If you’ve invested time and effort writing an epic piece of content, don’t forget about on-page SEO. It helps google to understand what your page is about and show it to as many people as possible in the search results.
On-page SEO has changed a lot since the beginnings of search engines– while some of the fundamentals stay the same. Having core competency in on-page SEO while keeping up with newer techniques is invaluable to keeping your competitive edge.
Every part of on-page SEO is completely up to you; that’s why it’s critical that you do it correctly. Start improving your ranking signal with one of the best on-page SEO guide you can find on the internet or book a 1-1 on-page consultancy.
What is On Page SEO?
On-page SEO refers to the practice of optimizing web pages to improve a website’s search engine rankings and earn organic traffic. In addition to publishing relevant, high-quality content, on-page SEO includes optimizing your headlines, HTML tags, and images. It also means making sure your website is showing experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (or E-E-A-T).
It is called “on-page” or “on-site” because the tweaks and changes you make to optimize your website can be seen by visitors on your page (whereas off-page and technical SEO elements aren’t always visible). On-page SEO isn’t just a checklist; it’s your secret weapon for standing out from the crowd for both algorithms and readers.
On-page SEO is also completely up to you:
- You get to establish what the topic and/or goal of each page will be;
- You get to decide on the target audience for that page;
- And you get to choose the target keywords and phrases you want to focus on.
Why On Page SEO?
Google’s algorithm ranks your website on three main factors: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
Technical SEO refers to all the SEO elements not included in on-page and off-page practices, such as structured data, site speed, and mobile readiness — the more technical parts of SEO. Off-page SEO refers to social sharing, external linking, and more.
On-page SEO is important because it helps search engines understand your website and its content, as well as identify whether it is relevant to a searcher’s query. The on-page factors that can make or break your SEO success.
Even with advancements in artificial intelligence, certain traditional SEO practices, like specific keyword presence, remain integral. Optimizing your site’s content is much more involved. There are more steps. And those steps are more complex than before. Now, let’s discuss the elements of on-page SEO.
The Elements of On Page SEO
On-page SEO components include content elements, site architecture elements, and HTML elements. In this section, we’ll focus on how these elements should be incorporated into your content.
Content Elements
In this section, we’ll focus on keyword research and how keywords should be incorporated into your content. We’ll also discuss the importance of crafting captivating content and enhancing the visual appeal and engagement of web pages.
1. Identify target keywords
The first step to creating high-quality content is choosing relevant keywords and topics. Target keywords—i.e., relevant search queries—are crucial to on-page optimization. After all, the goal is to rank for relevant keywords and become more visible in search results.
When doing keyword research, consider how your page content falls into the buyer’s journey and visitors’ search intent. This will impact how you will use your keywords and what types of content you will create.
You can use SEO tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, UberSuggest, AnswerthePublic, and more. They provide data you can use to choose the best keywords for your brand. Those data points usually include:
- Intent: The type of search intent or motivation behind each search
- Volume: Keyword search volume, the average number of monthly searches
- KD%: Keyword difficulty, a measure of how hard it will be to rank in the top 10 unpaid Google results
You can identify the best target keywords by performing keyword research and understanding search intent. Then, you can optimize your page accordingly.
Target 1 or 2 keywords for each page or blog (except homepage). Always focus on broader terms for your main “parent” pages and longer terms for the “child” pages below.
2. Create quality content
Why do you think people visit your site? Most likely because it contains the information they’re looking for. Therefore it’s essential to write excellent content that corresponds with their needs.
Search engines like Google also read your text. Which site ranks highest for a specific search term is primarily based on a website’s content.
That’s why your content should be informative, easy to read, and focused on the right keywords that your audience uses. To rank your content in 2024, your content needs to be:
- Unique: publish something that doesn’t just regurgitate the same stuff that’s already out there, fresh content that brings something new to the table;
- Valuable: use expert authors with first-hand experience that can provide trustworthy, up-to-date information for your audience and can be easily put in practice;
- Relevant: your page has to satisfy search intent, to be exactly what a Google searcher wants, otherwise, will likely be buried on the secondary pages.
The process of creating captivating content goes well beyond using keywords on your page.
3. Incorporate keywords into your body copy
Sprinkle your keyword throughout your content as well where it fits naturally. While keywords are both helpful and necessary for SEO, it’s important to avoid keyword stuffing.
