Companies choose to platform their websites and digital presence onto the HubSpot CMS Hub (HubSpot’s content management system) because they want to provide a world-class user experience that powers growth.
Like all HubSpot Hubs, CMS Hub empowers marketing, sales, and service teams to apply the inbound methodology and its accompanying flywheel to attract, engage, and delight the right strangers, prospects, and clients with the right content at the right time.
To be effective during the attract phase of the inbound methodology, your company’s website needs to be discovered when people are searching for information that your company wants to be known for
This article reviews the seven on-page search engine optimization (SEO) factors that HubSpot CMS Hub users need to master.
To make sure that you and I are on the same page, on-page search engine optimization is defined by industry-leading SEO software company Moz as the “practice of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines.”
1) Word Count
Regardless of whether you are new to SEO or are engaging in a spirited debate with a marketing professional, one of the most common questions people have about SEO is how long your content assets should be.
Let's set the record straight. There is no magic number of words that a website page or blog post should have to guarantee your chances of on-page SEO success. If only!
Instead, make sure that your website pages and blog posts are long enough and detailed enough to thoroughly cover your topic and keep your readers engaged.
When planning your content, your goal should be to have the single best resource on the web that addresses this particular topic for this kind of buyer persona at this specific buyer’s journey stage.
One of many signals that search engines use to evaluate this by how long the average person spends on that particular website page.
Other things being equal, when a website visitor stays longer, they tend to get more value; sending a positive signal to search engines while simultaneously increasing the likelihood that your website visitor will notice a call to action and end up converting on a content asset that helps you continue to educate and build trust over time.
Note: The HubSpot CMS Hub page editor can examine your page contents and provide optimization settings that include whether this particular website page has enough words to be competitive.
2) Title
When you are looking to write an impactful page Title, think about your buyer persona's words.
Bear in mind, your page Title should not be the words that you would like your buyer persona to use, but instead should be the actual words that your buyer persona would use when looking for this kind of information.
How do you know what those words are? Because you didn't just pull your buyer personas out of thin air and conducted actual user research.
From a tactical perspective, be sure that your page title is under 70 characters to avoid truncation, include your primary long-tail keyword, and make a promise to the user that will compel them to click through on the search engine results page (SERP).
Note: The HubSpot CMS Hub page editor can examine your page Title and let you know if your page title is too long and risking truncation.
3) Meta Description
Your website page’s meta description summarizes your website page or blog post that shows up on a search engine results page just below your page Title.
While a meta description does not directly impact your ability to rank for a particular topic, well-written meta descriptions can often make a significant difference to your click-through rates (CTRs).
It's generally a good idea to use your long-tail keywords phrase somewhere within the meta description as search engines will typically bold that keyword phrase when it appears on a search engine results page.
In much the same way that your email subject line sells the recipient on the value of opening your email, your page Title combined with your meta description needs to do the heavy lifting to motivate a searcher to click on your entry that shows up on their search engine results page.
Note: The HubSpot CMS Hub page editor can examine your meta description and let you know if your meta description is too short or too long and risks truncation.
4) Headers
On a particular website page, Headers -- which are often known as Heading 1 (H1), Heading 2 (H2), or Heading 3 (H3), for example, are a hierarchical way to show a search engine the structure and content of your website page while simultaneously helping users to immediately recognize how the website page content is structured.
H1 text typically has a font size larger than any other text on the page. H2 text is the second-largest font size on a particular website page.
And again, while this provides some user experience benefits around aesthetics, headers more broadly and H1 specifically signifies to search engines what a particular website page’s main topic is.
Note: The HubSpot CMS Hub page editor can examine your header structure and let you know if you are falling short of on-page SEO best practices for page headers.
5) Alt Text
In recent years, search engines have gotten much better at recognizing what a particular image is all about on a website page.
However, the surefire way to make sure that search engines know what a particular image is to make sure that you use alt text (alternative text) that describes the appearance or function of a specific image on your website page.
In addition to all text being very valuable for improving your on-page SEO, alt text also makes the website is more inclusive for visually impaired people who depend on screen readers.
Note: The HubSpot CMS Hub page editor can examine your image alt text and let you know if images are missing all text or you have duplicated all text.
6) Links
No website page can answer every possible question that a user would have directly or indirectly related to that particular topic.
As a result, for decades, it has been a best practice to link from one website page to another website page that can provide additional context to resources around a particular topic.
It's hard to imagine the web being very useful without links between website pages.
Aside from user experience benefits, links also provide a valuable signal to search engines about the content of a referenced destination page.
To improve your on-page SEO, where appropriate, include internal and external links to relevant resources that help search engines contextually understand how your website page relates to other resources on your own website and the websites of other third parties.
Note: The HubSpot CMS Hub page editor can provide feedback on your links and let you know if you have gone overboard.
7) Topic clusters
Last but not least, topic clusters are an invaluable on-page SEO strategy that helps search engines to understand how content is organized thematically on your website.
If you are just getting started with topic clusters, consider ungating one or more of your ebooks into what's known as 10x pillar content pages.
The goal of a 10x pillar content page is to be at least ten times better than any other resource on a similar topic that appears on the web.
In addition, to reap the benefits of building a topic cluster on your website page be sure to link to other resources on your website that are thematically related. And in turn, make sure that those pages have links to your pillar content page.
Note: The HubSpot CMS Hub SEO application can examine your topic clusters and provide feedback for improvement.
Do you use the HubSpot CMS Hub? If so, what on-page SEO factors are you most concerned about? Let me know in the comments.
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