A Complete Guide to On-Page SEO

Since only 0.63% of internet users click on 2nd-page results, it’s critical that you make your website rank on Google’s first page. After all, 68% of online experiences begin with search engine use. Your page needs to be prominently displayed onscreen after relevant queries.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical for boosting your rankings. On-page SEO is a critical facet of any given SEO strategy. It can make your page more appealing, drive traffic, and keep consumers on your website before finally making a purchase.

Read on to learn more about what on-page SEO is, what it isn’t, and the tactics you’ll need to employ to boost your rankings with onsite content.

What Is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is a type of search engine optimization. Its aim is to boost the rankings of your website in search engine results pages (SERPs). A successful SEO strategy will use on-page tactics to make your page more appealing to both search engines and consumers.

On-page SEO refers to optimization strategies that take place on your website itself. It is also sometimes called ‘off-site SEO.’ You manipulate the information on your website to make it modern, readable, high-quality, and crawlable.

When you optimize on-page, you are going to alter your own content. This may mean adding relevant keywords, utilizing internal links, updating HTML and tagging, and more. It also might mean making your website more appealing by updating the UX or adding multimedia.

The aim of on-page optimization is to make your page stand out to Google crawlers. These crawlers, also sometimes called ‘spiders,’ are the bots that index the web.

They crawl through every website and determine how reputable, high-quality, authoritative, and interesting they are. They also figure out what queries they are the most relevant to. When crawlers identify that your page is reputable and about a certain topic, you will rank more highly in search engines for those that make relevant queries.

On-Page vs Off-Page SEO

To fully understand on-page SEO, it’s also important to look at what it’s not.

There are two main types of search engine optimization. On-page SEO is only one of them. The other is off-page SEO, which drives traffic to your website from other areas of the internet.

Off-page SEO is the manipulation of web content besides that on the site you’re trying to rank for. It is the opposite of on-page SEO in many ways, though both strategies share the same goals.

Off-page SEO includes activities like:

• Guest posting on other websites
• Link building (backlinking)
• Content syndication
• Getting quality reviews on third-party sites
• Having people mention you online and share your content
• Email marketing strategies
• Social media marketing campaigns
• Search engine marketing and pay-per-click ads to drive traffic to your website

On-page SEO does not encompass these strategies specifically because they take place on other parts of the internet.

Generally, using both on-page and off-page strategies together is a good idea. It creates a more cohesive and well-rounded SEO campaign. Crawlers and consumers will be drawn to your page because of its quality as well as its wide online presence.

This leads to more inbound traffic, easier indexing, better domain authority, and higher clickthrough and conversion rates.

On-Page SEO Strategies for Successful Businesses

Now that you have a basic definition of on-site SEO and understand what it isn’t, it’s time to answer the question of exactly what it is. That means looking into what strategies it encompasses.

Quality content is the backbone of any on-page SEO strategy. It’s what draws users to your page and keeps them there. If your content is bad, consumers will become disinterested and click away.

This lowers your brand image and reputation in the eyes of your target audience. You’ll get fewer conversions.

It also increases your bounce rate, which Google Crawlers see. They may push you down in SERPs because they believe you to be outdated, irrelevant, or disinteresting.

It’s best to focus on only producing top-notch professional content for your website.

What Makes for Quality Content?

But makes content high quality? The short answer is that it provides real value to the person browsing your website. The longer answer is that there are a few things that keep content fresh:

• Industry-focused information
• Free of fluff
• Interesting reader-friendly topics
• Engaging and personable brand voice
• Shorter sentences
• Bulleted lists
• Paragraphs no longer than 3 sentences
• Bold and clear fonts

You also can reach a wider audience with content syndication. This off-page strategy works well with the most important part of on-page SEO: your content.

Content syndication lets you post your content on multiple channels including your official website, social media platforms, and other third-party publishing websites. This increases your visibility and gets you more inbound traffic. In the end, you get to showcase your on-site SEO and get a wider audience invested in your well-crafter website.

Engaging Videos

While blog posts are a great way to engage readers, it’s also important that you have multimedia content on your website. About 85% of people want to see video content from their favorite brands, and 96% of consumers like using them to learn about goods and services.

Posting videos to your website’s home or landing page can help grab consumers’ attention. They will stay and learn more about your brand message.

When you get more clicks, higher clickthrough rates, and lingering consumers, your page inevitably gets ranked more highly in SERPs. After all, more browsing time shows crawlers that your page is credible and reputable.

Additionally, people tend to watch videos on their smartphones at a 150% higher rate than on other devices. 92% of mobile users will share videos after watching them. This boosts your off-page SEO as well as your on-page optimization.

