On-page SEO

On-page SEO helps bring in new visitors to your website.

With on-page SEO you decide:

• Establish the topic and goal of each page.
• Pick the target audience for your pages.
• Choose the target keywords and phrases to focus on.

Keep reading to find out how.

What is on-page SEO

On-page SEO, also known as on-site SEO, is optimising your website to help it rank in search engines.

When your on-page SEO work ranks on search engines, it brings in new traffic to your website.

On-page SEO elements include:

• Content
• Site architecture
• HTML

Why is on-page SEO important?

On-page SEO is important because it shows Google how your website gives value to visitors.

On-page SEO work optimises your website for visitors and search engine bots.

You need to optimise your website for Google and other search engines to help it rank and bring in new traffic.

Google’s algorithm ranks your website on:

• On-page SEO
• Off-page SEO
• Technical SEO

Off-page and technical SEO work is not always noticed by web page visitors but on-page SEO optimization is the changes to your website that can be seen.

On-page SEO elements

On-page SEO includes:

• High-Quality Content
• Page Titles
• Headers
• Meta Descriptions
• Image Alt-text
• Structured Markup
• Page URLs
• Internal Linking
• Mobile Responsiveness
• Site Speed

On-page SEO is divided into three sections:

• Content
• HTML
• Site architecture

Content

Content is in your website’s copy and content.

Content involves making high-quality page copy to help your visitors and shows Google that your website provides value.

High-Quality Page Content

Page content tells your readers and search engines what your website is about and is the main part of on-page SEO.

Keyword research

To make high-quality content, first you have to do keyword research which is to pick relevant keywords and topics.

Keyword research can be done by searching on Google and seeing the type of content produced by competitors and other websites.

To speed up this process use tools like Ahrefs, AnswerthePublic, and UberSuggest.

Search intent

Next, think about why your visitors are on search engines, what are they searching for?

This is called search intent, and will determine how you use your keywords and the type of content you write.

Search intent includes:

• Informational: Answers to questions or general searches
• Navigational: Find a website or physical location
• Commercial: Find a brand or service
• Transactional: Complete an action or purchase

Writing

Now move on to writing your page content or making changes if you’re doing an on-page SEO audit.

To write high-quality page content include:

• Short and long-tail keywords.
• Engaging and relevant visual content.
• Target your audience persona.
• Solve your audience’s problem.
• Make shareable and linkable content.

For more on Content

Content Marketing

HTML

HTML elements are in your source code.

To access the source code in your browser:

• Click View
• Click Developer
• Then click View Source in the top menu.

Page Titles

Page titles, also known as title tags are important in SEO.

Titles tell visitors and search engines what your content is about.

Including focus keywords in the title of each page helps your website pages rank for the right user search intent.

Just make sure your keywords are naturally placed in your content.

Some tips when it comes to page titles:

• Keep your titles at 60 characters or less so the title won’t be cut off in search results.
• No keyword stuffing, search engines penalise unnaturally keywords in content.
• Make it relevant to the page.
• Don’t use all caps.
• Include your brand in the title.

Headers

Headers, also known as body tags, organise your content for better readability and show search engines the most important and relevant based on search intent.

For example, <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc.

Pick keywords different to the ones in your title page and put them in your headers.

Your most important keywords are <h1> and <h2> headers.

Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are written under the title in search results, describing the content.

It’s not a ranking factor for search engines, but can be the difference between someone clicking on your page or not.

Meta descriptions can be used when your content is shared on social media, getting you more clicks.

For a good meta description:

• Keep it under 160 characters.
• Include keyword or keyword phrase.
• Use one or two complete and compelling sentences.
• Don’t use alphanumeric characters like —, &, or +.

Image Alt-text

Image alt-text describes your images to Google and other search engines like SEO for your website’s images.

Alt-text in images is important because Google shows as many image-based results as text-based results.

By adding alt-text to your website’s images, searchers could find your website this way.

Image alt-text should:

• Be descriptive and specific.
• Be in context and relevant to the main page content.
• Shorter than 125 characters.
• Not be keyword stuffed.

