On-page SEO is the art of making a web page more relevant to search engines and users, which helps boost the page’s rankings on SERPs and drive more relevant traffic.
It holds significant importance in SEO since linking to high-authority and relevant websites won’t show its full benefit unless the website content is well-optimized to rank higher and reflects high-quality content.
Creating high-quality rankable content with the help of On-page SEO strategies even makes the link building process less challenging.
However, over-optimizing web pages can also hurt their rankings; hence, it is crucial to follow the search engine guidelines carefully when implementing On Page SEO strategies.
How to Optimize a Website Using On-Page SEO?
On-Page SEO Audit
The on-page audit is the process of analyzing a website using various on-page SEO factors to identify SEO improvement areas in a website. The primary objective is to ensure that web pages are optimized to rank higher on SERPs for relevant keywords.
Keywords Optimization
Keywords Optimization is the art of balancing the usage of keywords on web pages in an effort to avoid making it sound cheap, artificial, or over-emphasized, saving from the trouble of looking like a spammy website.
It helps in creating content that specifically serves the needs of potential customers. The careful selection and utilization of the target keywords bring more traffic to the web page and is an essential step of the On Page SEO process.
The correct usage of keywords is unmistakable since it is the first step to interacting with your potential customers and being found on SERPs. Search Engines like Google can clearly understand the intent of a user’s search query and correlate between semantic keywords to identify which search result fits the best and rank them accordingly on its SERPs.
Using LSI Keywords
LSI keywords are search terms or phrases related to the primary keyword or topic of a web page and have become a vital part of advanced on page SEO strategies. Some people might confuse LSI keywords as synonyms of keywords; however, they are not.
Instead, LSI keywords are search terms or phrases commonly found along with the primary keyword to match the correct context.
Using these keywords in the content can also help improve its relevance and readability. However, it is essential to avoid using them artificially and stuffing them into your content, making the content sound spammy, usually referred to as Keyword Stuffing.
Search Engines are very strict about keyword stuffing and can impose a penalty and hurt your rankings.
Research and Analyze Competitors
Competitive Research and Analysis aims to identify any valuable keyword or link opportunities that can be useful for your online business. Hence, it has become an important aspect of a smart on page SEO approach.
SEO tools like SEMRush, Ahrefs, and Ubersuggest provide a comprehensive outlook on these two aspects of your competitors’ SEO strategy.
Check what Topics They Have Covered and What They Have Missed
When performing competitive research, it is best to start by identifying topics that your competitors have covered in their On page and Off page SEO strategies. It gives you a closer look at keywords that are generating traffic for them.
Check Their Regular Source of Backlinks
Checking the competitors for their source of backlinks can help you identify link opportunities that have worked for them, especially niche-relevant link opportunities.
You can reach out to the same websites and try to get a link back from them since they might already have been linking out to many of your competitors and similar websites.
Title Tag Optimization
The page title is the most crucial aspect of your on page SEO strategy. It appears at the top of the tab in the browser and helps identify the topic of the web page and its relevancy. You can define the page title within the <header> section of the HTML document of the web page.
Apart from appearing at the top of a browser’s tab, the page title also appears in the search snippet on SERPs and is a part of page ranking factors, which helps a search user identify whether a search result is relevant to their query or not and what information they can expect on that page.
Writing a unique and descriptive page title of fewer than 60 characters helps you get more qualified traffic compared to a vague page title that doesn’t give the search users clarity about the content on the page.
Using the target keyword at the start of the title tag is a good practice and improves its relevance to the search query.
Meta Description Optimization
Meta Descriptions are a summary overview of the content on the web page and can be defined using the <meta name=”description” content=””> tag in the HTML doc. It clarifies the relevancy and accuracy of a web page to the search users and appears under the page title in the search snippet.
A meta description isn’t a page ranking factor; however, it influences the click-through rate (CTR) and improves the quality of website traffic. Hence, it has become the second most important aspect of on page SEO process.
A unique and descriptive meta description ranging between 30 to 160 characters in length can really help you generate a lot of quality traffic. However, search Engines like Google can algorithmically generate a more relevant meta description for your web pages if they find the meta description provided by you irrelevant to the search query of the users.
