There is a great new video over on SEOMoz covering the changes in on page SEO now in 2012 and beyond. The basics, the keyword optimisation, the physical optimisation of the page, that is all still as relevant as it ever was but the main thrust of the video is all the additional nuts and bolts stuff we have beyond the on page basics.
Searcher Intent and Page Relevance
The most valuable point in the video covers searcher intent and what the page delivers. This is crucially important and in 2012 and beyond, folks are used to using the web and if your page is not immediately compelling and does not deliver on the keyword you have ranked it for, well, kiss that user goodbye (if you even get time for a kiss before they bounce).
Authors, Social and Schema
We also have a bunch of cool new toys to play with beyond the basic on-page optimisation for your keywords and tools like the Author Tag and Schema give us ways to really jazz-up our search listings and even the most basic of improvements like the Author Tag can really hike up the click through rates.
Additionally, we need to get our social sharing icons in place and help (and persuade) people to share our content. In fact, another part of that picture is making that content so god damn cool that people will want to share it to show how cool/hip/clever they are for just having read your stuff!
Putting the on-page pieces together
So, when you really add it up, where old school on-page SEO was just ticking all the right boxes on the page for your keywords (page title/body copy/header tags/alt tags etc) it now is so much more (or can be and should be).
- Get the page ranked with traditional on-page SEO
- Get a user to click on the page by optimising our SERP listing with Schema + Author tags etc
- Making sure that page is amazing and convinces people to stay and engage with your site
On Page SEO Nuts and Bolts
This is not getting any easier folks and whilst none of these elements are particularly difficult, making sure you have your on-page ducks in a row and are optimising every single possible element as much as possible can be a challenge but make sure it is a challenge that you are up for!
Anyhow, rather than me rattle on any longer, why don’t you take five minutes to check out the video below hear it from the man himself.
Happy Friday folks!