Structured Markup

Structured markup, also known as structured data, makes it easier for Google to find and understand different sections of your content.

Although structured markup is a part of technical SEO but optimising helps with a better on-page experience for your website visitors.

Structured markup helps with getting featured snippets, knowledge panels, and other content features when you search on Google.

Also helping your specific page information show up when someone shares your content on social media.

Site Architecture

Site architecture is how your website is structured to help Google and other search engines easily crawl the pages and page content.

Page URLs

Your page URLs should be simple for readers and search engines.

Page URLs are also important when organising your website’s pages.

For example, https://blog.yourwebsite.com/sales/startups.

In the example, “blog” is the sub-domain, “yourwebsite.com” is the domain, “sales” is the directory for the blog, and “startups” shows the path to that blog post.

For SEO-friendly URLs:

• Remove extra, unnecessary words.
• Use one or two keywords.
• Use HTTPS, it’s a ranking factor for Google.

Internal Linking

Internal linking is linking to other pages on your website using hyperlinks.

Internal linking is important because it keeps your content readers on your website for longer and shows Google your website is valuable and helpful.

If visitors stay on your website for longer, Google has more time to crawl and index your site pages.

This gives Google more information about your website and ranks it higher on the search engine results.

Mobile Responsiveness

Google prefers responsive websites for mobile device users, resulting in faster mobile speeds 

Even websites that are searched on your desktop or laptop are preferred by Google.

For Mobile responsiveness, what matters is:

• Your website hosting service
• Site design and theme.
• Readable and navigable content layout.

To check your website’s mobile responsiveness, use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

Mobile responsiveness is part of technical SEO, but optimising it gives users a better on-page experience.

Site Speed

With on-page SEO, speed matters.

So, your website needs to load quickly, if it’s on a mobile device or desktop.

Google cares about the user, mainly the user’s experience when browsing.

Google knows, if your website is slow to load, then your visitors will leave and website speed affects conversions and ROI (return on investment).

Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to check your website’s speed.

Site speed is part of technical SEO, but optimising it gives users a better on-page experience.

On-page SEO checklist

On-page SEO includes:

• Crawl your website.
• Do an SEO audit and sort your site architecture.
• Update URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions.
• Add a keyword in your URL.
• Include your keyword in your page.
• Track keywords and topics for each page.
• Don’t keyword stuff.
• Establish value offering for each page.
• Find your target audience.
• Plan new page titles.
• Add new meta descriptions.
• Review and edit page content.
• Add visual content.
• Optimise visual content.
• Add internal links.
• Add external links.
• Optimise for conversions.

On-page SEO steps:

Crawl your website.

Crawl your website to know all of your website’s pages that search engines have indexed.

Use a free tool like Xenu’s link crawler.

After crawling, if you can, export the results into an Excel or .csv file.

The data you should focus on is:

• URL/web address
• Page title
• The page’s meta description

Do an SEO audit and sort your site architecture.

After seeing the basic index of your website, organise and prioritise your web pages.

Figure out where your pages are in your website’s architecture.

Is a page your homepage?

In your primary or secondary navigation menu?

Is it an internal page? etc.

Update URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions.

Check if your website’s URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions need updating.

Optimise all page titles that are longer than 60 characters.

The recommended length for page meta descriptions are 155-160 characters and don’t repeat with keywords.

Make sure your keyword is in your URL.

Add your keyword to your URL.

For example, if you have a website that gives SEO tips and you’ve written content called “Beginner SEO tips for 2022.”

If the keyword for this page is “beginner SEO tips 2022,” you would put that keyword in your URL.

The URL for your content page would be: www.yourwebsite.com/beginner-seo-tips-2022.

Include your keyword throughout your web page.

Add your keywords in the content of your web pages.

Including in your title, headers and the first 100 words or first few paragraphs.

Just make sure your keywords fit naturally into your content.

Track keywords and topics for each page.

You should use a single focus keyword on a particular topic for each page.

