Top 5 On-Page SEO Myths [ I Suffer From 3rd ]
Every now and then, I talk to people who don’t think seriously about on-page SEO.
For competitive phrases, backlinks play a huge role, and I have no doubt about that.
Fresh domains with no links at all will also have a hard time to rank with content only.
But I treat on-page and off-page SEO as equals.
Here, I’d like to answer some common questions about it so you can make your own opinion.
1. I have a perfectly optimized content, but it’s not ranking. Why?
Most often, the reason is lack of backlinks or different user intent.
Go and check the number of quality backlinks and results in SERP (many free brower plugins avalaible like Moz, Surfer SEO, UberSuggest etc.)
If you see only articles with hundreds of backlinks, your optimized landing page won’t rank.
2. Should I invest in new pages or optimize the old ones?
First, make sure to squeeze 100% out of your existing content.
Then dive into creating new pages.
Chances are you may double your organic traffic with the same amount of pages.
3. Is a long, in-depth article always better?
No. Sometimes you have to reduce the word count to rank higher.
Don’t try to outsmart Google with your article for 10k words.
If that were what users expected for the keyword, SERP wouldn’t look as it looks.
4. Which ranking factors are the most important for on-page?
There are some core metrics like word count, density, and page speed that you should always optimize for better rankings.
But all in all, it all depends on your keyword and location.
What works for one key phrase will not work for another.
I hope it helps!
Don't agree with any of the points above? Feel free to let me know in the comments below. :)
Thanks,
Hardik
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Strange that the WA training never puts a focus on backlinks. I got the idea it doesn't even matter...
Because you could easily buy packs of backlinks and rank easily in the past. Are you sure backlinks are still relevant?
Backlinks are relevant and WA does put a focus on it, but it is a subtle method. You make your content great, with social media sharing plugins, to encourage visitors to share your content. Also, comments contain URL’s that you leave on other peoples posts. The main thing, is to grow and share organically, never buy backlinks, as Google will penalise you if the backlinks are from a common source.
Yes, even I miss that part in the training here.
Backlinking is still relevant but those bulk buying and low-quality links don't work anymore.
Probably you need just a handful of high-quality backlinks to outrank your competitors given your content is better than them.
Though I am not doing a link building for my business because currently, my focus is to grow my site with more content.
Thanks,
Hardik
Absolutely correct!
Encouraging visitors to share the post is a great idea to become an influencer on social media and growing the follower base.
Once I watched a video from Neil Patel where he suggested creating or buy any small tool, for example, site audit, speed checker, etc (like He integrated UberSuggest within his blog) that brings in more backlinks than the content on the blog.
Thanks,
Hardik