What Is On-Page SEO?
On-page SEO, also known as on-site SEO, is the process used to build a website’s domain authority by writing and optimizing content around a single keyword and its synonyms. There are dozens of different on-page SEO factors to consider when optimizing your website’s content, but we’ll only cover the ones that generate the most growth.
How Does On-Page SEO Work?
Search engines are constantly crawling the internet to find new pages to add into their algorithm. This is done so that when a user searches for a specific term, or keyword, an accurate result can quickly be displayed. This functionality is the basis for all of SEO.
In essence, we want our pages to:
- Be found for a specific keyword that is accurate to the page.
- Be the best result for that specific keyword.
To achieve this, we use a mix of optimization strategies that help indicate to search engines and users that our page deserves to rank for a particular keyword. One of these strategies is on-page SEO.
On-Page Optimization Strategies
Many believe that only optimizations need to be made in order to rank a webpage or blog post using on-page SEO. This is 100% false. The foundation for any page to rank highly is great content. Only content that actually provides value will rank for competitive keywords. Reasoning is, if the page content fails to provide users with the information they’re looking for, then search engines realize this and will adjust rankings accordingly. Click-through rate (CTR) and bounce rate are metrics based on the actions of real humans, not optimizations. Search engines factor these two metrics heavily as they indicate whether a page is both engaging and accurate for a specific keyword.
Make sure that you’re writing SEO content that provides an expert viewpoint and is accurate to the intention of what a user is searching for.
Strategies To Use In Addition To Great Content
Keyword Density
Search engines love when a keyword is easy to find throughout an article. In fact, having your target keyword written within the first 100 words of your page or blog post is admittedly an old, but tried and true SEO strategy that still affects rankings today. The first 100 words aren’t the only spot your keyword should be found though. Naturally including your target search term throughout an article is a best practice. Don’t stuff your keyword everywhere you can as search engines will penalize the page as being over-optimized. Instead, think semantically. Ask yourself, “As a real human, how many times would I need to see this keyword reappear to know what this page is about?” Many have found the sweet spot to be approximately one keyword per 200 words on a page. Albeit, this rule isn’t set in stone. Use it as a baseline and adjust accordingly depending on the context of your article. If having an additional keyword within a 200 word span makes the paragraph make more sense then by all means, add it in there.
Heading Structure
Paying close attention to heading organization, text, and structure is vital to rank in search. Headings in HTML, the foundational coding language of the web, are organized into six sequential tiers ranging from H1 to H6. Normally, most web pages only use down to the H3 or H4 level. For every page on your website, including blog posts, there should be one, and only one, H1. Text in this heading should have the target keyword either written directly at the front or have a modifier such as “Best” written before it. This practice is known as “front-loading” the keyword.
H2s and H3s are used to outline the content of your page in order to improve the user’s experience. In terms of SEO, H2s are given a higher priority than H3s. There is no set limit on how many headings your article should have throughout. Stuffing your content with headings is never a good idea, nor is neglecting to add any headings. Since search engines are made for real people, think of how organized a page must be in order for an actual person to quickly navigate it.
Headings should be optimized to include your target keyword and its synonyms. Keyword synonyms are search terms that are similar to your target keyword, but are not worded the same.
“Best workouts for men” and “best exercises for men” are considered keyword synonyms.
Do not make the mistake of over-optimizing your headings. If it does not make logical sense to include a keyword within your H2 or H3, don’t do it. As you improve as an SEO writer, you’ll naturally find ways to include a keyword into a heading without it seeming forced or unnecessary. As a starting point, search for your target keyword and click through the first three pages that are ranking. Study how they optimized their headings to rank and organize yours in a similar fashion.
Title Tags
Front-loading title tags is one of easiest and quickest ways to improve your search ranking. Search engines favor a lot of SEO weight towards title tags and getting these right can quickly move your website up in search. Similar to the strategy used to front-load H1 headings, include your keyword at the very beginning of your title tag. Including a modifier like “best” is never a bad idea to help rank for a longer-tail version of your target keyword. Using the mens workout example from earlier, a title tag such as “Best workouts for men | Your Website Name Here” is ideal.