Don’t simply stuff keywords in after doing the writing. If you’re well prepared with keyword research, have the list of topically related keywords at hand as you write. If you are staying on topic, you will insert related keywords naturally.
Here are some on-page best practices for using keywords properly into your content:
- Use your primary keyword within the first paragraph (the first 50-100 words) so the search engine’s crawlers can determine what your content is about. And then scatter repeats (and/or secondary keywords) throughout.
- Include a mixture of keywords and synonyms with a good keyword density and throughout your content to ensure you maximize the reach of your optimized page. People often use variations of a search term although they have the same user intent.
- Don’t excessively repeat keywords or key phrases in your content with the intention of manipulating search engine rankings. Keyword stuffing can be detrimental to your website and web page’s SEO.
Remember that you’re writing for users. Not just search engines. Look at the top-ranking pages to see what’s working well for them.
4. Add visual elements
Visual content — like images, graphics, and charts — play an important role in on-page SEO for several reasons. Images can enhance the visual appeal and engagement of web pages.
They help make content more scannable and easier to digest. Plus, optimizing images with alt tags (more on that below) can help drive traffic from image search results.
Here’s how visual content can enhance your on-page SEO strategy:
- Images: add images to every article you write or page you create to make them more appealing. The image should reflect the post’s topic or have illustrative purposes within the article.
- Video content: Incorporate informative and engaging videos that provide in-depth insights into your topic. Ensure that videos are well-structured and captivate the viewer’s attention.
- Infographics: When you create informative and visually appealing infographics, other websites and bloggers are more likely to link back to your site as a source of valuable information.
By investing in visually appealing content, optimizing images and videos, and leveraging visual assets for link building, you can improve user experience, reduce bounce rates, and enhance your overall on-page SEO efforts.
HTML Elements
HTML elements refer to the elements in your source code. To see the source code for any page in your browser, click View > Developer > View Source in the top menu.
1. Optimize page title with keywords
Your website page titles (also known as title tags) are one of the most important on-page SEO elements because they are a tiny ranking factor according to Google, and they impact your click-through-rate (CTR).
A title tag is a bit of HTML code used to specify the title of a webpage. It appears in Google’s search results, social media posts (if you don’t have OG tags), and in the browser tab.
Titles tell both visitors and search engines what they can find on the corresponding pages. To ensure your site pages rank for the proper intent, be sure to incorporate the focus keyword for each page in the title as naturally as possible.
Here are some best practices for when developing a page title:
- Keep it under 60 characters (per Google’s update) to ensure that your titles display correctly. Although Google doesn’t have an exact character limit, its display titles max out at 600 pixels. Keeping your titles at 60 characters or less ensures the title won’t be cut off in search results.
- Include the page’s primary keyword (the main search term you want to rank for). Ideally, at the start. You can add secondary keywords, too. But it’s important to avoid unnatural “keyword stuffing.” This can look spammy to Google and users.
- Make your title more clickable in order to gain more traffic, which is why crafting an enticing title tag is so important. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for this, but the ABC formula (adjective+benefit+confidence) is a good starting point.
SEO isn’t just about ranking. It’s also about convincing searchers to click on your page in the search results. This is why it’s important to craft compelling title tags that attract clicks.
2. Add compelling meta description
Write a compelling meta description that summarizes the page’s content and encourages users to click through from search results. It’s one of the first things people will likely see when searching for something.
Search engines like Google and Bing no longer use meta descriptions as a direct ranking signal. However, descriptions commonly appear in the SERPs (search engine results page) and can impact user organic click through rates, so optimizing it is crucial for on-page SEO.
Here’s what makes for a good meta description:
- Keep it under 160 characters, although Google has been known to allow longer meta descriptions. Include your entire keyword or keyword phrase.
- Write your meta description like an ad copy using a complete, compelling sentence (or two). The goal is to excite the audience to further influence a click-through.
- Craft unique meta descriptions for each page to avoid duplication and enhance click-through rates. Generic, duplicate meta descriptions don’t add value.
Even though Google can override them with their own snippet, Google recommended that you write your own, keyword rich meta descriptions.
3. Structure content with headings
Subheadings break up text and make it easier for users to scan your content. And the appropriate H-tags (header tags) help Google understand the structure of your page (semantic signals).
You should only have one H1 header (central theme or title). But you can add as many H2 through H6 tags as necessary, depending on the depth of your content. They work in a nested hierarchy system (while H2 and H3 are the most common subheadings, H4 to H6 can provide further structure within those subsections).
