[GUIDE] Full Example of How to Do On-Page SEO

stelios0 said:

Some really good points illustrated on this post.

I always had this question, if u have a box in the middle of every page or a table let's say, how do you inform google that this is sitewise and its not plain duplication? (obviously without the cannonical tag on the page)

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splishsplash said:

Worrying too much about the future means you're missing out on opportunities now.

Would you rather write for the user, and have a site that might one day have amazing rankings, or would you rather just write for the algorithm and rank now.

But note that I say, write for the algorithm, but also write HIGH QUALITY content. Google is never going to be penalize you for using the word "laptop" 50 times in a 3000 word article about laptops or say "best laptop for students" 7 times in 3000 words. Never. Why would it? You aren't spamming, just being more explicit with your topics/keywords.

The problem arises if you abuse the algorithm, which means, you write garbage content and optimize it to rank. THEN you have problems.

What I am saying is. Write amazing content for the user. But optimize it for the algorithm. You see the difference?

Write for the user.

THEN

Optimize for the algo so the user can find it in the first place.

You read my last post. You know my thoughts on quality. Don't get me started on "quality products" again ;-)

When I do reviews I carefully research the products and everything surrounding it you need to know and I put that in a plan for my writers and I only use writers that are passionate about writing and want to write quality stuff. Most real writers don't like writing crap, they want people to enjoy their content.

Review articles for example are garbage in so many cases, but they don't need to be.

If I'm a nursing student and I want to know what the best laptop is, it's going to take me hours of research to figure it out. Your job as the person behind the "Best Laptop for Nursing Students" is to look at the laptops and figure out which ones are good for them, and write the reviews towards THEM with their own unique requirements in mind so they can spend 10 mins reading your article and be confident in making the right purchase. That's always my goal, but if I don't go BACK into the article after I've written it and optimize it then those nursing students will never find my article.

This is also why I prefer to write then optimize. If you write with optimization in mind it takes away from the flow and goal of the article. When training your writers too if you want them to optimize you should tell them to write first, then optimize later.

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t2van said:

I won't nit pick and turn this into another picking you apart thread

I think we are saying the same thing but in different ways. See I read your post as doing a whole bunch of keyword research and then adjusting the content to fit around those keywords when from my experience the keywords are useless as no one really gives any kind of exact data behind the science of what ranks and what doesn't.

Personally as a starting point if you was new to the game of selling laptops then it helps to an extent BUT as you get to know your product or niche and then focus down on the users you want to target the "keywords" should become natural from your own experience or from users questions or queries.

But on a whole id rather pick a keyword or topic I'm going to write about then and then go and use the search engine to find subtopics or talking points for that article as that's what google is trying to suggest or figure out what the user or people searching for that topic are also looking for - it's going to give a better insight to writing an article for the person searching for it than the algorithm.

More importantly it tells me the kind of pages or content that google is currently ranking for that keyword and if I should structure mine the same, improve on it or if the content and topics simply don't fit the results!

If I go off and search for "laptops for nursing students" all of the articles that come up are a X number type post i.e "X best laptops for during students"

So if I was going to go off and compete on that as well as using some of the things you mentioned I would actually format some tabular content as I would say you could bag snippet for that (there isn't one currently) BUT I suspect that's because the way all of the posts are formatted if someone done a table rated 1-10 with stats

Pos - Brand - Product Name - Battery Life - Storage - Weight (lbs, kgs, light & heavy)

I figure that would give more added weight to the page as well as open it up for other opportunities.

I know there is a more to it than both of us are saying here and it would open up a host of other topics and suggests to do X, Y & Z as well I just don't think id stick to just "keyword research" obviously treading that broadly from your post hence my disagree to an extent.

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splishsplash said:

Sure, writing for the users is nice, but it's the algorithm that ranks you.

In theory it would be great if we could just write for the users and the algorithm understand our article, but it rarely does. The guys who rank mostly are ranking because they're better optimized.

I'll always beat someone with a great article by optimizing for the algorithm. Every time.

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t2van said:

Ok... I've not been doing that and I'm beating guys with marketing budgets bigger than my turnover! (both competitors direct and indirect!) I started to compete with a smoothies company (the opposite of guilty ones) for a random "keyword" which turned out to be super popular despite the KW tools saying other wise..

Since then I've changed my marketing strategy in terms of just writing for the user or how I want some to be shown / displayed now either I'm really lucky or really good (I doubt either) but that's the kind of thing I figured the big G been wanting user focused content and that's what's been working..

I've just been looking at how the user searches / interacts with google, what google suggests and then working of a content plan from that rather than anything to do with KW or KW research... maybe it's the same I dunno..

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Panther28 said:

Prepare for best laptop popup sites galore!

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splishsplash said:

Various things will work, but at the end of the day, it is an algorithm written in code, following rules, so my approach is always to work out what the algorithm wants first. This does not contradict with what the user wants. Adding in extra keywords, tweaking your h2's and h3's, and using the words laptop, "nursing students" more often doesn't impact anything for the user. Whatever you are doing, it's working for whatever reason. Remember that SEO is more like poker than blackjack. You aren't competing against google, you are competing against other players.

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t2van said:

OK I've PM'ed you an example from my site. Shared it with you a while ago when you convinced me go switch to a SILO .. see if I'm saying is different to what you are suggesting here I think it is BUT I'm happy to be wrong.

I've just seen what I'm doing as something that isn't "traditional" I guess when it comes to doing content but it's working..

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Doctor Sleep said:

Finally someone to say that Google is an algorithm and can't see if content is good or not so good.
Content is important only to our readers.
Content is not a king!

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cozziola said:

Thanks for the tips. I love reading stuff like this.

I must ask. How do you know this is how it is?

Do you have an in at G? Or is it widely known how to the SEO world how the algo works?

Matt Diggity teaches almost the same thing as far as i remember but he doesn't say how the algo works.

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splishsplash said:

I have an engineering mind and I understand how systems like that work. It's like knowing how to build fighter jets. You can look at an enemy's jet in the sky and make some very accurate conjecture about the technology and systems.

I understand how systems like that are coded, the algorithms, data structures etc.

That, combined with years of testing, running my own sites, talking with other SEOs, helping people(This helps tremendously, it's like doing puzzle after puzzle, and this is one of the reasons WHY I give free help.), running large pbn networks(Massive exposure to 1000's of client sites over the years gives you a unique insight) and I ran an agency and did actual seo for clients(I don't enjoy that, so I shut it down)

I listen to matt diggity too, and various other seos. When you're exposed to such a massive amount of seo information, and you combine that with a systems/engineering brain then you end up with an intuitive/subconscious understanding.

The stuff I write about is what I practice though. I don't ever write things I haven't tested. Usually when I write it's because I'm inspired. I've been doing a few new things in my business for some clients so I'm working a LOT on on-page seo lately and having great results. My posts are like me formalizing and structuring my knowledge by putting it out on paper. I share 95% of my knowledge. A few things I keep secret, but nothing terribly important that would stop people making money, just a few things mostly about pbns I don't want the world to know. I've realized after years of doing this that you gain FAR more from sharing than you do from keeping secret. So so so much more.

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