Optimizing the Content Headings
The HTML tags, i.e., the H1, H2, H3, etc., are used to structure and format the content headings on a web page and must not be forgotten during the implementation of On Page SEO. These tags are used hierarchically, starting with the H1 tag used to define the primary heading on the page and the H2 and H3 tags used as subheadings that provide further context and help structure the content into smaller sections.
The H1 heading is typically used for the main title of a web page and is usually the first thing that website visitors see when they land on a page. It should accurately reflect the context of all the content concisely.
The H2 tags are used for the subheadings under the H1 heading. They help provide a specific narrative to the specific topics on the page and break up the content into smaller sections.
As for the H3 tags, these are used as subheadings under the H2 tags to provide specific context, organize the content on the page, and help break up the content into even smaller subsections.
Optimize Images using Image Alt Text
Image alt texts or Alt Tags are a description of an image defined in the HTML code of a web page and a crucial aspect of Image SEO. The primary usage of alt text is to provide the context for the images on the web page to visually impaired search users when images are not loaded for reasons such as slow internet connections or broken image links.
Apart from that, alt text can also help with improving the visibility of the page. Search engines use alt text to understand the content of an image and how it relates to the content on the page. You can improve the relevance of your web page and increase its visibility in search results by providing descriptive and comprehensive text.
Alt texts should be concise and accurately relate to the content and context of the image, using relevant keywords appropriately. You must avoid keyword stuffing and focus on creating natural, readable descriptions.
URL Length
URL length is the number of characters in a website URL. It can help improve user experience and impact the performance and On Page SEO health of the web page.
Short URLs are preferred over longer ones because they are easier to read, remember, and share. On the other hand, longer URLs can be hard to remember and share and often get truncated in SERP snippets, which negatively influences the CTR.
The ideal length of a URL can vary depending on the specific website and content. However, as a general rule of thumb, it is recommended to keep URLs as short as possible without losing the precise context of the content on the page.
A good practice is to make them short and easily understandable using descriptive words that convey the meaning of the page while avoiding unnecessary words and characters.
Apart from that, shorter URLs are easy to crawl and index by search engines, and they can also help to reduce the load time of a website, improving the website performance and SEO.
Internal Links
Internal links are an integral part of the content that helps link out to the other pages on the website and provide an in-depth context of the linked anchor text. It contributes towards improving the user experience for the readers, impacts the on page SEO health, and boosts the SEO performance of the website.
Apart from that, they also help represent a hierarchical structure to search bots and website visitors. Considering their site-wide effect, it is crucial to use them strategically.
As a good practice, the anchor text of an internal link should describe the content of the linked page accurately and use relevant keywords appropriately.
However, usage of a high number of internal links to gain an SEO advantage is considered a spammy practice and can instead hurt the page rankings.
External Links
External links or Outbound links are similar to internal links, but instead of linking to another page on the website, they take the reader to a web page on another website.
By linking to high-quality external websites, a website can build credibility and show its expertise on a topic. Search Engines like Google have clearly stated in their guidelines that external links should be given wherever necessary to provide a proper context of the content and to source the original and reputed publishers and considered as a positive influence on the on page SEO health of the website.
Moreover, Google has also advised avoiding linking to Link-Farms or spammy sites with low-quality content that can hurt your rankings, which shows how much significance search engines give them when ranking a website.
External links typically help increase the website’s authority and improve the relevance of a page, which can improve its rankings on SERPs.
Like internal links, the anchor text should accurately describe the content of the linked web page and use relevant keywords appropriately.
SEO Content Writing
SEO content writing is the process of creating website content that is of high quality, unique, and optimized to rank higher on SERPs. SEO content is designed to appeal to humans as well as search algorithms by adding specific keywords, relevant topics, and other on-page SEO elements without being spammy.
Apart from that, SEO content also focuses on the user experience of the readers to improve the relevancy as well as link-building aspects to boost the visibility and authority of the content.
By focusing on these aspects, you can create SEO-optimized content that appeals to readers as well as search engines and helps drive more organic traffic and business results.
On Page SEO is the backbone of optimizing web content for search engines and user satisfaction. Striking the right balance is crucial, avoiding over-optimization, and adhering closely to search engine guidelines.
Implementing the above On Page SEO strategies boosts website visibility, creating a seamless, rewarding experience for the audience. This holistic approach ensures content stands out in the digital realm, driving organic traffic and achieving business success.
