Looking for the right tools for on page SEO?
Search engine optimisation is an essential part of any online marketing strategy. Setting the right foundations so that search engines can better understand your website and its content will go a long way to helping you rank for relevant search terms. It will help search engine users find your content, generate more organic traffic and achieve your business goals.
Below are the tools you’ll need to carry out on-page optimisation for your website.
1. Google Keyword Planner
To do on-page SEO, first you should understand what keywords are the best for you to target. Google Keyword Planner is a free tool which gives data on things like search volume and monthly trends for the search terms you might want to target.
This tool also gives you data for Google Adwords like competition levels and suggested keyword bid if you were to advertise.
In order to get the most out of this tool, first you must brainstorm some ideas so that you can input lots of relevant keywords and analyse the data. Below are the steps you can take to do this.
1. Analyse the landing page you would like to optimise.
2. Brainstorm what search terms you want to be targeting to get qualified and relevant traffic to the page.
3. Generate multiple keyword variations. You can do this using excel or Google sheets.
4. Put your keywords into the Keyword Planner and analyse the data produced.
2. SEO Mofo
Once you’ve taken a good look at the pages you’re going to optimise, done some keyword research (I do this one page at a time) and assigned your target keywords to relevant pages, then you’re ready to write your Metadata.
Writing good Metadata is an art which takes time and experience to master. Not only are you working with specific character limits but you also need to ensure you use your brand name, optimise with your target keywords, include your USPs, add a call to action and write with impeccable, creative English in a way which entices people to click on your SERP (Search Engine Results Page) snippet, rather than the other search engine listings.
To make sure your SERP snippets look good and are within the character limitations, use SEO Mofo. It’s a tool which you can simply use to get a preview of what your Metadata will look like when it appears on Google.
3. Moz
Moz is one of the SEO industry’s leading softwares. Some of the Moz tools like Open Site Explorer are free to use. However, to use the Moz Analytics software, you need to pay a monthly premium dependent on the number of campaigns you want to add.
Hook up your Moz Analytics campaigns to the respective Google Analytics accounts to get the best out of this tool.
Use Moz for analysing things like domain authority, page authority, spam score, number of backlinks pointing to a particular page and for assessing crawl issues with the website.
This will help you compile a technical audit and make recommendations on fixing technical issues with a view to improving SEO.
4. Google Webmaster Tools/Search Console
What’s now known as the Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) is an essential part of on-page optimisation.
Use this free tool from Google to further investigate technical issues like 404 errors, fetch your pages as Google, understand some of the search queries which are driving traffic to your website and identify technical problems.
5. PageSpeed Insights
How fast the pages of your website load is key to improving online search visibility.
PageSpeed Insights is another free tool from Google which gives you instant insights into how fast your pages are loading. Your pages get a score out of 100 as well as information on how to improve the page load time.
Improving page load time will not only improve your website’s user experience, it could also help your website rank higher and get more organic traffic as a result.
6. Inspect Element/View Source Code
This isn’t a tool as such, but knowing how to look at the code on a website is very useful when it comes to on-page optimisation of an existing website.
When you right click on any element of a web page, you can select an option called ‘Inspect’ as shown below. This will allow you to look at the code for that particular element of the webpage.
I use this when identifying things like headings (H1’s, H2’s etc) and image tags. Well optimised headings and image tags are an essential part of SEO.
You can also right click and ‘View Page Source’ to see things like Metadata in the HTML code.
7. Meta SEO Inspector
This is an excellent Chrome add on which allows you to see the Metadata on any website without digging through the code. Meta SEO Inspector presents the Meta in an easy to read format and also highlights missed opportunities or warnings like too many H1’s for example.
With this tool you can also quickly see which links on a particular page carry the “rel=nofollow” attribute which is important for understanding which links pass SEO value and which ones don’t.
8. Excel or Google Sheets + Word or Google Docs
Okay, so this is four tools in one.
I use excel to present my keyword research and to build an SEO sitemap which shows the structure of the website and which keywords I’ve assigned to which pages.
You can use the spreadsheet to map out your Metadata and on-page optimisation and use Word or Google docs to create and optimise your on-page copy.
Using these tools you can present your work to your boss/client/business partners before working on the website. It also means you can go back at a later date to assess the work you’ve done and update the research, keyword targeting and optimisation techniques, keeping track of your historical changes.
9. LSI Graph / LSI Keyword Generator
LSI Keyword Generator automatically generates semantically linked keyword which you can then use as part of your on-page SEO strategy.
What are LSI Keywords? LSI Keywords are essentially keywords related to the keyword that you search for on search engines such as Google. In a nutshell, they are keywords that are semantically linked to your main keyword. In practical terms, Google has confirmed that by using more LSI keywords, your page will typically rank better.
10. Your brain
Probably the most important tool for on-page optimisation, your brain is the key to making sure your website ranks higher and you achieve your goals.
All the tools in the world won’t help if you don’t find out what keywords you should be targeting, how much competition there is ranking for those search terms and how many backlinks you may need to compete.
