Three on-page optimisations you can make for better SEO and usability

When time is in short supply as a busy business, it can be easy to let your website tick along without reviewing some of the smaller on-page elements, but these can make big difference to your website’s performance. Here, we take you through three on-page elements to check and update where necessary, to ensure they are working hard to increase relevant organic traffic. Let’s take a look…

1. Page title tags

Page title tags display in two very important areas; on your page’s tab and on the search engine results page. They tell website visitors and search engines exactly what the page is about and are therefore key to your on-page SEO.

Check your page title tags and start with the key landing pages of your site; do they include target keyword and your brand name? The optimal format for a title tag is;

Primary keyword, Secondary keyword | Brand name

Depending on the length of these elements you may find you only have the space for one of your keywords as Google will display between 50-60 characters of your title. Check out Moz’s title tag preview tool to see how it will display in search.

2. Meta descriptions

While meta descriptions are not a direct ranking factor, they are incredibly important when it comes to attracting organic traffic through from the search engine results pages. Meta descriptions are the text that appears below your page title tag in search; think of them as your web page’s shop window. Effective meta descriptions accurately and succinctly describe the content a user can expect to find on the page if they click through. We should be using persuasive language and include the target keyword from that page.

Meta descriptions are typically up to 160 characters long, after this it will truncate in the search engine results pages, so make each word count! If you don’t set your meta description, Google will scrape the content for your page it feels is most relevant, however, this may not be the most compelling snippet, so it’s always advisable to review your descriptions and craft bespoke ones for every page where possible.

3. Image alt tags

Images on your site require an effective image alt tag that describes what is in the image. The most important reason for ensuring every image on your website has an image alt tag is for those who rely on screen readers; they will rely on your description of the image so it must be accurate. Secondly, search engines do not see your image, so we need to tell them what is in the image.

If we take the example of an image which shows pancakes, we could simply use the word ‘pancakes’ as the alt tag, but actually there is far more we can say that will help contextualise the image. E.g. ‘A stack of blueberry vegan pancakes with powdered sugar’ would give a much better overview to those using screen readers, and to search engines.

Put aside a couple of hours to review these elements and you could find some easy optimisation wins. If you would like support with your SEO, simply contact us today on 01622 535331.