the time a user spends on a webpage/website.

In Example #1, suppose you write a 1000 words article, 100 readers visit that article and read it for 2 minutes each. This tells us that the average time spent by a reader on that web page/article is 2 minutes.

Now read attentively…

in Example #2 if you embed a 3-minute video in that 1000 words article. 10 users (out of 100) watch that video for about 2 minutes. All 100 readers spend 2 minutes each to read that 1000 words article and then exit. So now what is the average time spend by a reader on that particular webpage which has a video embedded in it?

“(4 X 10) + (2 X 90)/100 = 2.2 minutes”

Google gives a lot of importance to websites on which user spends the most time and then eventually rank that site higher in SERP. Embedding a video increases the average time spend by a reader on a blog and does give it a natural and pure white hat SERP boost.

After you finish writing an article and just when you’re about to hit the ‘Publish’ button, do check on Youtube or any other popular video site for an interesting video directly related to your content. If you wrote a List of Top 5 Smartphones, it’s recommended to embed review videos of all those 5 Smartphones. This will not only increase the average time spent by a user on your web page but also make it look more lucrative.

I know you would be having some doubts regarding this part, I do request you to first leave a comment below (because we tend to forget our queries later) and then continue reading the next phase of this blog post.

Moving on…

Number 4 – Reading Level

Did you ever have a chance to read some legal document? How is it? Is it easy to understand or very hard?

It’s hard, very hard to understand, all those alien words and the type of sentence framing and vocabulary a normal person isn’t used to. I bet you’d have to sit with a dictionary to understand it and still have some doubts.

Consider if all blog posts were written in such language, how many articles would you read? And which articles would you understand? Thus in such scenario, we have something called Reading Level.

Reading Level tells us how easier (or hard) is it to read certain type of text. There are different kinds of users utilizing the internet ranging from primary school students aged between 6-8 years to retired senior citizen aging more than 65.

If you’re using (or used) ‘WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin,’ you probably might have seen something like ‘Flesch Reading Ease Test’ and that’s what I’m talking about.

Flesch Reading Test determines the ease to read a certain piece of text. Higher the score an article gets in Flesch Reading Ease Test, the easier that article is to read. A score of 60-70 is considered ideal and is easily understood by 13-15-year-old kids. To get a better understanding of this concept, it's recommended to read this Wikipedia article.

If you search something on Google, it has an option to rearrange search results according to ‘Reading Level.’ Though not a major ranking factor but Google naturally does arrange results according to Reading Level, it’s very important to take Flesch Reading Ease Test Score into consideration while writing an article.

WordPress users can use WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin to measure reading level score and other important On-Page Optimization factors. Blogger users can take advantage of Readability-Score.com to measure Reading Level of their blog post.

Recently I even published an article about a tool called Grammarly which helps to weed out grammatical, vocabulary, punctuation errors and spelling mistakes from an article. This will help you to publish a near-to-perfect blog post. It helped me get a score of 99 out of 100 from 72 out of 100 just with a few clicks.

Now let’s move on to the next On-Page Optimization Technique, shall we?

Number 3 – Sitewide Link

Most of you might know that giving sitewide (sidebar) link to another website or even receiving such links is considered highest level of Spam by Google.

Why?

A sidebar link is what I call as deceptive link. It may look like just one link, but it’s not.

Consider a website ‘A’ has 100 pages, and it give sidebar link to website ‘B,’ website ‘B’ receives not one but 100 backlinks from Website ‘A.’ Since all those 100 pages have a sidebar, Google considers this as a link from every webpage of A.

Then why I have mentioned Sitewide Link as another lesser known On-Page Optimization Technique?

Here’s the answer…

If we think a little deep and narrower, what can happen if we add a link to a webpage of the same site on the sidebar. Like Website ‘A’ links an internal article in its sidebar. Putting a sidebar link pointing to one of the internal webpage is also a sort of interlink and Google 100% supports interlinking.

Using this, you can put link to an internal article(s) on the sidebar which helps you a lot. Here’s the same strategy on my site’s sidebar.

Recently I had linked to an article on one of my other website and made some changes to that article. Later on within a week, organic traffic to that article increased from 250views/day to almost 700views/day, that’s almost 280% increase. Isn’t this strategy awesome?

If you ask me, then yes it is, all you have to do is just internal link to an article on the sidebar.

Number 2 – Comments

The second most part of a webpage that has more content (meat) after the blog post itself is the comments.

Readers do leave comment on a blog post, if they truly appreciate it. Most of the comments are either one-liner or pretty generic but few readers leave a long and valuable comment.

I hope you all know that Google bot reads a blog post as well as comments on it and can differentiate between a blog post and comments. Blog posts and comments help Google understand the context of the article.

So what can you do to help comments play an important in On-Page Optimization?

Answer is, Add Keyword(s)!

Your readers may not add the keywords in their comments you are targeting, so this is what I’d suggest you to do.

