How to do this Growth Hack and what can it do for you?
Before you get started, you can start getting information for free on your website. This will give you a good idea of what you are doing well and what your competitors are doing better:
Traditionally, important off-page factors (backlinks, returns, domain age, etc.) can help you overcome a poor on-page experience.
This is no longer the case today, almost half of the factors that affect your ranking depends on On-Page Factors.
Expected results of this Growth Hack
- Growth Hack Type: Checking and improving your website's SEO settings
- Expected results: Better visitor experience, better search engine rankings, lower bounce rate
Why use this Growth Hack?
On-Page SEO is important because it helps search engines understand your website and its content, as well as determine if it is relevant to a user's query.
As search engines become more sophisticated, the focus is on relevance and semantics in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Google, with its plethora of complex algorithms, is now much better at:
- Understand what users are really looking for when they type a query.
- Provide search results that meet the user's intentions (information, purchase, navigation).
Adapting to this evolution is essential, and you can do so by ensuring that your website and its content - both what is visible to users on your web pages (i.e. text, images, video, or audio) and elements that are only visible to search engines (i.e., HTML tags, structured data) - are well optimized according to the latest best practices.
You can't just ignore On-Page SEO because you'll have more control when you optimize elements on site - as opposed to off-page SEO which consists of external signals (i.e. backlinks).
If you work hard to implement “on-page” strategies, you will see an increase in traffic and your presence in search engines.
Practical Chrome extension for this Growth Hack
If you don't want to go into the full details of this growth hack and only want to validate the elements of a checklist for your On-Page SEO, know that a Chrome extension exists.
You can download it at this address: SEO Minion on the Google Store
Once installed, all you have to do is click on the extension to see the data of your open page including a dedicated analysis for On-Page SEO:
- Headlines
- URLs
- Meta Description
- Page Title Length and Relevance
- Structure of titles H1, H2,... H6
- Picture (ALT Text)
- Open Graph, Twitter Graph,
- etc...
You can even download all the images on a page in 1 click!
It is a Chrome extension Free to have (ABSOLUTELY) to control your On-Page SEO.
How do you do this Growth Hack?
You can simply use the extension I recommended just before to get to grips with each of the elements below 1 by 1 (the order does not count):
- Use a short and descriptive URL
- Write a compelling title tag
- Write a compelling meta description
- Links to relevant resources
- Optimize your images
- Add schema markup for rich snippets
- Add internal links
1. Use a short and descriptive URL
Short, descriptive URLs help researchers understand the content of the page in the SERPs.
Most of the time, the easiest way to create short, descriptive URLs is to define your main keyword as a slug URL.
This is what I do in the majority of my pages (except the very first ones I created, because I was not aware like you are probably today 😀).
It's useful to keep URLs short because long URLs tend to get truncated in SERPs. In addition, short URLs will allow you to be more agile about the content of the page.
2. Write a relevant title tag
Like URLs, title tags appear in Google search results and help people understand the content of the page.
The tip for title tags is to include your target keyword.
However, this does not mean “stuffing” irrelevant keywords because the most important thing is to write something convincing that will make people want to click.
Most of the time, the title of your article or page will do the trick.
3. Write a compelling meta description
Google shows meta descriptions in SERPs about 1/3 of the time.
Here are these top tips for creating a compelling meta description:
- Expand the title
- Add search intent elements
- Use an active voice
- It is common to see the mark of not exceeding 120 characters --> personally 160 characters work very well with several places of No. 1 on Google with 160 👍
- Include your main keyword
4. Links to relevant resources
Links to other internal resources help visitors navigate your website.
But what about external resources?
Here is what Told Google:
“Linking to other websites is a great way to provide value to your users. Often, links help users learn more, verify your sources, and better understand how your content is relevant to the questions they are asking.”
Does that mean you have to include internal and external links in your content all the time?
No Just Add Links If and When It Makes Sense.
5. Optimize your images
The big black spot of many of the websites I analyze: the images!
In fact, it is often a disaster and the owners do not realize that these “beautiful generic images” of Photostock are often the origin of a slow website and by repercussion: a high bounce rate. (TinyPNG gold iLoveIMG Are 2 free tools that I love)
Beyond image size and weight, there are a few other image optimizations you should do page by page:
- Name the images in a descriptive way. Don't use generic image file names like IMG_1234567789.png or Screenshot-2021-02-21. Use descriptive file names like pirate-funnel.png or growth-hacking-process.jpg.
- Add descriptive alt text. Alt text replaces an image on the page when the page doesn't load. It is also useful for people using screen readers. To Find Out More, click here.
6. Add schema markup for rich snippets
Schema markup helps search engines better understand your content. But it can also have a huge impact on how your page appears in the SERPs.
Here is a page with schema markup that is currently classified for “pizza dough recipe.”
Here's what it would look like without schematic markup:
Do you see the difference?
Schema markup can increase click rates and bring more traffic to your website.
The implementation is also not very technical. Use Google tagging assistant gold This Schema markup generator To do it easily.
READ MORE: Set up featured snippets to gain visibility
7. Add internal links
Internal links help Google understand the content of your page.
They also help search engines and users navigate your website.
It's also helpful to add internal links from other relevant pages whenever you post new content.
A great tool for this is the one created by Ahrefs Which gives you all the opportunities for internal links:
- Create an account Ahrefs Webmaster Tools Gratuitous
- Browse your website with Site Audit
- Access the link opportunities report
- Add a “Target Page” filter and set it to your new page.
Add internal links to these pages whenever it makes sense.
