Onpage SEO - Am I missing something?

by nik0 Banned
11 replies
  • SEO
  • |
When I do a site audit I do/check the following things:

On page level

- Keyword in title
- Keyword in alt image tag and relevant keyword in image title
- Keyword in h1 or h2 tag
- Keyword at least once on the page it self
- LSI keywords throughout the content
- Leave meta tags empty so that Google fills it in
- Canonical tags

On site level

- silo structuring if possible
- inter linking relevant posts
- possibly speed optimization
- reducing duplicate content to a minimum
- checking for 404 pages and removal in webmasters
- checking other pages that shouldn't be indexed
- noindexing with robots.txt where needed
- removing unnecessary categories/tags
- disabling author/date archives with Yoast
- force rewrite titles
- sitemap creation and submission to webmasters
- change perma link structure
- adding rich media
- if it makes sense I would add social sharing buttons
- checking for over monetizing in case of brand new sites

Anything missing here?
#missing #onpage #seo
  • Profile picture of the author online only
    If you think there is somesort of content wise penalty, I also suggest you to delete all the "filler" content that is irrelevant and that doesn't have any links nor social shares. In short, try to find pointless content that doesn't give any value and just delete it. This kind of content is usually 500 words long and has been covered million times.

    Samples: "5 tips to bloggers", "6 ways to get traffic" etc..

    This will help to avoid/overcome panda.

    That's just my 2 cents about onpage SEO, I'm nowhere near expert, but this kind of content can actually hurt the site in long-term.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by online only View Post

      If you think there is somesort of content wise penalty, I also suggest you to delete all the "filler" content that is irrelevant and that doesn't have any links nor social shares. In short, try to find pointless content that doesn't give any value and just delete it. This kind of content is usually 500 words long and has been covered million times.

      Samples: "5 tips to bloggers", "6 ways to get traffic" etc..

      This will help to avoid/overcome panda.

      That's just my 2 cents about onpage SEO, I'm nowhere near expert, but this kind of content can actually hurt the site in long-term.
      Hmmm, what I recently see a lot is that legit sites add a blog section and post a series of not much saying 500 word articles indeed. I don't think that will help a site indeed unless it's really useful.

      The typical Adsense site based on a CTR styled theme performs pretty poor on average, probably a combination of nothing saying articles and over monetizing.
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  • Profile picture of the author seobrother
    Dude,

    Use mysiteauditor.com
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  • Profile picture of the author JhonKilly
    Buddy, Don't forget to upload Sitemaps!
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve Waller
    Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

    - Leave meta tags empty so that Google fills it in
    This seems like pretty poor advice to me. The meta description is one of only 3 main things that you control in order to entice people to click through to your page from a search engine (the other two being page title and the actual domain you choose / page URL structure).

    By letting Google choose what to put there you are missing out on a key way to increase your CTR from the search results - which some say even affects your rankings too.

    Put a meta description on each page and if Google choose to use some other snippet from the page then fine, if it doesn't you aren't left with some random text.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by Steve Waller View Post

      This seems like pretty poor advice to me. The meta description is one of only 3 main things that you control in order to entice people to click through to your page from a search engine (the other two being page title and the actual domain you choose / page URL structure).

      By letting Google choose what to put there you are missing out on a key way to increase your CTR from the search results - which some say even affects your rankings too.

      Put a meta description on each page and if Google choose to use some other snippet from the page then fine, if it doesn't you aren't left with some random text.
      Wikipedia seems to be doing just fine with empty meta descriptions. :p

      One could make the argument that instead of having a more static meta description, allowing Google to choose the description may give you a description that more closely matches the user's search query.
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      • Profile picture of the author Steve Waller
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        Wikipedia seems to be doing just fine with empty meta descriptions. :p

        One could make the argument that instead of having a more static meta description, allowing Google to choose the description may give you a description that more closely matches the user's search query.
        I think Wikipedia do well because of other factors...such as their millions of links.

        Google will already choose something other than your meta description if, for instance, you mention a phrase in your content that isn't in your meta description so I don't see how not including one helps at all?

        It just allows you to "sell" your page more when a user searches for your target phrase or term.
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          If you are only targeting one keyword on a page, I would agree with you. If you are targeting 25+ different keywords that are related, but have a bit of variation to them, I would argue having a description may not be the best option.

          For example, someone might find the same page by searching for

          affordable auto insurance
          where can I buy inexpensive car insurance
          is cheap auto insurance a good idea
          choosing auto insurance coverage options

          Now it would be easy to design a page that targets each of those keywords, but it would be much harder to design a meta description that hits them all well. I'm not going to hope that Google changes my description to fit the query. I'm going to leave it blank and let Google pick snippets that match instead.

          Don't just take my word for it though. Test it. I have, and I have had far higher CTR's leaving it blank.

          Like I said though, if you are getting 95% of your traffic from 1-2 closely related keywords, I would write a description that matches them.

          So if I was just targeting

          cheap auto insurance
          affordable auto insurance

          I would include a meta description because they are basically the same thing and the user usually has the same intent.
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          • Profile picture of the author Steve Waller
            Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

            Don't just take my word for it though. Test it. I have, and I have had far higher CTR's leaving it blank.
            I'll certainly do that. I have pages on various sites that currently get traffic from a large number of different terms and I'll remove the meta descriptions from some of these to see if anything happens to traffic/rankings.

            Will report back if there is anything much to report.
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  • Profile picture of the author aspic791
    I highly recommend IBP (Internet Business Promoter), it will analyze all the relevant ranking elements on your web page and the links to your site and calculate a ranking score based on that information. The higher the ranking score, the more likely it is that your website will be listed on Google's first result page.
    - It will tell you what exactly you have to do to improve your web page and the links to your site. The advice will be tailored to your site, the chosen search engine and the chosen keyword.
    - It will tell you in detail what you have to change and how you have to change it.
    - If you follow the advice then your web site will get high rankings.
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  • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
    Thats over optimized, esp if you get a single anchor text backlink.

    Deoptimize > penalty.
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