Mastering SEO Optimization in 2024: A Guide to Boosting Your Search Ranking
Optimizing your website or blog for search engines is crucial to ensure it reaches the right audience. In this post, we will explore the high level technical aspects of SEO optimization, focusing on metadata, keywords, and internal linking to give your blog the best chance of ranking on your desired SERPs.
Metadata
Metadata is the information that describes to search engines and users what the page is about. The primary types of metadata for SEO are:
Title Tags
Meta Descriptions
H Tags
Title Tags
Title tags are a top SEO ranking factor and should include the keywords the page targets. For example, the page below targets the terms “Interior Design Tips” and “Interior Design Best Practices”.
Title tags appear as the title of the page when viewing it in search engine results. Title tags become truncated typically after 50-60 characters, but is understandable at times for blog content to exceed this count.
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions appear below the title tag and provide search engine users with a summary of what the page is about, encouraging users to click through to the website. Meta descriptions are not a ranking factor for Google, but you should still write a custom meta description that describes the page.
Meta descriptions typically become truncated after roughly 155 characters, but at times can be as long as 320. The best practice is to aim for 150-160 characters.
H Tags
H tags help organize the content of a page and help both users and search engines know what each section of the page is about.
Each blog should have one H1, that serves as the page’s title, followed by multiple H2s that break the page out into subsections.
As an example of when to add H2s, the blog post below could be updated to leverage H2s for the bullet headers (online strategy and vision, strategic student engagement, faculty development, etc.).
If a particular H2 needs to be broken down even further, you can do H3 headings within an H2. For example, in this guide, “Metadata” is an H2, and the subsections (Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, and H Tags), are H3s.
Adding Keywords to the Metadata and Page Content
For each page, write out a list of keywords you want the page to rank for. There should be one primary keyword, and often a few secondary keywords.
Target the primary keyword with the title tag and H1, and make sure to include instances of the secondary keywords throughout the page, such as in an H2 and/or the body text.
Internal Linking
An internal link is any link on your site that points to another page on your site. Search engines use internal links to learn the relationship between pages, and users click internal links to be directed toward relevant information about a topic.
On the blog, try to include a few internal links to other blogs, using anchor text that is relevant to the page you are sending a user to.
Additional Recommendations
Have each new article reviewed by a peer, particularly the in-house SEO expert
Enact a technical SEO checklist per the guidance in section III of this document
Use Keyword Manager in SEMrush to track performance against keywords for which you’ve devised content
If you are struggling to keep up with the constant adjustments and research required for SEO, contact me today to discuss how I can support your organization’s search marketing efforts.
