Whenever we publish content on a page, especially if it contains vital info for our users, we want to make sure it gets found. One way to do this is to optimize our content so it shows up in Search Engine Results Pages (SERP).
On-page SEO is the important process of optimizing the content on your webpage to be “searchable”. It includes optimizing your visible content as well as your “invisible” content, also known as your page’s metadata.
SEO plays a major role in determining which information shows up in search engine results. Statistics confirm that people rarely scroll past the top five results delivered after they type in their search query. If your page doesn’t show up in those results, you likely need better SEO to help direct people to information readily available on your CT.gov pages.
Here are some simple steps to follow to make sure customers can find your content when searching on Google, Bing, or right on the CT.gov portal.
Short, descriptive URLs help customers understand what the page is about in Google search result pages.
For example, these two pages are about CT Income Tax rates:
https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_229.htm#sec_12-700… but you wouldn’t know it from that first URL. Most of the time, the best way to create simple descriptive URLs is to use your primary keyword in the main URL “tail”. Notice how we did this with DOL:
https://portal.ct.gov/dol/Unemployment-Benefits https://portal.ct.gov/dol/Divisions/Job-Seeker-Services https://portal.ct.gov/dol/Divisions/Integrity
Keeping URLs short and sweet is best practice, because long URLs tend to get cut off in search engine results pages.
Recommended reading: How to Create SEO-Friendly URLs (Step-by-Step).
Just like your URLs, your title tags show up as the main items in Google’s search results. Your title tag will appear as the “Title” of your page. This is what customers look at to try to understand what the page is about.
So as much as possible, include your main keywords in your title tags.
If you can’t use your main keywords, don’t worry. At the very least you should write something short and compelling for your title tag that will make people want to click on your page.
Most of the time, your actual page title will work just fine for your title tag (assuming you’ve optimized your page title to be simple and direct!). So you can just make them the same.
Recommended reading: How to Craft the Perfect SEO Title Tag.
When your page shows up in search results, Google will generally show your meta description (usually around ⅓ of the time). Your meta description is the short paragraph of informational text you see under the page title in search results. This is an additional piece of info that customers use when deciding to click your link.
How to create a compelling meta description:
Here’s an example of a good meta description:
Notice that this meta description doesn’t over-use keywords or phrases, but instead varies the theme on “shoes” to provide different keywords like sneakers, ballet flats, etc. It is also clear that they sell women’s shoes, and the description is witty to gain the reader’s attention, too.
Recommended reading: How to Write the Perfect Meta Description.
When you link to other pages within your content, it helps visitors navigate your site and find all the relevant info they need. As a default, you should always include links back to your service’s or division’s main page, or to your agency’s main page. It’s important best practice for both customers and for Google.
Linking to internal pages is highly recommended and valuable. But what about links to external resources?
Here’s what Google’s John Mueller says:
“Linking to other websites is a great way to provide value to your users. Oftentimes, links help users to find out more, to check out your sources and to better understand how your content is relevant to the questions that they have.”
Caution: Don’t force links into your content, but rather think about where they would make the most sense in your page and how they could provide more value to your customers.
Recommended reading: Internal Links for SEO: An Actionable Guide.
First and foremost, any new images you use in your pages should all be the same size as other imagery on your site. You don’t want to use raw unedited images as they can often be huge and bulky, which will impact your page load speed. You should know how to optimize imagery from your Sitecore training. If you need additional help on image resizing, reach out to the CT Sitecore team.
Here are some other image optimization tasks to keep your content useful and accessible:
Recommended reading: Image SEO: 12 Actionable Tips for More Organic Traffic.
Schema markup helps search engines understand your content better. But it can also dramatically improve how your page shows up in the SERP.
For example, here’s a page with schema markup that currently ranks for “pizza dough recipe:”
Here’s what it would look like without schema markup:
It’s a big difference. And this optimized presentation of your content on a SERP can help drive people to click it. Especially if your agency is having an event or you’re launching a new product/service.