Now, let’s get to the best practices of using headings in on-page SEO:
- Naturally incorporate important keywords in your headers, but choose different ones than what’s in your page title. Put your most important keywords in your H1 and H2 headers.
- Break up long blocks of text with relevant subheadings to create a logical structure for your content and to enhance readability. This makes your content more user-friendly and helps search engines identify covered topics.
- Carefully crafted header tags can increase your chances of winning paragraph featured snippets (identify a relevant long-tail keyword and use it in your H2) and list featured snippets (use subheadings to outline different items or steps in a process)
Heading tags don’t make or break your on-page SEO, but it can’t hurt. A scannable article is positioned to perform well in search engines because Google rewards user-friendly content.
4. Optimize images
Image optimization works because it makes it easier for search engines like Google to find and understand your images. This means they’re more likely to show your images (and the pages they’re on) for relevant search queries.
Optimized images also load faster. And help users get the information they need. These are both things that Google values when ranking search results.
Common on-page SEO tactics include:
- Adding alternative text (alt text) to images tells Google and other search engines what your images are about. Describe aspects of the image that are important in context and stick to a maximum length of 125 characters.
- Resizing images to smaller dimensions helps reduce loading times without affecting image quality, while compressing images reduces image file sizes while maintaining the desired level of image quality.
- Giving images descriptive file names, as Google uses image file names to better understand what images depict. If you use the same image in translated versions of your content, make sure to update the file name accordingly.
Consumers may be discovering your site through your images. In order for them to do this, though, you have to add alt-text to your images.
5. Add Schema MarkUp
Structured markup, or structured data, is the process of “marking up” your website source code to make it easier for Google to find and understand different elements of your content.
Structured markup is the key behind those featured snippets, knowledge panels, and other content features you see when you search for something on Google. It’s also how your specific page information shows up so neatly when someone shares your content on social media.
They can include images, ratings, reviews, and other structured data, offering users a more informative preview of a webpage directly in the search results.
There are three ways to communicate schema markup to Google. Essentially, these are coding methods your schema markup code is formatted in. So it is machine-readable.
These include:
- JSON-LD is a JavaScript-based method for implementing schema markup.This method is easy for developers to implement. It uses JSON syntax (where data is organized in name-value pairs, much like in a phonebook, and these pairs are separated by commas).
- Microdata uses HTML tags and attributes and is fairly easy to understand if you know HTML. However, the code can get lengthy compared to JSON-LD. And is therefore generally not preferred.
- RDFa (Resource Descriptive Framework in Attributes) uses HTML tags and attributes. And it’s verbose.
A better choice is usually to use JSON-LD since it’s simpler. Structured data is considered technical SEO, but I’m including it here because optimizing it creates a better on-page experience for visitors.
Site Architecture Elements
Site architecture elements refer to the elements that make up your website and site pages. How you structure your website can help Google and other search engines easily crawl the pages and page content.
1. Optimize your URLs
Your page URLs should be simple to digest for both readers and search engines. They are also important when keeping your site hierarchy consistent as you create subpages, blog posts, and other types of internal pages.
URLs are on Google’s confirmed search ranking factors, which help search engines decipher what each webpage contains. With that in mind, add relevant keywords to your URLs to help Google understand your pages’ content, why youI made it, and which searches it should rank for.
Although best practices can depend on the kind of website you have, there are a few ground rules when it comes to creating SEO-friendly URLs:
- Make sure that your URLs are focused. They shouldn’t contain function wordslike ‘a’, ‘of’, ‘the’ etc. In 99% of the cases, these words add nothing of value to your URL. If possible, strip your URLs of verbs as well. Words like ‘are’ or ‘have’ are not needed in your URL to make clear what the page is about. When it comes to Arabic SEO or Japanese SEO, it is recommended to use latin characters.
- Use hyphens to separate words in your slug. Don’t use spaces, underscores or other characters of your choice to do this.
- Keep your URLs as short as possible. It’s not that Google doesn’t like lengthy URLs, but shorter URLs are more focused and easier to recall. In addition, they will be less likely to be cut off when shown in Google.
Web pages with URLs similar to search keywords enjoys a higher CTR compared to web pages with URLs different from search keywords.
