In our last installment of Minneapolis Web Design, we discussed scope creep and how to avoid it. Scope creep causes stress and costs time and money. By removing scope creep from the equation, you will be able to offer your clients top of the line services in terms of assessing their needs and providing a solution. If you missed this post, click here to read Minneapolis Web Design: Preventing Scope Creep. 

In our 10th installment of our Minneapolis Web Design series, we will be discussing 4 quick on page optimization steps that will help you optimize your web pages, quick and efficiently and most importantly... the right way. Be sure to join the conversation and comment on the blog below and don't forget to subscribe to our blog updates!  

4 QUICK ON PAGE OPTIMIZATION STEPS

Your Goal is to be the top organic search result. these steps will help.

On-page SEO has been increasingly overshadowed by off-page factors but that doesn't mean it's not important to have your on-page SEO on point. By getting your on-page SEO right, you will be building a solid foundation to build on with other activities. To make this process easy and repeatable, we have broken our web page optimization process into 4 quick steps. Let's get started on step #1. 

Step #1: Optimize the page around a primary keyword. 

Keywords are a crucial part of on-page SEO so doing a good amount of keyword research is essential to a optimized web page. When doing keyword research, be sure to: 

1. Make a list of keywords your buyer personas would search for. Remember to assign the keywords to the areas of your buyer's journey they belong to. Be sure to mimic the language in which your persona may use when searching. 
2. Expand that list by searching the web for alternatives. Wordstream's keyword niche finder is a great tool to consider using. Another good resource is Google's Webmaster Tools.
3. Determine which keywords people are using to find your site. This is pretty challenging now since Google has encrypted their search results but there are still a few ways to get some insight on how people are finding your website. 
4. Decide which keywords you have the best opportunity to rank for. 

Also, be sure to consider optimizing for long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are used to target niche demographics rather than mass audiences. In other words, they're more specific and often less competitive than generic keyword terms. Because of that, they provide both short-term and long-term benefits. Two other reasons to optimize for long-tailed keywords: 

1. They are the best way to rank for a primary term. 
2. When you optimize for a long-tailed keyword, you are also optimizing the page for the broad keyword. 

Selecting your primary keyword can seem like a bit of a task, but it is very important to make sure to do your research. You don't want to put effort into ranking for a keyword that may be impossible to rank for or even worse, a keyword that no one is searching. 

Step #2: Include Relevant Links with the Content.

It is important to link to to both internal content and external content within your page. Linking to internal content helps you continue to nurture your visitor with relevant content/information. If you reference a specific subject or theme within the content of the page that you are optimizing, be sure to link to it! This will not only help your SEO efforts, but it will also keep this visitor on your website longer. The longer they spend on your website. The better. 

It is also important to link to external content that is relevant to your subject. Make sure to have the external content open in a new window so that the user doesn't necessarily leave your website, they are simply receiving information that is supplemental to your subject/info. A good example linking to external content is how we linked to Wordstream's keyword niche finder in Step #1. This is a supplemental tool that we are providing to our readers to help them search for relevant keywords. This is a great way to build rapport with your visitors.

 Step #3: Promote a good user experience.

User experience (UX) focuses on having a deep understanding of your users, what they need, what they value, their abilities, and also their limitations. UX  best practices promote improving the quality of the user's interaction with, perceptions of your product, and any related services. 

Peter Morville, President of Semantic Studios, presents the factors that influence UX through his User Experience Honeycomb. He notes that in order for there to be a meaningful and valuable user experience, information must be: 

1. Useful: Your content should be original and fulfill a need.
2. Usable: Site must be easy to use. 
3. Desirable: Image, identity, brand, and other design elements are used to evoke. 
4. Valuable: Your visitor should find value in your content. Their time is valuable and if they don't find value in or on your website, they become disinterested. 
5. Findable: Content needs to be navigable and locatable on-site and off-site. 
6. Accessible: Content needs to be accessible to people with disabilities. 
7. Credible: Users must trust and believe what you tell them. 

User experience is a growing field that is still being defined, but these 7 areas of UX are nonetheless important to keep in mind when attempting to promote a good user experience. 

Step #4: Optimize your page for mobile. 

Optimizing your page and your website for mobile, is absolutely imperative and cannot be ignored. Mobile compatibility is essential in today's web sphere. Not only does Google give a huge rankings boost to mobile friendly websites, Google is also putting a large emphasis on user-experience as a ranking factor making mobile compatibility a must! 

With so many people with hand held smart phones on them at all times, the reach that your company can have is exponentially greater if you cater to both desktop/laptop and mobile users. When optimizing your page, keep your mobile users in mind. How will this translate to visitors on a mobile phone? How will this page look on a tablet? These are important questions to ask your team and above all else, make sure to test.

One thing to consider; if you are building a new website build a responsive website. Responsive websites are device agnostic and the future of web design. Google prefers responsive websites and has even gone as far as stating responsive web design is the "industry best practice". 

Conclusion

Although the trend seems to be pointing in the direction of the importance of off-page SEO, on-page SEO is still a very important step to optimizing a web page. Be sure to follow this simple, 4 step process to optimize each web page that you build or have built. One last thing: Be sure to analyze you on-page SEO efforts and continue to optimize as you learn more about your visitors. Analysis should be inherent in every single thing you do with your optimization efforts. To truly be and SEO expert, you need to know what is working, what isn't, and how to implement new SEO solutions efficiently as possible. 

Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out these blog posts as well: 

• Minneapolis Web Design: How To Improve Google Ranking
• Preventing Scope Creep
• The Best Free SEO Plugin for WordPress and More

Interested in more SEO tips and tricks? Let our experts help you avoid making costly SEO mistakes. Be sure to download our ebook 10 SEO Mistakes to Avoid by click on the link below.