On-page SEO

What is on-page SEO?

To rank higher and earn more pertinent traffic in search engines and refers to both the content and HTML source code of a page, on-page SEO is used and is the practice of optimizing individual web pages. On-page SEO has changed over the years, so it's essential to keep up with the latest practices and updates.

Why is on-page SEO important?

On-page SEO is important because it tells Google all about your website and how you provide value to the visitors. It helps your website to be optimized for human eyes as well as search engine bots. In order to rank and attract new traffic, creating and publishing your website is not enough - you must optimize it for Google and other search engines.

On-page SEO is called "on-page" because the changes you make to design your website can clearly be seen by visitors on your page.

Main chunks of on-page SEO

• High-quality content
• Page titles
• Headers
• Meta descriptions
• Image alt-text
• Structured markup
• Page URLs
• Internal linking
• Mobile responsiveness
• Site speed

Furthermore, these elements fall into three categories:

1. Content elements
2. HTML elements
3. Site architecture elements

So let’s start with the content.

High-quality Content

Crafting high-quality page content will benefit your visitors and makes your website valued on Google. The page content is the nucleus of on-page SEO as it tells the search engines as well as readers what your website is all about and your services.

The very first step to create high-quality content is to choose relevant keywords and topics.

Search for keywords that have less competition or competitors and high search volume. The most known tools to use are Ahrefs, AnswerthePublic, and many others if you want to choose.

Below are some important rules to write a good-quality content

1. Try not to use single word ratio and stop words like it, the, etc. Use of these words aren’t restricted but, in a controlled manner.
2. Don’t start a consecutive sentence with the same word used before. Try to mix things up!
3. Make use of transition words as much as you can.
4. Try to write in active counterparts and avoid the passive voice.
5. Don’t make paragraphs and sentences too long.
6. Add relevant content.
7. Solve the audience’s problem actively.
8. Link into the content.

HTML elements

This refers to the elements or tags in the source code.

Page title tag

There are multiple tags on your page with the most important is

The title is what users see in the search engines and the words that appear at the top of each tab in your browser. This outlines what your page is about.

Headers

These tags help to organize the content for readers and help search engines differentiate between the important and relevant part of the content, depending on the search intention.

Use important keywords in the headers, but different from the ones in your page title. Put your most important keywords in h1 and h2 headers.

Meta description

These are the short page descriptions that appear under the title in the search results. Although it's not an official ranking factor for search engines but it can influence whether or not your page is clicked on. Therefore, it is important when doing on-page SEO.

Here are some meta description rules:

1. The meta description should be of 160 characters because the search engine can read only 160 characters.
2. It should include every keyword.
3. The description must be unique.
4. Avoid the use of alphanumeric characters like “—”, and “,” or “+.”

Alternate text for image

Image alt-text is like SEO for your images. It tells Google and other search engines what your images are about - which is important because Google delivers almost as many image-based results as text-based results. Image is known as the heart of the clicks you get, so it means that visitors may discover your website through images.

Rules for Alt. image:

1. Descriptive and specific
2. Contextually relevant to the broader page content
3. Shorter than 125 characters
4. Use keywords sparingly

Structured Markup

Structured markup/data is the process of "marking up" your website source code to make it easier for Google to find and understand the content. The featured snippets, knowledge panels, and other content features you see when searching for something on Google are all done by structuring markup.

Architecture elements of the site

Site architecture refers to the elements that make up your website pages. The way of structuring the features of your website will help Google and other search engines to easily access the pages and its content.

Page URLs

The page URL should be absorbed by both readers and search engines. They are also important when keeping your site ranked.

Below are some rules to write SEO-friendly URLs:

1. Remove the extra and unnecessary words
2. Use only one or two keywords
3. Use “https,” as Google uses this as a positive ranking factor

Internal linking

Links carry the most weight in SEO. Earning links and applying them internally from quality sources and authority sites strengthens the domain and enhances SEO. Internal linking is important for on-page SEO as it sends readers to other pages on your website.

Mobile responsiveness

Google has started favouring sites that are optimized for faster mobile speeds that’s why in each case mobile responsiveness matters.

Speed of the site

Whether being viewed on a mobile or desktop, your site must load quickly. When it comes to on-page SEO, page speed counts a lot. If your site loads slowly, visitors will not stick to it, but rather move for other sources or websites.

How to check the on-page SEO?

1. Scrawl your website
2. Check the website with SEO rules and define the architecture of the site
3. Update URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions
4. Define your target audience
5. Plan new page titles and add new meta descriptions
6. Track keywords and topics for each page
7. Review and edit page content also, include visual content
8. Add internal links
9. Optimize for conversions