2. Internal Linking
Internal link building is one of the most underutilized strategies in on-page SEO, but it’s something you should pay attention to. Internal linking is the process of hyperlinking to other helpful pages on your website.
Internal linking is important for on-page SEO because internal links send readers to other pages on your website, keeping them around longer and thus telling Google your site is valuable and helpful.
Also, the longer visitors are on your website, the more time Google has to crawl and index your site pages. This ultimately helps Google absorb more information about your website and potentially rank it higher on the search engine results pages.
How do you do internal linking? Here are the most common actions in on-page SEO:
- Link to and from content-heavy pages to create a strong internal linking structure deep within the site. Consider linking with descriptive anchor text and adding an appropriate number of links per page;
- Update old articles with new internal links for Google’s crawler to see it again and index it again. Circling back to older content and creating internal links that connect to your newer work may boost rankings;
- Add links where it makes sense, and do not just throw your links in at the end of an article. Look for areas in your content where the subject matter overlaps as these are logical points of connection.
You can use internal links to make more money (the main goal), funneling people towards high-converting pages, pages with affiliate links, and relevant products/services.
3. Use Of Outbound Links
Outbound high-quality links can help search engines determine the overall value of your content. They are external links you create on your website, typically as sources or for a deeper dive into a topic you may not cover.
Citations, quotes, and external links back to research articles & case studies about the topic you’re discussing help add authority to your page and show you’re trying to add value.
Let’s take a look at some best practices for using them in on-page SEO:
- Use keyword-rich anchor text: The anchor text is the text that appears when someone hovers over a link. When adding outbound links to your website, be sure to use keyword-rich anchor text. This will help improve your SEO by telling Google what the link is about.
- Add outbound links sparingly: Too many outbound links can make your website look spammy. When adding outbound links to your website, be sure to add them only when appropriate versus feeling you have to put in as many as possible.
- Choose quality over quantity: It’s better to have a few high-quality outbound links than a large number of low-quality outbound links. One of the best ways is to link to sources that you’ve used in your research to show your readers that you’ve done your homework and that you’re not just making things up.
Avoid pointing to competing pages and do not use your target keywords as anchor text in outbound links.
4. Mobile Responsiveness
Google started favoring sites that are optimized for faster mobile speeds — even for desktop searches.
Mobile responsiveness matters. It’s critical to choose a website hosting service, site design and theme, and content layout that’s readable and navigable on mobile devices.
Follow these guidelines when optimizing your pages’ mobile content and design:
- Avoid plugins like Flash, Java or Silverlight. Most mobile browsers don’t support these technologies, so it won’t load for mobile users. If you want special effects or content, use HTML5.
- Make your font size readable without zooming in. If you’ve set your mobile viewport, make your base font 16 pixels, the default size for most fonts. Then define text sizes for headers relative to the base font. Keeping your pages light on text will allow you to use larger base font sizes.
- Design with touchscreens in mind. This means making tap targets big enough, and with enough padding, to avoid accidental clicks. Few things are more frustrating to users than links and buttons that are too small or too close together to click. Make tap targets at least 48 pixels in height and width with an extra 32 pixels on all sides.
If you’re not sure about your own site’s mobile readiness, use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.
5. Site Speed
Whether viewed on a mobile device or desktop, your site must be able to load quickly. When it comes to on-page SEO, page speed counts big-time.
Google cares about user experience first and foremost. If your site loads slowly or haphazardly, it’s likely your visitors aren’t going to stick around — and Google knows that.
Moreover, site speed optimization can help you increase average time on page, reduce your bounce rate, and convert more visitors into customers.
Core Web Vitals look at three aspects of a web page: loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. From those three aspects, Google defined the following metrics:
- Loading – Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This metric measures how long it takes for the most significant piece of content to appear on the screen.
- Interactivity – First Input Delay (FID): This metric measures how fast the page can respond to the first user interaction.
- Visual Stability – Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): This metric measures the stability of visual elements on your page. In other words, does stuff move around on the screen while loading?
Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or Pingdom can identify specific issues affecting your page load time so you can tackle them individually.
Put Your On-Page SEO to Work
Once you finalize your SEO plans, implement these changes on your website or pass them along to someone to implement for you. This will take time to complete, so aim to work on 5 to 10 pages per week.
SEO is not a one-and-done deal. It’s something you should continually improve upon. You should treat this On-Page SEO guide as a living, breathing document that will help guide your SEO strategy for months (or years) to come.