Keep the comments on moderation, once you have a long or valuable comment on hold, add one or two keywords you are targeting in that comment. No! do not keyword stuff but add keywords in such a way that it would feel natural to any human. Just add keyword once or twice in the comment and make it look pretty natural.

I would request you to not keyword stuff it because it could do more harm to your site than any good at all. If you cannot make the comment look natural once you add keyword(s), I’d suggest not doing it.

Using this technique, I’ve seen almost 30-40% increase in organic traffic for the article’s comments I modified.

Now let’s move on to the integral part of this post, the #1 On-Page Optimization Technique and it is…

Number 1 – Enticing Blog Post Title

Here’s the big daddy of all On-Page Optimization Technique. Every article written under the sun about On-Page Optimization Techniques will have blog post title in it, so why miss it.

It’s obvious for you to know that post title should be max 70 characters long as Google only reads the first 70 characters in a post title while indexing.

But…

Do you know how much characters of that post title are actually seen by the user? Since we write article for humans and not bot, it’s very important to understand how much is actually shown to the human eye.

Thanks to SEO Moz for developing a tool that represents the exact way any search result is seen by user. I read about this tool first on Anurag Balagam’s site SEOUnplug.com

Click here to access the tool developed by SEO Moz.

Now what this tool does is represent the title that will be displayed the same way in Google Search Results. It allows you add your keyword and a title with that keyword in it and how many characters will be displayed in Search Results

What more can be done to a blog post title once you know how many characters will be displayed?

Place keywords appropriately.

It is advisable to post keyword at start or after two-three words in the title. I could write the title of this post in two different ways, and they are:

Title #1 – “On-Page Optimization Techniques: Top 5 Lesser Known Strategies” or

Title #2 – “5 Lesser Known On-Page Optimization Techniques to Understand in 2015”

Nonetheless, I’ll always suggest you to write post titles in such a way that your reader understands it and not for search engine bot. Your article title is like an advertisement to your blog post, so the more enticing it is, greater the CTR it will generate.

Well, talking about CTR, there’s one super secret technique I’d liked to share which I observed and learned from Imran Uddin’s site AllIndiaYouth.com that they applied during Friendship Day Event.

He added characters like ‘{Geek]*’ or ‘[New]’ at the start of the blog post title. Adding such characters do not magically improve CTR but it does looks different to the reader, and he usually clicks on it if it appears on the first page.

Now most of you might not know but if a website gets high CTR, then Google automatically increases its ranking position by 3-4 places. This technique works only when the article is ranking on 1st page of Google. One of my friend tried this same strategy, and his SERP increased from 9th position to a whooping 3rd position.

Isn’t this cool? Yeah, it is.

Conclusion

For all the basic On-Page Optimization Techniques, I’d suggest you to read this post by Brian Dean.

I do believe I was able to provide a unique and valuable article about On-Page Optimization, that would help outrank your competitors by using these white hat techniques.

I’d love to hear your response on this post for which I have been researching for over a month or so.

I’d feel great if you take some precious time and leave your valuable comment below.

