What is On-Page SEO?
David got an article written by a freelancer for his blog website. He then added the article content to the blog page.
He noticed that the SEO analysis plugin used in his Content Management Software (CMS) appears to show errors. When he further explored, it appeared to show the SEO analysis report. It included the current SEO issues in the article and possible solutions to fix those issues.
He then went through each problem and analyzed it. He fixed them one by one to improve the SEO analysis of the web page.
On-Page SEO is the above process of analyzing the web page’s content such as titles, headings, images, meta description, page URLs, and internal links, and optimizing them to rank higher on search results.
If your website is not hosted on a CMS, there are other SEO tools such as Google Search Console which allow analyzing your web pages online.
Why is On-Page SEO important?
The ultimate goal of On-Page SEO is to understand what the web page is about. It helps search engines like Google to identify what search queries the page is relevant to, and rank it higher on search results for matching search queries.
Optimizing the page using proper keywords can help search engines target your website content to the right audience. There are keywords in a user’s search query that help search engines list out the search results. If your page content, titles, and headings contain the specific keyword/s used in a search query, search engines identify your web page to be more relevant.
Google Search Central gives an in-depth guide to how Google Search works to provide the best search results for a specific user’s query. Following these best practices will increase the traffic to your website and give more exposure to your brand.
Optimizing your page content by giving clear headings, subheadings, and easy-to-understand content helps a user to navigate through the page with ease. It helps to identify what is important to them and skip through irrelevant sections. It also helps to find other relevant content linked to what they searched for.
On-Page SEO Techniques
Create High-Quality Page Content
Providing high-quality content is the key to optimizing your website’s ranking and traffic. Using the right keywords for the topics related to your brand helps search engines to target your pages for the most relevant search queries.
Write Compelling Titles
Making your page appear in the search results is just not enough. You need to entice them to click on the URL and visit your page. This can be done by using catchy and descriptive titles that accurately represent what your page is about.
Write Engaging Meta Descriptions
Adding an informative meta-description summarizing the key takeaways from the page further help in convincing the users to visit the page. You can include keywords, and further elaborate the title to include details that couldn’t be added in the title.
Structure the Page with Headings and Subheadings
Using appropriate headings and subheadings helps to break down the page and improve readability. Moreover, it helps search engines understand what your page is about. Rather than using long paragraphs, utilize headers from H1 to H6 to break your content into appropriate sections.
Optimize the URLs
Creating SEO-friendly URLs including the target keyword help search engines and users to identify your web pages easily. Avoid adding unnecessary details, symbols, or numbers that don’t make sense. Using consistent URLs helps in maintaining the site’s hierarchy when adding different content such as blogs and other sub-pages.
Add Internal Links
Internal links are links that point to other web pages of the same website. Adding internal links help users to navigate to other relevant pages and explore more on your website. It also increases the time spent and user engagement of your website.
Add External Links
Links that are added pointing to web pages from other websites are external links. Adding relevant links from other authoritative websites provides more value to the users. It signals search engines to consider your website to be more trustworthy.
Optimizing Images
Compressing the image size, adding relevant ‘alt’ tags (alt-text), and using proper file naming conventions make the images more accessible to search engines.
On-Page SEO is an important SEO strategy and is the key factor to consider when optimizing your website for ranking. On-Page SEO alone is not sufficient to improve the website’s visibility and ranking. In future articles, we will also discuss off-Page SEO and other Technical SEO strategies.
