On-Page SEO: Optimizing pages and Website Content for Search Engines
On-page SEO is the factors that determine the optimization or failure of your website on search engines seen from its own website.

That is, you will do an optimization on your own website.

On-page optimization aims to make search engines know whether your website is relevant / in accordance with what is sought by the user. And truly the best quality.

Therefore, the key is 2 things: relevant, quality.

Without fulfilling both, it is impossible to get rank 1 in the search engine.

In this article, we will study in any part of the website you must implement on-page optimization and how to do the optimization.

On-page SEO concept

In SEO, the on-page optimization concept is a MAIN thing that you must understand.

There are still other optimization categories besides on-page (off-page, discussed in the next chapter), but without implementing on-page optimization it will be useless to do other strategies.

The essence of on-page SEO is simple ...

... you will optimize the website so:

High useful for visitors
Facilitate visitors in conducting exploration
Visitors feel at home in it
Search engines understand the structure of your website
After reading these 4 points, you might ask,

"I am optimizing for search engines, why focus on visitors?"

The answer, this ...

Search engines can find out whether visitors are satisfied with the page they are visiting.

Imagine if you are looking for something on Google, then go to one of the websites. Apparently the contents are not satisfactory. Most likely after a few seconds you will click the 'back' button to search for another website. Yes, right?

Because Google certainly wants to display websites that satisfy users, your website must satisfy visitors.

Here's how:

Optimal Website Components

There are several factors that affect the satisfaction of website users. We will discuss one by one from each of the following categories:

Content
Keyword
Title
URL
Meta description
Picture media
Outbound link
Internal link
Social sharing
Website speed
1. Top quality content
If you notice, content is the main component in the website page. That is, content holds the biggest role in on-page optimization.

It is impossible to get rank 1 without having quality content.

... but, what is quality content?

These are the characteristics:

Provides maximum benefits for visitors
More prominent than other similar content
Listed for a long time by visitors
Generating feelings (amazed, entertained, happy, etc.)
Resolving visitor problems
That's 5 criteria for quality content.

If you want to get rank 1 on a search engine for a long duration, then your content should meet those five things.

Without exception.

You also need to know that Google openly states that they oppose content that:

Thin, in other words not weighty
Does not provide added value to the reader
Not original
Makes the reader frustrated (because the quality is low)
If your content falls into one of the categories above, it will be very difficult to get a high ranking.

Worse, content like that is at risk of penalties!

Google and other search engines actively update the algorithm. In the future, they will increasingly understand the quality of content.

So, be careful when publishing content for your website.

2. Keywords that are popular and right on target
Try to remember back last time when you used Google ... you wrote a few words as the keyword.

Then Google displays the results related to the keyword earlier.

The more relevant the keyword, the higher the ranking.

So, optimizing a page means optimizing keywords.

Every page on your website must be optimized for at least 1 keyword.

How?

By including keywords in your website page.

Exactly inside the content, in the title, and in the URL.

Thus, search engines and visitors will immediately understand what the contents of your website pages are.

One more thing…

You have to understand what is meant by a keyword.

For example, someone does a search on Google with the keyword "buy an iphone".

What do you mean by that?

Does he want to buy an iPhone or does he want to read articles about how to buy an iPhone? Hmm ... looks like the first one makes more sense.

Google also understands this.

So that Google will display pages that sell iPhones.

Therefore, it is impossible to get a high ranking if you provide articles on how to buy an iPhone.

3. The title of the page that invites clicks
The easiest way to optimize titles is to include the main keyword that you are looking for.

For example the keyword "learn SEO", then the title contains the word "learning SEO".

But that's not enough ...

... the most important thing in the title is not keyword optimization, but optimization of human interest.

If the title you make is able to attract many visitors, the ranking will increase.

The logic is this:

Suppose there are 2 competing websites, ranked 1 and 2.

It turns out that rank 2 gets more visitors than rank 1 ... because the titles he makes are more interesting, so many click.

Google wants to prioritize the best results, then the website ranked 2 will be raised to the first rank.

Make sense?

Because the title is the first page element to read in the search results, then by optimizing the title the number of clicks can increase.

4. Short, descriptive URLs
Although the effect is not large, URLs containing keywords can affect the ranking of your website in search results.

Here is an example of a bad URL. Avoid using URLs like this.

domain.com/?p=94

A good URL is always relevant to what the page contains.

Example:

The page about ‘on page seo’> domain.com/on-page-seo/

'Macbook Pro' product page> domain.com/laptop/macbook-pro/

Make a URL that describes the content, even better if it contains the main keyword.