Comments

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Like other Anders Norén themes, Fukasawa enables you to load new posts without reloading the page using Jetpack’s Infinite Scroll feature, and display your images in a beautiful grid with Jetpack Tiles Galleries. You can also change the accent color, upload your own logo and use the sidebar widget area (including five custom widgets) to give Fukasawa a personal touch. Interested in Fukasawa? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Gillie Gillie is an elegant business theme designed for YouTuber who want to grow their following. It includes all the key elements you need to share tutorials, course materials and make your passion a fully-fledged business. Build your user base with slider CTA overlays, testimonials, eye-catching imagery, free downloads and easy access to your channel. Scattered image placement, testimonials, and promotional text make your home page feel more like an invitation than a sales pitch. Expand your reach and create a new stream of income with a dedicated site for building your user base. There are pre-styled MarketPress and WooCommerce page layouts that enabled you to get a shop up and running without any customization, so you can start selling everything from downloadable sheet music to physical copies of your latest album. Interested in Gillie? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Issue This magazine-style design is ideal for taking your print publication to a digital audience. Issue will make it easy for your subscribers to find articles that match their interests thanks to its strong use of typography, image buttons and simple search, giving readers quick access to blog posts and articles. Issue includes space for advertisement strategically placed throughout the site. Run a special, promote a local business and generate additional income. The included contact page provides a simple way for users to get in touch. The big interactive Google map, built-in contact form and stylish social icons are both visually appealing and functional. Interested in Issue? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Make Make is a free open source builder theme that – according to its developers – has been refined over 5,198 times. Okay, that’s a lot of development time, but what makes it special? Its biggest feature is its intuitive Make Layout Engine, which is basically a page builder for WordPress. It’s designed to work like a native component of the WordPress page editor, so if you feel comfortable writing a post, it won’t be much of a learning curve getting used to building pages. You can take care of all customizations using the Theme Customizer in WordPress. Every detail, big or small, is yours to customize, including fonts, line height, spacing, even word spacing. Make is WooCommerce compatible, so if your plan is to build an online shop you won’t have any trouble selling physical products. If you want to sell digital goods, Make is compatible with Easy Digital Downloads. And if you want to add forms to your site, simply drop in Gravity Forms. This theme is also responsive, SEO-friendly and retina-ready. Interested in Make? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Seriously, when did the standard of free themes in the WordPress Theme Directory suddenly get so good? This list is a collection of our favorites. If you have a favorite that we missed, share the link below in the comments! Raelene Morey: View a list of posts by this author. Rae is the managing editor at WPMU DEV. When she’s not picking apart other people’s words or working on websites, she enjoys brunch, biking and bushwalking. Fancy some more reading? READ ARTICLE WORDPRESS DEVELOPMENT FOR INTERMEDIATE USERS: THEME DEVELOPMENT IN DETAIL READ ARTICLE WORDPRESS DEVELOPMENT FOR BEGINNERS: BUILDING THEMES READ ARTICLE 10 HOTTEST WEB DESIGN TRENDS YOU GOTTA KNOW FOR 2017 Or how about trying out our plugins and themes for free? Try (and keep) all WPMU DEV plugins, themes, services and full 24/7 support, free for an entire month - no catch! SPIRIT A professionally crafted, high-end portfolio theme with a fresh, natur LEARN MORE FIXER A flat and vibrant business theme for selling your services and standi LEARN MORE PANINO A friendly one-pager theme inspired by the delicious coffee, tasty foo LEARN MORE LUKE + SARA Let your images speak for themselves with Luke + Sara, a contemporary LEARN MORE 4 Responses Youri Regular Joe: Earn your WPMU DEV membership 51 pts: Hero points 7 pts: Rep. points LEVEL 0 Very useful post but I think you miss one of the best free themes with a pro version; GeneratePress. It’s super fast, clean code and for just $ 39,95 you can use it on unlimited sites with almost customizing every pixel. I use it on 45+ websites now :-) May 15, 2017, 5:19 pmMay 15, 2017, 5:19 pm: Link to comment Log in to Reply Click to visit Google Plus profile Click to visit Twitter profile Raelene Morey Author: Earn your WPMU DEV membership 9 pts: Hero points 644 pts: Rep. points LEVEL 6 Cool, I’ll check it out :) May 16, 2017, 2:36 amMay 16, 2017, 2:36 am: Link to comment Log in to Reply Tony Site Builder, Child of Zeus: Earn your WPMU DEV membership 242 pts: Hero points 233 pts: Rep. points LEVEL 4 I’ve recently had to look through themes for three completely different types of businesses. One site is for a café, another for custom jewelry, another for software. There are themes slightly targeted to these “vertical” applications. (Note the awesome evolution of WP here where blogging is now just a feature, not the primary application.) The more time I spend looking at themes the more I’m able to differentiate them based on immediate suitability for the application, ease of use, customizability without getting into code, and basic functionality. Some free themes are really just a tease for an up-sell. Others are so good that I feel like paying the developer, even for their free theme, just so they don’t lose interest in their work. My approach is to install a theme, spend about 30 minutes in the Customizer, and see what it takes to modify the home page, a single post page, and the various widgets and menus. If it’s not feeling good in 30 minutes then it gets uninstalled. And for me that’s really at the heart of all of this. I no longer look for great themes. I look for themes that serve the immediate purpose adequately. Theme developers get bored. They move on to the next fun project. They don’t want to look back and maintain what they’ve already created. WP changes frequently and developers are looking to create new themes, not to retrofit existing ones. So, as much fun as it is to look for great themes, the reality is that “good enough” is acceptable. We shouldn’t spend too much time looking for “great”, because we’re going to have to do this at least once per year if we’re going to keep a site fresh and functional. There is a never-ending stream of “high quality themes for 2014/15/16/17/+..”. It does help to look for consistent developers who produce a new good theme with each new WP update. In business terms, getting a completely new theme from a new developer is going to cost time=money. Developers come and go so (unfortunately) if you’re doing this for a living it probably makes good sense to align yourself with a single theme publisher where there is more than one developer. This helps to get the consistency of the vendor, not the individual. I’m really sorry WPMU DEV, but I recently spent a lot of time with Upfront/Parrot and was not impressed. This is at least the third time that I’ve given this parent theme an opportunity for a new site. It failed in many ways when editing individual pages, and was frustrating and inadequate to create a common multi-page site. I absolutely will not install Upfront or related child themes for at least another year. Perhaps by then you’ll have worked out the multitude of usability issues and overall inadequacies. Please don’t ask what the problems were. I started to document the issues in my 30 minute re-review but after spending 2+ hours with more note taking about problems than progress on a web page I decided my time needed to be redirected to current efforts rather than doing QA for someone else’s theme. And that’s precisely my point about theme selection and these frequent reviews of current themes. If you spend too much time fighting with a theme, chuck it and go for something else. Our task is to create websites, not to debug other people’s software. There are plenty of themes to choose from. Don’t waste time=money on themes that might look great and have a lot of nice features, but they’re a pain to use. Add that to your criteria for choosing a theme for your next project.

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