Just like you would pick only one topic of content per page.

By concentrating on one main keyword, you will be able to go more in-depth and provide more detailed information about that topic.

Optimising for one keyword per page, means your chance of ranking for the keyword increases.

This doesn’t mean you can’t add related keywords to your content, they just won’t be the main keyword.

Pages where you can break this rule include:

• Your homepage: You’re explaining what your website is about so you need a few keywords for that.
• Overview pages: Service pages and product pages, which details your product and service will naturally include more keywords.

Don’t keyword stuff.

Keyword stuffing used to work but doesn’t anymore.

But still a lot of people try it, by cramming as many keywords as possible in an unnatural way.

Keyword stuffing affects your website and web page’s SEO in a negative way and it’s spammy so your website visitors will leave your page.

Establish value propositions for each page.

This next step is important but often overlooked.

Each page in your website has to have a goal.

Establishing a value offering for each page of your website means:

• What value will you bring to your audience?
• Why should website visitors click on your page?
• What solution does your content provide?

Apart from ranking for a certain term, each page should have a goal and as the author you should have this goal in mind.

Define your target audience.

Finding a goal for your content pages is easier when you know your target audience.

Ask yourself this:

• Are you targeting a single visitor persona?
• Are you targeting multiple visitor personas?
• What problems do your audience face?

This is part of optimising for humans and not just search engines.

So, put yourself in your audience’s shoes and figure out how to appeal to them in the best way possible.

Plan new page titles.

After seeing all your existing page titles and figuring out your website’s value propositions and target audiences for each of your pages.

Now it’s time to write new page titles with everything you have researched so far in mind.

People usually make a page title based on the Keyword Phrase paired with the context of your content.

But your goal for your website’s page title should be to show the purpose of the page’s content that will make potential visitors want to click.

Scroll up and remind yourself of the additional recommendations for page titles above.

Add new meta descriptions.

Your meta descriptions should be:

• Short, specific sentences.
• Include the same keyword as your page’s title.
• Tease about the content in the page.
• Close to the 150-character limit to maximise space
• Tell visitors as much as possible about your page.

Review and edit page content as needed.

Review your content.

Ask yourself, is your content:

• Clear?
• In-depth?
• Providing solutions?
• Error-free?
• At Least 500 words?

Good copy needs to be thorough and compelling.

You have to write for your target audience, about how you can help them and solve their problems.

Check your spelling and grammar because your content should always be error-free.

Use headers and subheaders so your content is easy for your audience to read and make sure your content is at least 500 words per page.

Incorporate visual content.

Content with visuals is better at getting your point across and can break up long pages of copy.

After adding an image to your page’s content, make sure to also add a file name that describes the visual.

Optimise your visual content.

After adding your image to your content, you’re not done yet.

Optimise your visual content by including your keyword in your image alt text.

Doing this helps your web page’s SEO and it can also rank on a search engine’s image search results page or image carousel.

Add internal links.

Adding internal links to other pages in your website is an easily overlooked but important part of on-page SEO.

Include more than just your keywords in your anchor text.

Don’t keyword stuff but make it look natural and it will make it easy for people to navigate your site.

Include external links.

As well as internal links, external links are also an important part of your on-page SEO strategy.

Linking out to other websites might seem against the purpose of internal linking, which is to keep visitors on your website.

By adding external links to trusted, credible websites, Google knows your page is also credible and trustworthy.

Your website visitors and Google trusts a website with good references.

Optimise for conversions.

Optimising for conversions by using CTAs (call to action) on your website can increase the number of leads, subscribers and the amount of customers you attract.

Each page of your website is an opportunity to convert your visitors.

So, every page of your website should have at least one CTA, some pages can have more than one CTA too.

Conclusion

Make your SEO plan final.

Make the changes you have read about or give the instructions to someone else to do them for you.

On-page SEO takes time so aim for working on 5 to 10 pages per week, minimum.

Plus, SEO is something you always improve.

Do you do on-page SEO any differently or do you want to add any suggestions?

Let me know in the comment section below.