5. The Meta description is descriptive and invites clicks
The Meta description is 1-2 sentences that appear in the search results:

The Meta description doesn't really affect your page ranking.

Also, it doesn't always appear in search results. Because Google now uses sentences more often in content as page descriptions.

Even so, there is no harm in this section being optimized.

(Moreover, it doesn't take long)

With an attractive meta description, the chances of other people to visit your website will be higher.

Like the logic, the more clicks from humans = the better the ranking.

6. High-quality and optimal-sized images
Imagine a website page that is 100% text-filled, must be very boring. Therefore, images and / or videos are added value.

Strangely, many people think that images are detrimental ...

…not true.

There is no loss in using multimedia in content.

Except, if the amount is very large so that the computer visitors to your website are stuck. Or if it has nothing to do with content.

Some tips:

Use images that relate and explain content
Use the right type of extension so the file size doesn't swell
Make sure the image resolution is as shown
Compress the image so that it is optimal
Add the alt attribute when placing the image
7. References in the form of links to other websites
This point is very important especially for new websites.

Google, as an information center, of course wants to provide reliable content. So that the information does not mislead many people.

This is why large websites are easier to enter the first page ...

... because his reputation has been built up for a long time.

Well, because your website is still new, Google considers its contents to be untrustworthy. Because it has not been trusted, it will be more difficult to get a high ranking.

Here the reference link can help.

Links to other websites whose reputation is good and relevant will make your content's reputation better. .

An analogy like this:

Try taking one of the non-fiction books.

In the book there must be a bibliography or footnotes. It contains information on quotes from other sources.

Books without quotes from other sources will be considered untrustworthy.

8. Internal links to facilitate navigation
There is a term whose name is bounce.

Bounce means when someone enters your website, then he immediately goes out without doing anything.

If the bounce rate of your website is high, it could be because:

The quality is disappointing
Navigation is difficult
Remember again, websites that disappoint visitors won't get high rankings.

So that the bounce rate can be a factor that shows visitor satisfaction.

One effort to reduce the bounce rate is to install internal links (links between pages), so that visitors easily visit other pages on your website.

9. Can be shared to social media
At present Google does not consider the number of shares as a determining factor for ranking on Google, but that does not mean that social sharing is not important.

On the contrary.

Social shares have an indirect impact on website ranking.

This is the benefit of social share:

Additional visitors
Branding, your website will be known
Satisfaction factor increases (if your website can satisfy visitors)
Some of the visitors will provide backlinks (discussed further in the next chapter)
Compared to SEO, social media will build your website brand faster.

This is what has an effect on SEO.

When your website is known, people will search your website through Google ...

... because many are searching through Google, meaning that the reputation of your website will be considered good by Google.

Therefore, install the share button on your website.

Then use the popularity trigger element to create interesting content to share.

10. Response speed and speed resistance
A faster website will get a better ranking.

In the article written by Billy Hoffman at MOZ, it appears that websites that are in the top rank have a shorter response time.

Time to First Byte (TTFB) means the time needed by the website server until the user gets the first 1 byte. In other words, server response time.

Increased speed is not only for search engines. Visitors will also be more comfortable on a website with a short loading time.

There are several things that affect speed:

The number of .js and .css files in <head>

The size of the page is too large to disturb visitors

Keep in mind: the existence of images and videos will not be considered to reduce the speed of the website. Unless the amount is excessive and is not needed.

You can test the speed of your website through the Google Page Speed ​​Test. Immediately make repairs if the score is below 75.

Off-Page SEO: Building Links and Popularity
Off-page SEO is search engine optimization efforts from outside the website.

Optimizing from a website, or on-page SEO is often not enough to get a high ranking in search results. Especially for new websites that don't have an audience, unless the keyword competition is quite low.

Why backlinks are very important
To understand the importance of off-page SEO, I will explain a little about the relationship between search engines and links.

Search engines like Google have a bot that is responsible for crawling on the internet. Google's Crawler is called Googlebot

Googlebot moves from website to website through the links listed on each website page. From the data collected by Googlebot, an index and ranking order are arranged.

Because Googlebot uses links as navigation, websites that have external links will have high priority. The more and the higher the quality of the link, the better the ranking of the website.

This is why links from other websites (backlinks) play an important role in SEO.

Incorrect link building strategy
There are people who want to increase their website ranking but are too lazy to create quality content and do marketing, on the contrary they only rely on link building.

Link building is a support for website content, without having good content, you should not do link building. Because besides being useless, the result can be a punishment from Google.

