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Optimizing each of your web pages with the proper placement of keyword phrases is what On-Page SEO is all about. Most experts agree that only about 25% of the search engine signals are related to on-page SEO, but it's still vital. On Page SEO helps the search engines help you. Don't make the search engines have to guess what's on your page. Tell them exactly what is on your page. It's your page after all!

Bottom line: On Page SEO is a must have for your web pages. Don't ignore it.

For an interesting explanation of On Page SEO, read SEOMoz On Page SEO for more information.

On Page SEO in Wordpress

Wordpress is one of the most advanced web site CMS's out there and it allows you to easily create and maintain all your on-page SEO elements - without touching a line of code. But to do it right in Wordpress, you need to know how to leverage the power of the tool. The remainder of this article (and the video too) will show you how to get the job done.

1. Page Title Tag

The Title Tag is the king of all on-page SEO elements.  The Title Tag is visible to humans in the upper most portion of the browser window or in the tabs. Simply mouse over your tab to view your Title Tag for that web page. This is what Google displays in their search results as well.

Three important tips to remember are:

  • Always put your most important keywords in the title tag; separate them by "pipes" like this |
  • Keep the title tag limited to 70 characters
  • Put your most important keywords to the left. For example, if your most important keyword phrase is "on-page SEO" but you have others keywords, your Title Tag should look like this: on-page SEO | off-page SEO | link building

The Wordpress platform allows for plugins that extend the capability of the core platform. There are many plugins out there but I recommend the All in One SEO Pack to get the most out of your On-Page SEO efforts. Watch the video below for more details on how to use it.

2. Article (Blog Post) Title

The Article Title (as opposed the Page Title) is serves two important purposes.

  • The first is human. The article title is what humans will see in search engines, social media and RSS feeds. So it needs to be well written and provocative. Write a Title that just begs to be clicked.  For more information on how to write good article titles refer to this Copyblogger's How to Write Headlines That Work
  • The second is for SEO. The search engine spiders regard your Article Title as an important indication of the topic and theme of your article. Therefore it's key to have your most important keywords for the article in the title.

3. Page URL

Keywords in your URL satisfy yet another signal that the search engines look for. Wordpress allows you to edit the last portion of your URL and customized it exactly how you want it. Wordpress calls this the slug. And the entire URL is known as the Permalink.

A couple things to remember here are:

  • Separate-the-words-in-your-slug-with-hyphens-like-this
  • Put your most important keywords on the left just like the Title Tag

4. Categories

If you write a significant amount of blog posts, you will want to organize them into common themes. Categories are how Wordpress organizes these themes. In other CMS systems, they are often known as directories or folders. An example of a category could be "Off Page SEO". You could even have sub-categories such as SEO/Off-Page SEO.

From an SEO perspective, having a descriptive category gives another signal to the search engines about what the content of your page is about. It's also part of your URL. For example: http://content-connect.com/offpageSEO/7-tips-to-better-on-page-seo-wordpress. In this example, 'offpageSEO' is the category.

In Wordpress, you can add as many categories as you want. Just go to the Categories tool located in the Posts section of the Wordpress Toolbar Menu.

5. Page Description

The Page Description tag is often overlooked. Many bloggers don't explicitly add it. And to their credit, this is because it doesn't have a material affect on your search engine rankings.

But it is important from a human perspective because it is often what the search engines display as part of the search results. For the same reasons as having a catchy article title, you should also have an interesting page description that 'sells' the page to a human. This will improve click-through.

In Wordpress, the All in One SEO Pack allows you to input the page Description right in your blog post. Take the time to do it.

6. Article/Post Copy

After the Page Title Tag, the proper insertion of keywords in your actual article copy is the most important thing you can do to enhance your search engine rankings.

You should do three things well here:

  • Separate out your article in smaller bite-sized sections. This improves readability anyway.
  • Each section should have a header with important keywords. Make sure the headers have H1, H2 or H3 HTML tags
  • Sprinkle your important keywords within the text as well. But don't overdo it. Keep it natural. If it doesn't read naturally, nobody will read your article anyway and you may risk the being flagged for keyword stuffing by the engines.

7. Meta Tags Description

From an SEO perspective, the meta tags are no longer an important signal. After years of abuse by black hat SEO tactics. , the search engines have learned to ignore them. But you should still have them for no other reason than it allows your readers to differentiate your different posts with the aid of tag clouds.

In Wordpress, you can add your meta tags in different ways but the most common is section on right in your tool called Post Tags.

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This article was guest written by ContentConnect. ContentConnect is an inbound marketing agency that helps companies transform their marketing departments from outside to in.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact ContentConnect.