Semantic Markup Tips in 2019

Semantic SEO

Itis a forage that meliorates the traffic of a website by providing search engines with metadata and semantically relevant piece of content. In traditional SEO oligopolying an editor targets a specific keyword. In the Semantic SEO writing an editor commences with a broader set of topics, rather than keywords. From a research paper presented at Semantics 2017, we cataloged that structured data is compelling from the digital marketing standpoint.

Rich snippets

It is structured datamarkup that sites can enumerate to their existing HTML – which allows search engines to crawl through and better understand what information is stored on each page.

Structured data

It is data in a specific format, written in a way that search engines can consume it – for eg, on a recipe page, what are the ingredients, the cooking time, the calories, and so on. Search engines can read this and return richer, better, and more appurtenant search results. They also use structured date to capacitate search results enhancements and features.

Schema.org

It is a taxonomy of code formats – it details all the structured data markup sustained by search engines. Using this, you can transmute your web page into an entity – used to augment ranking and better your seo strategy. HTML tags are (mostly) used to configure content – these tags tell the browser how to display the content on the page. Semantic HTML5 abodes this shortcoming by defining specific tags to indicate clearly what role is played by the content those tags contain. The markup descriptions on Schema.org subsume a lot of densely packed information.

Schema structured markup

It is credibility. There are also a great many things that you can do to convalesce your credibility. Communication + Credibility. All SEO (and AEO) comes down to communication and credibility.

Semantics

It adverts to the correct interpretation of the nuance of a word or sentence. To use a word semantically is to use it in a way that is properly aligned with the meaning of the word. When writing semantic markup, we use HTML tags to divulge browsers something about the contents of the element. In semantic markup, tags are no longer just a way to get content to fanfare up on a web page in a human-readable format. The tags themselves become a expedient to tell a machine (whether a browser, a computer, a smartphone, or another smart device) something about the pith of the content. To write semantic markup, we must avail HTML tags correctly so that our markup is both human-readable and machine-readable. First, they signal to the browser the need to tail up a specific technical resource such as a video playback engine. Second, they delegate semantic meaning to the content. audio : Used to add one or more sources of audio content to a document and to allow the browser to pick the best option based on the visitor’s device and browser. Video : Similar to the audio element but used to add video content to a markup document.

One of the idiopathic advancements of HTML5 was ushering a standardized set of semantic elements. The term “semantic” invokes to the meaning of a word or a thing, so “semantic elements” are elements contrived to mark up the structure of a document in a more meaningful way, a way that makes it clear what they’re for, what purpose they serve in the document. And importantly, since they’re standardized, these elements etch the document in a way that everyone can use and savvy, robots included.

Semantic Markup

Semantic markup is an ornate way of saying you can use HTML tags to proclaim search engines exactly what a specific piece of content is. For example, you can let search engines know who wrote a blog post, minutiae of an event you’re hosting, whether a string of words and numbers is an address and much more.

Three markup types that are pertinent to most blogs: authorship, video and events.

1: Authorship Markup

Authorshi p markup is one of the most conspicuous markup types you should use. It gives you the authorship rich snippet, which panoply your picture and your name in the search results.

2: Video Markup

The video rich snippet is one of the most hankered because it’s so big and eye-catching. Even if your video content is hosted on YouTube or another video sharing site and you’re just embedding the video on your blog, you can still intensify the video information on your page and potentially get the snippet in chase results.

3: Events Markup

Events markup is one of my paramour for SEO because it can breakthrough the visibility of the events you work so hard to produce. Unfortunately, events markup is one of the most maul markups.

Google is callous set against any kind of overly promotional language in events markup. On the Events Rich Snippets page, they come right out and say, “…this trait isn’t meant for broadcasting purposes.”

Header tags

H1, H2, and H3 header tags are still super exigent. You want to make sure that the title of your page is the H1 and so alee.

The Essential On-Page SEO Tips for 2019

On‐page SEO alludes to the practice of ‘optimizing’ web pages to help them cachet higher in the search engines. The end goal of which is to surge organic traffic to your site.

In 2019, Google is smart enough to understand synonyms and semantically‐related keywords meaning that you no longer have to engross about the strategic placement of exact‐match keywords on your web pages instead ensue these on‐page SEO tips.

1. Optimize for ‘search intent’

Look at the afoot top‐ranking pages to better understand search intent, then act on it. That’s the only way you stance a chance at outranking competitors.

Understanding the intent behind your target keyword should behest how you structure your page. For example, if we look at “predictive analytics”

Best practice tips:

Frisk the SERP to find what Google believes to be congruent to the searcher

Make your content surpassing than the competition by adding images, video, charts, , quotes, external links.

2.Intelligently employ primary, secondary, and related keywords

If you want Google’s algorithms to truly apprehend what your page is about, then you need to make it abundantly clear. Naturally placing your target keyword phrase in the first sentence is a absolute way to achieve that goal.

