If you have been doing SEO for a while, you are probably well aware of the basic on-page SEO optimization tactics. Optimizing your titles, meta tags, pictures and keywords are a must if you want to get higher rankings in the search engines.
But there is more to on-page SEO than the above mentioned basics. These tactics, although advanced, are pretty easy to implement and can lead to significant improvements in your rankings.
Update Pages Frequently
Everyone knows that search engines love fresh content. The more content you put out and the more frequently you do it, the higher the traffic from Google, is usually the way it goes. But what about fresh content on each page?
The same strategy applies for single pages as well. The more often you update them, the more reasons you give search engine spiders to come back.
Wikipedia is a great example of this tactic at work. They are dominating the search engine results by updating most of they pages on a frequent basis. Of course this is just one of the reasons why Wikipedia is so powerful but it is an important factor.
It is easy to keep the home page of a blog fresh as typically each new post appears on the home page so the more posts you add, the fresher the content of the home page will be.
To take the freshness a step further you can add a sidebar widget with links to latest or most popular posts.
You can also add a twitter feed to the sidebar to keep the content fresh.
A more advanced tactic it to go back and update the content of each page from time to tim. Adding more content, updating statistics and replying to comments will all add more freshness to your pages. Since this tactic requires a significant time involvement, it is best to select a couple of your pages or posts that you think are the most important and concentrate on updating them.
Encouraging people to leave comments is another way to add freshness to any blog post. Don’t close comments after a certain period of time (a common practice for many bloggers). Leaving the comment section below will enable people to add theirs insights (fresh content) no matter when they stumble upon your posts.
Link To High Authority Sites
Everyone knows that a link from a high authority site can significantly boost you authority and rankings. But did you know that if you link to a high authority site from within your content that is also a positive factor for SEO?
What is an authority site? A few good examples are major news sites like CNN and NBC or newspaper sites such as the New York Times and the Huffington Post and even major directories like DMOZ and Yahoo Directory.
If you find a way to leave a natural link, in the actual content of your pages, to a major authority site, your page will get associated to a degree with the authority site you are linking to. This will provide more authority to your page boost your rankings.
Naturally, a link from an authority website is better than a link to an authority site but obtaining a link from CNN is not an easy thing to do.
Do not abuse this tactic. The idea is to provide a natural looking links from your content (like I did above). Don’t add sidebar links or footer links to your entire site in hopes of higher rankings.
Leverage the Power of Synonyms
The use of synonyms in your content is a powerful strategy that can help your pages rank for a variety of keywords.
The best way to find relevant synonyms is to use Google. Do a search for your keyword or phrase and add the tilde (~) in front of it. Here is how it looks:
This is a search I did to find synonyms for the phrase “motivational business quotes”.
To take it a step further, do a search for a synonym for your main keyword but also exclude the keyword itself. The way this is structured is “~keyword -keyword”. This will allow you to see a much clearer picture of just the synonyms and also which are the pages you will be competing with.
Adding relevant synonyms to the copy of a page will help it rank for more than the original keyword you are targeting. This is a tactic I’ve been using for years and I can attest to its effectiveness.
Conclusion
Adding new content to as many pages as you can will help keep each page and your entire site fresh in the eyes of the search engines and they will reward you with more organic traffic. Adding in-text links to authority sites and synonyms to your copy will also provide you a boost in rankings but make sure you do it in a natural, non-abusive way.
What is a in-page SEO optimization tactic that goes beyond the basics that you’ve been using? Share in the comment section below.
