In another blog, we talked about SEO for small business. Today, we’re dialing down to a more specific aspect of SEO: On-page SEO. Basically, on-page SEO (also known as on-site SEO) is all about optimizing individual web pages to improve rankings and traffic. It’s done using content and the HTML source code for a page (off-page SEO involves links and other external signals).
Imagine that your website is a race car. There’s a lot you can do to the car itself to improve its performance. And you’d choose modifications based on how much they cost and how much they improve your car’s performance. For websites, that’s all the on-page SEO stuff. The off-page SEO is all about the driver.
You really need both for the best results—an amazing car and a great driver. Same with websites. On-page SEO counts for about 25% of your website’s successful performance. Off-page SEO counts for the rest. And both take time and resources to develop. There is no magic formula that will transform your website into a top-performing site in a few days or even weeks. (If someone claims otherwise, grab your wallet and run the other direction!)
Here at Saltmedia, every website we build is SEO-ready, and our on-page SEO strategies are always a priority—after all, there’s no point having a website if it doesn’t rank well, and nobody visits! Our web designers create sites that get the right attention from the right people for your business. Here’s how:
We start with the end: the experience of the visitor to your page once all the website building is complete and the page is live. A user-friendly page is ESSENTIAL! All search engines use a user-friendliness test to rate websites, and if a site doesn’t offer a good user experience, it won’t show up on that coveted first page of results (and it might not show up at all).
Saltmedia websites also come with optimized images for the fastest load times. Have you ever clicked on a search result, only to see the images aren’t loading (or are loading at an agonizingly slow pace)? How fast do you exit that site and try a different one? Us too! That’s why fast-loading images are so important.
We also optimize images by naming them appropriately using the subject and/or keywords in the image alt text. Every single detail like this works together for a better website ranking.
A secret advantage of Saltmedia is our Edmonton-based hosting. Yes, you read that right! Hosting websites at our own data centre yields faster loading times—notably faster than a website hosted on the east side of Canada (or outside of Canada) that slows down page loads.
Now, this one may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s something that you should always ask your web designer about—are you using the most up-to-date code? We do, which is a key part of your web engine working well and being finely tuned.
We add each website to Google analytics so we can track website statistics and traffic. This means we set you up for success and then follow up to make sure that success continues. Saltmedia creates relationships with our clients that last, and your success is important to us. As our clients journey through launches, rebranding, mergers, pandemics, and growth, we journey with you, making sure your website is always one of the hardest-working parts of your business.
Do you ever wonder why the best web developers pay such close attention to Google? Well, within that massive company is an ongoing and changing process of trying to be the best place for giving users an answer to their searches. As ‘Google’ learns more about how to respond to searches more effectively, the criteria for ranking sites changes.
It’s essential to keep up with these changes and adapt web design as we go to ensure that our clients are always getting the most out of their websites. And it turns out those changes do improve search results, so it’s actually well worth it to keep on top of what Google wants.
We looooove good content! By good content, we mean information that your current and future customers care about, written in interesting ways, with SEO that helps search engines and your average customer find you.
Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing are always analyzing content so they can give users the best experience possible when searching for something. This means that high-quality content gets recognized and prioritized.
In a way, having the right content is like the old tradition of a specialist displaying their certificates of accomplishment and their professional memberships on the wall in their office. It gives visitors confidence that they’re getting expert information. Your website can do the same thing virtually through great content.
Content doesn’t always have to be long to be ‘good’. In fact, your site visitors may prefer shorter content that’s easy to follow (big blocks of text with no breaks are a big turn-off). Depending on your business and your clients, we can use content to meet their needs and what search engines are looking for.
Whether it’s blogs or good website content, Saltmedia has you covered—and our content always uses SEO in ways that read well for visitors.
Have you ever tried to copy and paste a website address only to find it’s a paragraph long? Yeah, we don’t like that either.
An important step in good web design is keeping URL’s simple and as short as possible! Another URL detail that’s important is to use those all-important keywords, and we’re happy to do that all the time. It’s much easier to follow URL’s that have keywords than ones with a series of meaningless letters and numbers.
URL’s are also used to set the hierarchy of your web page, so search engines can provide better results. For example, let’s say your ‘awesome’ site had the following URL:
https://www.awesome.ca/people/awesome-in-canada
Search engines would know that this page isn’t about general awesomeness, but about awesome people in Canada—and specific is good for hitting page one of search results. And, when someone looking for awesome people in Canada sees that URL, they’re going to want to click on it!
When it comes to ranking well, and the ultimate goal of being visible to the right clients/customers who will support your business, on-page SEO is really a team sport. It requires every aspect we’ve talked about.
Images that load quickly aren’t going to cut it if the site isn’t set up to be user friendly, and great content won’t make an impact if it’s buried in the site and never sees the light of day! It requires an organized, methodical approach where every detail is included on each website.
Here at Saltmedia, we take this ‘every-detail-matters-go-team’ concept seriously. Our own team is dedicated to your business’ success as reflected by a website that gives you real results. From graphics to IT experts to communications specialists and administrators, you get the best from all of us—packed right into your website and ready to go!
We live, work, and gather on traditional, unceded, and treaty territories of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Peoples from coast to coast to coast. We’re committed to our collective responsibility to the original caretakers of this land and to listening, learning, and acting in ways that support reconciliation.