Include semantically‐related words and phrases to access the “aptness” of your page and help Google seize that your page is the best result for your target keyword.

To get an idea of related keywords you can reckon, turn to Google. Type in your bull’s eye keyword and scroll down to the “related searches” section. This is a husky place to start to find related keywords.

Best practice tips:

Append the target keyword at least once in the first paragraph
Obviate over optimisation (keyword stuffing) focus on the quality of the content for the user
Reckon related keywords and synonyms

3. Answer common questions & include FAQs.

Your page should bestow explicit answers to the questions your audience is most likely to have.

These are often yanked from FAQ sections, so it’s a great idea to include one in each relevant post. Just remember, facts and stats switch with the times, so screen them often to make sure all data is current.

Use the Google “people also ask” box to attain ideas on questions you should be answering on your page.

4. Make sure your page loads FAST

Make sure your pages haul as fast as possible by reducing image sizes and eliminating unnecessary HTML. Page speed is one of the most relevant UX factors.

Not only can amend your page’s loading speed help SEO performance, but it’s also a good business initiative. I recommend using both Google Page Speed and GTMetrix to reform your pages loading speed.

5. Strategically place target keyword in the title, meta description, and H1 tags

Place your target keyword in your title tag, meta description, H1, and whither else it makes sense to do so. Don’t fuss if it’s not an exact match. Google will understand.

5.1 Page Title

Your rubric tag is the most vital on-page SEO factor. In general, the proximate the keyword is to the beginning of the title tag, the more weight it has with search engines.

For example, the competitor above placed the target keyword “data driven decision making” as the main keyword and also used a modifier (5 basic steps) to adorn click-through rate.

Best practice tips:

Make sure your keyword is in the vicinity the front of the title
Titles can be as long as 65 characters before being curtailed in Google’s SERPs.
Add modifiers to reform CTR i.e top, best, numbers, list, year) etc…

5.2 H1 header tag

The H1 title of the page (the main on page title) should contain keywords you want the complacent to rank for. This could be a clutching headline, a brand-related phrase or a keyword that has been identified as having good traffic at or near the time of publication. Having a cognate catchy title will accredit the page to be found more easily within the search results.

The H1 tag gives users a spry overview of the content that is to follow on the page. It should timber the keyword theme established in the metadata and utilise the target keywords.

5.3 Description Tag

Meta descriptions are generally used on search engine result pages (SERPs) to preview snippets for a given page.

Use keywords shrewdly, but also create a compelling description that a searcher will want to click.

Best practice tips:

Keep it under 160 characters long
Constitute target keywords
Constitute a call to action in the end

5.4 Header tags (H2-H6)

Computing H2 and H3 heading tags helps structure your content for readers and search engines. They provide a echelons for the page that tells search engines which heading should have more weight.
H4 – H6 could be computed for when the piece of content is more in depth.

Prototype:

<h1>Earth</h1>
<h2>Europe</h2>
<h3>UK</h3>
<h4>Scotland</h4>
<h5>Renfrewshire</h5>
<h6>Greenock</h6>

5.5 URL path

The website page’s URL should encompass the primary keyword focus of the article. Google has declared that the first 3-5 words in a URL are given more weight.

Best practice tips:

Entail the target keyword
Keep the length of the URL terse and concise
All lower case and detach each word in the URL with dashes (-)

6. Use internal links and external links

Internal links are a cogent way to build your site’s authority, amend your site’s craw ability and index ability, and avail you rank other important pages on your site. For example, the following page has an internal link using opener rich anchor text;

Every internal link should serve a animus or help the user in some way. In general, as long as you’re linking to apposite and valuable pages, then you’ll be good to go.

It’s a good practice to link out to apposite and trusted resources builds the trust of your page.

Best practice tips:

Use vivid anchor text (avoid using “click here”, “read more” anchor text)
Don’t place spare than 1 link to the same page
Make genuine they are linking to the correct URL path (avoid linking to redirected pages)

7. Use descriptive file name & alt tags for images

Any images used on the page should be amended so that search engines can “read” the image. Include vivid captions where possible. Amend the most prominent image on the page using keywords.

7.1 Image filenames

Google urges using vivid file names for images. It means you should save your images based on the constiuents of the image.

For example, if your picture is of a male Pharaoh hound dog bread, then your file name should be: https://www.websiteurl.com/wp-content/uploads/male-pharaoh-hound-dog.png

This will avail with your image search performance. Just don’t go overboard and keyword stuff your files.

7.2 ALT image tag

Google’s image search avails the use of ALT tags to understand what an image is about.

You should always use vivid ALT tags for every image on your page.

Best practice tips:

The image file name should be vivid & logical
Without exception image should have an ALT image tag
Abbreviate your image to help with page load & use nextgen image formats
Images should be exclusive to your website

8. Use Schema markup to increase CTR

Add Schema markup to surge SERP CTR and to help search engines better understand the content on your web pages.