On-Page SEO: The Definitive Guide
Table of Contents
What is On-Page SEO?
On-Page Search Engine Optimization (On-Page SEO) is a series of factors that you can use while creating your content. These factors will then help Google understand that your website is related to certain topics or keywords. The better you optimize your pages for search engines, the more traffic will come to your website, and it will rank higher on Google’s search results.
On-Page SEO Checklist
1. Keyword Research
2.Content Optimization
3. Image Optimization
4. Internal Linking & Outbound Linking
5. Page Title and Headings
6. Url Structure
7. Meta data
8. SSL Certificate
Download the full On-Page SEO Checklist and Content Checklist here:
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is one of the most important aspects of on-page SEO. Before you start optimizing your website for search engines, you need to figure out what people are searching for. Once you find what your audience is looking for, it’s much easier to optimize content around specific keywords and phrases. And when done correctly, keyword research is a great way to increase organic traffic.
There are lots of tools out there that can help you do keyword research quickly and efficiently. Our favorite keyword research tool is Ubersuggest because it also tells us how competitive a keyword is (i.e. if it’s easy or hard for our page to rank).Â
Best keyword research tools
1. Google Trends
2.Answer the public
3. Google Search Console
4. Keyword Generator
5. Ubersuggest
6. Google - "People also ask" box
Content Optimization
Content optimization is one of several things that falls under on-page SEO, but it’s arguably more important than any other factor. Content optimization refers to making sure your content is optimally structured for search engines so they can easily crawl it and classify its content correctly. You also want to optimize for user experience. If you create stellar content that no human being could read, then you’re wasting your time. Optimize for humans first and search engines second—that’s an important rule of thumb in all aspects of on-page SEO. Once you have optimized your content through proper structure, focus on optimizing both images and links with alt text and relevant anchor text respectively.Â
Image Optimization
Your visual content must be optimized for your customers and search engines. Without proper image optimization, you’re wasting a valuable SEO asset
Here are 6 important image optimization tips you need to know:
1. Choose the right format
2. Compress your images
3. Customize image file names
When creating an image file name, don’t put spaces or special characters, as these are hard for web crawlers to process.Â
4. Use descriptive alt text and caption
5. Create an image site map
6. Serve responsive images
How to write good alt text?
1. Be concise
2. Be accurate
3. Avoid keyword stuffing
4. Avoid stating that is an image
Internal Linking and Outbound Linking
Page titles and headings
Page titles and headings on your site are an important part of on-page SEO, as they play a vital role in how search engines crawl and index your website. The title of the post should be an H1 heading. Everything within each section should be wrapped in an H2 tag, and everything below it should be wrapped in an H3 tag. There are five heading levels—H1 through H6—but H1 through H3 is most important for both SEO and accessibility purposes.Â
SEO-friendly URL sctructure
The first thing you’ll want to look at when optimizing your on-page SEO is whether or not your website has an SEO-friendly URL structure. If it doesn’t, your search engine optimization will be less than optimal; even if your page is perfectly optimized for search engines, but you don’t have a friendly URL, then traffic will be lower than it could be.
Meta Data
After publishing your content, be sure to edit and optimize your meta tags and make sure you use them properly. One of many reasons is that these meta tags appear in search engine results pages (SERPs). By optimizing your title and description for searches relevant to your topic, you can increase organic traffic through search engines. Adding a keyword at least once in each meta tag element can also boost rankings on Google.
We use the Yoast plugin to optimize our content.
SSL Certificate
Let’s take a look at SSL for SEO and how it can be used as a tool in your website optimization strategy. The term SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and provides encryption and authentication of communications over an open network such as our internet, making sure that all information exchanged is not readable by any third party. With SSL, your site will get higher search rankings because Google ranks HTTPS sites higher than HTTP sites.
Conclusion
On-Page SEO is often overlooked but it is one of the most important aspects of your site. On-Page SEO not only affects how Google ranks your website but also how users interact with your website. Create content that answers users’ questions and use On-Page Optimization tools like Yoast which offer quality optimization for free, to make sure you are optimizing effectively! This will make sure you are getting traffic from search engines and visitors who will engage with your content.