Learn how schema markup can increase click-through rates and bring more traffic to your website.
The good part is that it’s not that technically difficult to implement either. Use Google’s markup helper and you’ll see how simple it is.
Recommended reading: Rich Snippets: What Are They and How Do You Get Them?
If you follow the guidelines above, you will have given your content the best chance of being discovered and visited by customers who are searching for your services. This section lays out two common areas of issues that can negatively impact your SEO. Keep these in mind so you quickly identify and fix needs in your new or existing content.
These are the main issues in your metadata that will impact the way your page appears in search results.
There are lots of things in your content that can negatively affect SEO. But these are the main ones that you should focus on for CT.gov content:
If your new page content looks too similar to existing content on another one of your pages, (duplicate content) this can cause the wrong page to rank, or worse – keep your page out of the rankings altogether.
On the other hand, duplicate title tags can really confuse a user. If a user gets to a search results page and you have two pages on your site with the same title, which one should the customer click? They may skip over it, choose the wrong link, or head elsewhere.
Thin content can also hurt your rankings. Often, thin content fails to address your customer’s intent. Keep in mind that Google's main goal is to satisfy the searcher, so you can see how a page with light content could hurt rankings and traffic.
Slow load times are the best way to drive searchers away from your site. And Google knows this, which is why they put an emphasis on page speed in their ranking algorithms.
Lastly, keyword-rich headlines (H1s and ideally H2s) absolutely must be present on your page. H1s tell Google what your page is about and H2s add context. If you don’t have headers or aren't using them correctly, Google may not get a clear understanding of what your page is about. Also, proper use of page heading tags plays a big role in site accessibility, which is critical for your customers who use screen readers.
6 Quick SEO Tips from DAS BITS on Vimeo.
Google loves a good on-page anchor link to relevant content, especially when you use keywords or phrases that describe what to expect from the link or that answers a specific question (also known as anchor text).
As part of your SEO strategy for optimized page content, you should include a linking strategy for both on-page links (sometimes referred to as jump-links or anchor-links) as well as keyword links that lead the user to a new URL.
By structuring your page content to address additional questions that people often ask about your service, you might even grab the coveted “People also ask” feature in search results.
You can optimize your content for this feature through better copywriting of course, but also by using more links to other on-page content or to knowledge base articles.
There’s no guarantee of a “People also ask” placement, nor a rich snippet. But the more you think “big picture” about your customers and their related needs when you create your page, the more Google will see you as an authority and will rank you accordingly.
Text describing the appearance of a visual element on a webpage. It is indexed by search engines (SEO) and read aloud by screen readers (accessibility).
The number of clicks your content gets divided by the numbers of times it is shown to users.
Content that appears in more than one place. If two webpages are too similar, search engines may see this as duplicate content.
Words or phrases users input to search engines.
The description that shows under your title tag on the SERP. These sentences should further describe what your content is about.
Unseen content (usually HTML) that search engines crawl to better interpret your content.
(Search engine optimization) Improving web content for rankings in search engines.
(Search Engine Results Page)
Lower in the hierarchy than top headlines, sub-headlines are the succeeding titles for the subsections of your content.
Lower in the hierarchy than top headlines, sub-headlines are the succeeding titles for the subsections of your content.
Content that provides no value to users.
The content title that shows on the SERP.
Traditionally h1’s in HTML*, top headlines serve as the overarching title of your content. These are also called headers and heading tags, and they are essential for UX and SEO.
Make sure your top headline accurately describes your content and includes a top keyword if possible. Bonus points if your headline directly addresses popular queries bringing users to your content. For example, if “how to renew a license” is driving traffic to your site, it’s a good idea to shape your top headline around this search so users know they’re in the right place.
*On Ct.gov sites, top headlines may be h3’s, h4’s, etc, instead of h1’s.
The address of a webpage. CT.gov is a URL.