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions carry no value to search engine algorithms. No matter how many keywords you fit into a meta description, search engines will not crawl through the content. Though, this is not to say that meta descriptions aren’t important to ranking. These descriptions help funnel users to click-through to your webpage.
Title tags and meta descriptions are the kings of click-through rates, which as mentioned prior, are weighted into search rankings. URLs do play a role in improving click-through rates, but are not as significant as title tags and meta descriptions.
URLs and Slugs
Clean, simple URLs improve user experience and the speed at which your page will get indexed into search algorithms. Always aim to have URLs that provide a clear idea of where that particular page is located within your website and maintain a shallow slug. “Slugs” are the ending of the URL. For example in the URL of this post: “https://theoryseo.com/blog/on-page-seo-guide” the slug is bolded. The shorter the slug, the shallower it is. URLs that are sensible and clean help improve CTRs as users tend to trust these sites more than their messy URL counterparts.
URLs should also include your target keyword. Most of the time, using an exact match of your target search term is the best way to go. As mentioned, keep URLs as short as possible without confusing the user.
Internal Linking
Optimizing your link text, what is known as “anchor text” in SEO, is relatively easy to do. Do not use “click here” or “click this link” or any anchor text similar. It provides search engines with little to no information as to where that page points to and results in a missed SEO opportunity. Instead, link to a page with anchor text that matches the keyword that the targeted page is optimized for.
Think back to the workouts for men example. Let’s say that we have a blog post that is written about dieting and growing muscle. Although this post doesn’t have anything to do with workouts for men, we can link from this post to the post optimized for “workouts for men.” Inside our paragraph, we would write a sentence such as “In addition to dieting, using these workouts for men can help you achieve the physique you’re after.” “Workouts for men” would then link to the post optimized for the “workouts for men” keyword.
Aim to have a minimum of 2-3 internal links pointing to every page on your website—especially if you are running a content heavy blog. As long as internal links do not become overwhelming or appear forced throughout your content, there is no maximum.
External Linking
External linking follows the same principles as internal linking in terms of optimizing anchor text. To identify the keyword that an external webpage is optimized/ranking for, look to the title tag to find the front-loaded keyword. Majority of the pages that rank highly on Google will have properly optimized title tags, meaning that the target keyword is placed in the front. If the page you are linking to does not have a front-loaded keyword, look and see what you searched in the search engine to find that page. If there are hundreds of thousands to millions of results for that search term, and that page is still ranking highly, then your query is likely one of targeted keywords that the page is ranking for.
Note, with external linking we want to link to quality webpages. That is, webpages with high domain authority and are not competing to rank for the same search term you’re targeting. Externally linking on every page is not necessary. Add external links where they provide additional context to your content. Prioritize internally linking your content over externally linking to other people’s content.
Image Alt Tags
Although image alt tags don’t carry a ton of SEO weight nowadays, they are still a quick win SEO opportunity. Go through your site and identify that all contextual images have keyword-focused alt text defined. If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, then adjusting image alts is as easy as clicking on the image in your media library and typing into the appropriate field. If you have a hard-coded website then either use your browser’s inspect element feature on each image and verify that all <img> tags in the HTML code have at least the following: <img src=“image source link here” alt=“image alt text here”>. There are also many browser extensions that will tell you the alt tag of any image on your website.
Alt tags serve two purposes:
- To improve accessibility for visually impaired users using a screen reader.
- To indicate to search engines what an image is about.
To meet both the requirements for alt tags, write image descriptions that are accurate and appropriate for the image, and also contain your targeted keyword or its synonyms. An appropriately optimized alt tag for our example “workouts for men” blog post would look something like “Athlete lifting weights doing various workouts for men.” Keep alt tags short, to the point, and descriptive.
Get started with on-page SEO
You now know how to use the seven most popular on-page strategies out there. By following this guide, you’ll see the largest jumps in your traffic growth given the time you invest.