A good link building process is always related to marketing and content marketing. Not through spamming and bot usage or automation software.

There are several forms of backlinks that are not liked by search engines because they are often misused.

Here are some of them:

Exchange links. The way that was very popular in the mid to late 2000s, exchanging links directly did not provide any positive benefits.
Buy links & use backlink services. Buying links is indeed likely to increase rankings quickly but usually won't last long because you will be punished by Google.
Comments on blogs & forums. The links that you get from comments on the blog do not provide great benefits, so does the forum. But both are often a land of spam.
Auto-approve link. All forms of links are not through the moderation of the website owner. This means that the link immediately appears when you enter your website address.
Using bot software. There are several software / tools that can be used to get links automatically, but the links you get are of low quality and can actually damage the website.
Private Blog Network. This means that a group of blogs owned by 1 person only functions as a backlink field to their main website. Google actively punishes blog networks like this.
Spam. In any form, spamming techniques will not provide positive benefits for you.
Links obtained in the above ways are usually of low quality. The maximum results you can get are high ranking in the short term, then subject to penalties by Google.

Therefore it is better to avoid techniques like this.

As with on-page SEO, quality is very influential. Even off-page SEO is more sensitive to quality.

That means like this.

Even though you have a good website and content, if you do off-page violations like the above, you will not be spared punishment.

Relationship between content and backlinks

Content = on-page, backlink = off-page. Is there a connection between content and backlinks?

Very there. Here's a quote from Bing.

If the value that has worked so hard to instill in your site is evident to them, they will help their own customers by linking back to your site. That, my friend, is the essence of link building.

To provide value, you must have quality content. To show this value to others, you must do content marketing.

So content marketing is the "source" of the main backlinks for you.

Social media and off-page SEO
The effect of social media on SEO is a debate that has not yet ended.

Some people say it is influential, some say only Google+ is influential, the rest say it has absolutely no effect.

So is it really important for social media marketing?

Important.

Although it has nothing to do with SEO. Social media is one of the best ways to introduce your website to many people.

As discussed earlier, besides having quality content you also have to show this content to others. Therefore social media is the right place for this.

When other people see your content, and are interested, they may return to recommending you to others with shares, likes, and so on.

This is why you must be active on social media to market your website.

Off-page SEO ranking factor
Off-page SEO is a website popularity game. In determining the popularity of a website, Google uses various factors.

We already know that backlinks are the main factor in off-page SEO. But not just any backlink has a positive impact.

The following are ranking factors outside the website.

1. Quality of backlinks

Quality backlinks have a far stronger effect than those that are not qualified. But what determines the quality of backlinks?

Website reputation
Website activeness
Similarity of topic
Placement of backlinks on the website
Dofollow & nofollow
Language equality
Age of backlinks
Regarding placement, backlinks that have the best quality are placed in the text. The term is contextual link.

This is because Google reads what the text surrounds the link and decides in what context the link is installed. As a result, your website will get points for these keywords.

2. Anchor text in backlinks

The anchor text used in links is read by search engines as keywords. Your website gets extra points in the text that are used as anchors.

However, using the same anchor repeatedly will not have a positive impact.

You need to know if in 1 page there are 2 links to your website and both have different anchors, then Google uses the first anchor.

3. Number of backlinks

The more backlinks you get, the better.

But not only that.

Quantity must be in line with quality. If you only get backlinks from websites that don't have a reputation, this is not counted as a positive factor.

4. Diversity of backlinks

There are several types of backlinks, one of which is mentioned is contextual link. Besides that there are still more such as blog comments, profiles, bio, widgets, advertorials, directories, etc.

Too much use of one type of backlink will not give optimal effect.

Logically, if we get backlinks naturally, the types of backlinks will vary. This is why search engines use diversity as a factor.

5. Social reputation

Google can understand the sentiment in each comment. This means that every time your website appears then negative comments appear from other people, will have a bad impact.

The same is true of positive sentiments that have a positive impact.

6. Social activities

Websites that are active on social websites such as social media and social networking mean popular.

The social activity of a website can be seen one of them by measuring instruments in the form of the number of shares to social networks. But remember again with positive and negative sentiments.

7. User personal factors

Since Google implements personalized search, search results in the same keyword can be different for each Google account.

This is influenced by several factors such as:

Whether or not a user visits a website
The level of user satisfaction with a website
Country and language
Has a website been shared by a friend
You need to know that search engines have never issued an official list of factors that influence ranking, therefore the above factors are obtained empirically.


source :
Definition of On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO