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Yoast SEO<\/a> has been helping WordPress users gain higher rankings for a decade and with almost 20,000 five-star reviews, you can tell it\u2019s good at doing its job. This free plugin helps you with all aspects of SEO, but for this post, we\u2019ll be specifically looking at its on-page optimisation features. We\u2019ll be referring to the plugin during this post, so it could be advantageous to install it before you read on.<\/li>\r\n<\/strong>SEO is all about getting your web pages to rank highly for specific keywords. For example, if you are selling \u2018blue suede shoes\u2019, you want your website to come near the top of the list when someone searches for \u2018blue suede shoes\u2019.
On-page SEO requires that you find out what keywords people use when searching for something and then optimising how you use them in your posts. You wouldn\u2019t, for example, want to rank highly for the search \u2018Blue Suede Shoes Elvis Presley\u2019 but you might want to rank for \u2018Women\u2019s shoes blue suede\u2019 or \u2018blue suede high-heels\u2019.\u00a0 To find out what terms people use, you need to do some research, first. This is best done using the Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool<\/a>. (You may have to sign up for a free AdWords account to use this tool, but there\u2019s no obligation to pay for any Google advertising.)
The aim of your research is to find out the main keyword for your post as well as any alternative keywords that users may use, including long-tail keywords (longer phrases). Getting this right is key to you ranking well for the visitors you want to attract.<\/li>\r\n
<\/strong>Your post\u2019s title is a critical element of on-page SEO as search engines use it to determine if your content is relevant to a user\u2019s search. The title will need your main keyword in it, preferably somewhere near the start. For example, if your post was about gardening for beginners and the keyword was \u2018gardening tips\u2019, an ideal title would be something like, \u201810 Top Gardening Tips for Beginners.\u2019
Remember that ranking well doesn\u2019t guarantee someone will click on your link. To do that, you need to make sure your title is written in a way that will attract the interest of the searcher.<\/li>\r\n
<\/strong>Besides analysing your title, search engines will look at your subheadings, too. So, it is important that your keyword is placed in at least one subheading (don\u2019t overdo it) and that related keywords appear in others.
What is vital, however, is that you configure your subheadings properly. This means using H2 (Heading 2) tags in your text editor to signify that they are a subheading. Simply putting them in bold, using larger text or underlining them doesn\u2019t tell a search engine that they are a subheading.
Note<\/strong>: the H1 tag, should only be used for the title, not the subheadings. Using it more than once can make the search engine confused about the overall subject matter.<\/li>\r\n
<\/strong>As an opening paragraph is generally an introduction to a topic, a search engine will assume that the keyword will appear in it. If it doesn\u2019t, it will presume the subject matter of the content has little to do with the keyword in the title and won\u2019t rank your post for that term. Make sure it is in there.<\/li>\r\n
<\/strong>Although it\u2019s not as crucial as putting a keyword in the first paragraph, it\u2019s still helpful to put it in at the end. The final paragraph is often a conclusion which sums up the content of a post. If that post\u2019s topic is about the keyword, then the search engine will expect it to be mentioned at the end.<\/li>\r\n
<\/strong>Keyword density looks at how often your keyword is mentioned in a post. It is found by measuring its use as a percentage of all the words in the content. Keyword density is important because a search engine would expect a keyword to be mentioned several times in a post about a particular topic. If it isn\u2019t, the search engine would think the post\u2019s content isn\u2019t relevant to the keyword.
However, there is an important caveat here. In the past, lots of content writers overused keywords in order to get their posts to rank higher. This was a technique called keyword stuffing. Google got wise to this and have added its use to the list of things that are forbidden in the webmaster guidelines<\/a>. They also made a change to their algorithm, called the Panda update, that downranks all web pages that use this technique.
You should have a balance: use the keywords throughout the post, but not too heavily. According to Yoast, the ideal density is between 0.5% and 2.5%. Luckily, if you have the Yoast SEO plugin, once you tell it what your keyword is, it will measure the density for you and warn you if it is too high or too low.<\/li>\r\n
<\/strong>The Yoast SEO plugin also lets you create custom meta descriptions which are displayed as snippets by search engines in search results. They are also used to consider the relevancy of your post and should, therefore, contain your keywords. Like titles, they also need to entice users to click on your link.<\/li>\r\n
<\/strong>Besides written content, any images you include in your posts should also be optimised. This is done by including the keyword in the images\u2019 alt tags. To do this, click on the image in your visual editor, select the edit icon and add the keyword to the \u2018Alternative Text\u2019 box.<\/li>\r\n
<\/strong>Getting everything right for your content optimisation can be difficult, particularly if you don\u2019t know what you are looking for. However, if you use the Yoast SEO plugin, it analyses your content as you write, providing a traffic light report that highlights problems, improvements and good results. It even tells you what you need to do (see below). You\u2019ll find this underneath the visual editor whilst you are working on your post.
![\"analyse](\"https:\/\/www.webhosting.uk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Screenshot-137.png\")
<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nConclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nHopefully, this post will give you a clear understanding how to improve your on-page SEO. You\u2019ll have a better idea of how search engines work and how to optimise your titles and subheadings, paragraphs, meta descriptions and images. At the same time, you\u2019ll be more aware of the dangers of over-optimisation and will see how the Yoast SEO plugin can give you a valuable insight into the effectiveness of your SEO techniques.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
If you are a WordPress user and are looking for hosting that can improve your SEO through faster loading times, improved uptime and better security, check out our cloud-based WordPress hosting packages<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everyone wants their WordPress posts to rank better in search engine results but not everyone knows the best ways to make this happen. One of the most important factors is…<\/p>\n
Everyone wants their WordPress posts to rank better in search engine results but not everyone knows the best ways to make this happen. One of the most important factors is…<\/p>\n