Incorporating Keywords

Keyword research and usage is generally the first thing that comes to mind when people think of on-page SEO. This makes sense since it’s one of the most important aspects of optimization. In fact, besides quality content, it may be the single best way to improve your rankings with on-site strategies.

Incorporating the right keywords into your blog posts and other text content shows Google crawlers what topics you write about. As the bots crawl through your website, they’ll make note of what words and phrases appear throughout the text body. They then will rank you for queries relevant to the keywords to ensure that you reach your target audience.

To find the right keywords, consider what your target audience might be searching for. Consider including long-tail keywords; the prevalence of voice search is making them extremely popular.

Make a list and then enter each phrase into SEMrush’s keyword magic tool. Choose primary keywords with a search volume (SV) of 100+. Higher numbers are better because they let you reach a wider audience.

However, don’t use keywords with a keyword difficulty (KD) score higher than 30. Lower scores mean you’re more likely to successfully rank. Even if something has a high SV, a high KD can make focusing on it a moot point.

When creating blog posts, product pages, and landing forms, include this keyword. Put it in the intro, conclusion, and at least one header. You also can use it and its variants at sparse intervals throughout the rest of the text body.

Don’t overuse keywords because it makes crawlers suspect that your content is low-quality and focused solely on rankings. You will be penalized. This penalty drops you to the lower pages of SERPs and renders your entire SEO strategy ineffective.

Optimizing Titles, Headings, and Meta Descriptions

In addition to saturating your text-based content with keywords, you also will need to optimize other areas of your page. Page titles should naturally incorporate a primary keyword (PKW). This isn’t just for ranking purposes but also tells readers what they will learn about.

Your PKW should also be in at least one heading in every blog post. This can be an H2 or H3 header. All meta descriptions also should contain one instance of the PKW.

This optimization doesn’t only apply to text-based content. You also need to include keywords in titles and metas for video content and images.

Another way to make your titles, headings, and metas better is to make them bolder. This has little to do with rankings directly, but bold and easily readable text keeps consumers interested. It captures their attention and makes them more likely to click through your page, boosting your reputation in the process.

Internal Linking

Most business owners know about the value of backlinking. Having other websites link to you- and linking to them in return- increases your domain authority. You make connections with other professionals, drive inbound traffic from other related sites, and develop a greater presence for Google crawlers to notice.

Backlinking and guest posting are external linking strategies. They’re off-page SEO.

But what many people don’t know is that you also need to include internal links to other areas of your website. That’s an on-page SEO strategy that everyone should take advantage of.

Internal linking:

• Helps Google better understand your website layout
• Shows Google what the most important parts of your site are
• Increases your clickthrough rate
• Makes your site easier for bots to crawl
• Takes browsers through the sales funnel and drives conversions
• Helps you showcase the content that you want to see
• Improves your on-page navigation

Make sure that you incorporate at least 2 internal links for every 1000 words you post. This should co-occur with your professionally-made backlinking and guest post strategies.

Technical SEO

Many websites list “technical SEO” as a third type of SEO independent of both on-site and off-site strategies. However, it actually is a type of on-page SEO. It manipulates content on your website to boost your rankings, so it qualifies.

The main difference is that you’re making backend and technical updates to your website. This improves the user experience but doesn’t really change the content that they see.

Some technical SEO strategies include:

• Improving site speed and load times
• Stopping multimedia content from lagging
• Decreasing downtime as much as possible
• Enhancing security features
• Increasing Accessibility
• Creating canonical URLs
• Improving Navigation

Working with a technology expert will go far when you try to enhance your technical SEO.

Despite the fact that users do not usually think about the technical aspects of a website while browsing, technical SEO is very important. If the user experience is bad, consumers will notice because they’ll be having a bad time. You need to focus on the technical aspects of your site to improve your overall UX.

Getting Started With On-Page Optimization

Before you begin employing the above strategies, it’s a good idea to perform a content audit. This gives you analytical data about your web traffic, overall profile, content, and technical health of your website.

Employ a tool like SEMrush for a comprehensive look at site performance. Enter your website URL and get a score between 0 and 100 in return. Higher scores mean a better website.

Your report will also tell you what areas of your website are dragging down your score. Combined with information about where your page is the strongest, you can use this information to improve your website.

Once that’s done, talk with a professional about how to employ specific on-page SEO strategies. They can help you produce top-notch content, perform keyword research, improve your UX, and syndicate content to make you visible across several channels.

Beyond the Web’s Best SEO Guide

There are many factors that search engine crawlers look at when determining where your page belongs in SERPs. Many of these factors fall under the on-page SEO umbrella.

Now that you know all about on-page and technical SEO, it’s time to begin employing professional strategies to boost your rankings.

SEOJet is committed to boosting both your on-page and off-page SEO with content syndication, guest posting, and more. Contact us today with any remaining questions you have about the SEO strategies that can improve your website performance.