On-page Optimization
I want to show you a simple example of how to do on-page optimization with our “golf resorts”
blog post, including the most important elements of on-page optimization to remember. These
are:
Category, permalink, internal links, outbound links, meta description, and answer targets.
Category
It’s important to actually assign the category or categories that the article belongs to on your
blog. I consider this an important step for on-page optimization. As a reminder, you can adjust
the category for a post in Accelerator under My Posts > Content and click the little eye icon.
Permalink
The permalink (or page URL) is the web address for your new blog post. Like in your SEO title,
you should make the page URL your primary keyword, with just dashes between each word.
Example: putterscorner.com/blog/how-to-swing-a-golf-club
Internal Links
Every article you publish should have at least 1 internal link to another article you’ve written on
your site. One of the benefits of writing content in a topic cluster or cateegory is that each piece
of content naturally relates to others.
For example, if I write a series of posts about putting in golf, it’s pretty easy to link back from
the “short vs long putting” article to the “choosing a putter” article.
Outbound Links
As you’re doing your research for an article, you may come across authoritative articles or
resources. Make a note of these!
When it comes time to publish your content, you definitely want to link out to at least one or two
authoritative resources online. This indicates both to Google and to your readers that you’re not
writing about your topic in a vacuum – you’re doing research and citing your sources. Plus, it can
help you when it comes to link building if you’ve pre-emptively linked to some valuable
resources on the web already.
You can always use that as a way to initiate a relationship with others on the web.
Meta description
The meta description is this little blurb that appears under each listing in the search result, and
you have the option to write one for Google to display. Sometimes, Google automatically
generates a meta description, but it’s a good practice to write your own.
To do that, just summarize why someone would want to click your article, I usually use the
primary keyword or a very close variation of it in there, because that reinforces to Google and
the search user that your page is truly what it’s about.
Here’s an example from my article on “best golf resorts”
In Accelerator, you can find the spot to write your meta description under “SEO Description” for
each blog post.
Answer targets
If you have a finished piece of content, quickly scan through and make sure you have answer
targets that you’re happy with.
Other elements
There are other elements to think about, such as tags, but most of this is extraneous if you’ve
covered the other ones I’ve mentioned in this module. Try not to overthink it – beyond a few basic
SEO steps, the most important thing is just creating the best content you can!
