{"id":79537,"date":"2020-04-29T12:38:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T19:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/?p=79537"},"modified":"2023-09-09T16:44:58","modified_gmt":"2023-09-09T23:44:58","slug":"surprising-on-page-seo-techniques","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/surprising-on-page-seo-techniques\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Surprising On-Page SEO Techniques You May Not Know About"},"content":{"rendered":"
If you\u2019ve spent any time at all optimizing your website, you\u2019re probably well aware of the basic on-page optimization techniques within an SEO checklist<\/a>.<\/p>\n But you may not be thinking about some of the more abstract on-page optimization techniques. What I\u2019m going to share with you today helps connect the dots between on-page tactics and broader SEO strategies.<\/p>\n In this article, I\u2019ll cover:<\/p>\n We\u2019ve all seen those studies that analyze X number of results to come up with a blanket SEO \u201cbest practice.\u201d However, SEO is not a one-size-fits-all strategy<\/a>. Nowhere is this truer than when it comes to the length of content on a webpage.<\/p>\n I strongly believe that you do not win by having the most words. Many recommend that you need as many or more words than everyone else when writing content. In fact, if you follow this strategy, you may actually be sacrificing the quality of your content just to meet word count.<\/p>\n To understand this, let\u2019s quickly back up to the concept of keywords and competition in the search results.<\/p>\n Some believe their online competition is the big brands in their space, or the prolific thought leader in their industry who churns out content.<\/p>\n Neither of those is true. Your competition is the webpages that show up on Page 1 of the search results for a particular keyword query.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, the top results could include a big brand and that thought leader. But more often than not, your market competition does not match your online competition.<\/p>\n So to answer the question: How many words should you write on a topic? The answer lies in the top-ranked pages for the keywords you are after.<\/p>\n If all the top results are under 1,000 words, it\u2019s safe to say that you can follow suit. You do not have an obligation to write 2,000 words as per that general SEO \u201cbest practice\u201d you heard about.<\/p>\n (As an aside, you can use our Multi Page Analyzer tool<\/a> to help you analyze the competition.)<\/p>\n This should save you some time and effort. You can actually boost the quality of your content when it\u2019s not being filled with fluff to meet a word count.<\/p>\n Use these guidelines as you are doing your research and writing. But don\u2019t forget that the best advice is to use as many words as you need to make your point and make it good.<\/p>\n Featured snippets are shown at the top of Google\u2019s search results in an attempt to directly answer question-type queries.<\/p>\n Featured snippets rely on content from content pages in Google\u2019s index. I think of the featured snippet as an enhanced first position (aka \u201cPosition 0\u201d) on the results page. That\u2019s because it is still an \u201corganic\u201d listing that links to a webpage or video.<\/p>\n Sometimes featured snippets are shown directly beneath the ads block but above everything else. And sometimes when there aren\u2019t any ads for the query, the featured snippet is above everything else.<\/p>\n Regardless, featured snippets do count as one in the total number of organic listings on the page:<\/p>\n If a web page listing is elevated into the featured snippet position, we no longer repeat the listing in the search results. This declutters the results & helps users locate relevant information more easily. Featured snippets count as one of the ten web page listings we show.<\/p>\n\n
<\/a>1. Determining Word Count for Topics<\/h2>\n
\nTop-ranked pages for the query \u201caccounting software\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n<\/a>2. Ranking as a Featured Snippet<\/h2>\n
\nFeatured video snippet for \u201chow to tie a shoe\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n\n