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On-Page SEO: A Beginner's Guide to On-Page SEO Basics

On-page SEO entails the elements of your website you strive to manage to positively impact your website’s ranking. These include your website’s content, title tags, and even images and other media. This guide focuses on the elements of on-page SEO, its pertinence, and the most important ranking factors. It also details the steps required to optimize each element effectively.

What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO refers to the improvements made to the elements of your website, and how they impact the ranking of your website’s pages on the search results. This is inclusive of the content, the media, the title tags, and the links that are internal to your website.

What is the difference between on-page SEO and off-page SEO?

The difference is mainly the location. On-page SEO is entirely contained within your website. This includes creating quality content, improving the title tags, and editing the structure of your URLs. Off-page SEO exists outside of your website. This includes building quality backlinks, improving your listing on directories, and improving your outreach and public relations.

What does on-page SEO affect?

There are two primary, interconnected reasons that make on-page SEO important:

  • Search engines employ on-page SEO: Google, along with other search engines, reads title tags, meta descriptions, and body content in order to determine what, and how to rank, a particular page in search results.
  • Users employ on-page SEO: Visitors, alike, assess an individual web page’s title, description, and body content in order to determine whether a particular page is capable of answering their question.
Focusing on on-page SEO boosts your rankings in search results, attracts more organic visitors to your page, and improves the overall experience for visitors. This is beneficial because it has a direct impact on the amount of inquiries and sales your business gains.

What are the most important on-page SEO ranking factors?

Some elements of on-page SEO are more important than others. Below is a table outlining some of the most important on-page ranking factors:

What is on-page SEO?

Ranking Factor Why it matters
Correct Keyword Targeting You have to start with the correct keywords. Otherwise, you can perform on-page SEO perfectly, and still not rank in the search results.
Keyword Placement Your keyword must be present in some of the most important content. This includes your title tag.
Title Tag Your keyword must be present in your title tag, and it must be written in a way to capture users’ interest, as this can increase your overall ranking.
Content Quality As more content goes live, search engines tend to select web pages based on additional, real-value adding content. This means content that comes from first-hand experiences, has expert insight, and is not general information that is available on every web page.
Internal Links These are links to your other pages. Search engines use these links to find your other pages, and they aid your visitors in finding related pages.
User Experience Poor user experience is harmful to your rankings. Broken pages, slow navigation, and broken features are a reason for Google to disregard your page.

How to do On-page SEO

Following, are each of the most important elements of On-page SEO with an easy to understand description of what each one is.
On-page Element The Basics
Domain Name Short and focused domains with a brand name are best.
URLs Use hyphen-separated keywords with a keyword folder structure.
Keyword Research This needs to be researched based on your audience's needs.
Title Tags Keep these under 60 characters.
Meta Descriptions These need to be under 150 characters.
Content Content needs to be original and provide real value. It needs to meet the needs of your users and answer their questions.
Keyword Placement Use these in headings and the beginning of paragraphs.
Internal Links Include 3–5 internal links in your page.
Images Images should have descriptive file names, optimized file sizes, and meaningful alt text.
User Experience Your website needs to function properly across all devices.
Page Speed Clean up unnecessary resources, optimize images, and remove anything that slows down your website.

Domain names

Domain names are web addresses. Search engines and browsers record these addresses. The age of a domain is a crucial factor in its search ranking. Newer domains have less of an age factor, so they don’t rank as well. Consumer trust is an important part of an address’ ranking. Older domains are more trustworthy and have more backlinks (links on other websites that point to that website). Because newer domains don’t have backlinks, they are ranked lower.

How to optimize:

  • Use a popular domain extension: Using a .com or local country domain has more rank potential than using a lesser-known extension.
  • Skip on domain keywords: Having a domain name that is your brand name is better than having a keywords domain. Keyword domains are viewed as spam and rank lower.
  • Evaluate the history of a domain: Check a domain’s history before buying it. You don’t want a domain that has a rank penalty and a history of spam backlinks.

URLs

A URL is a more specific address than a domain. It gives more detail about a web page. Search engines and users can get a brief idea of what a page is about from a URL.

How to optimize:

  1. Have a good site structure: Empty folders and broad domains may describe what a page is about, but are hard to navigate. This is the opposite of what is desired for a well-structured site.
  2. Use slugs for short URLs: Slugs are more specific than domains, so using keywords in a slug helps narrow search results. A good example would be having the slug /digital-marketing-services-delhi when targeting the keywords “digital marketing services in Delhi.”
  3. Use hyphens, not underscores: Search engines can read hyphens but tend to be unable to interpret underscores.

Keyword research

Keyword research refers specifically to the words and phrases used by your audience in search queries. It is the most fundamental aspect of on-page SEO.

How to optimize:

  1. Identify your audience: Clearly define the location of your audience and their needs and pains. You can’t start without this.
  2. Create broad topic ideas: Check out industry forums, and speak with your sales and support staff. Look at what your competitors are doing.
  3. Use research to pull topics: Choose topics by searching for topic ideas and then searching the net for competition. You want low competition for high volume.
  4. Verify your topic’s search intent: Look at search rankings to determine what is actually searched.
  5. Expand your topics: Once you have search topics, for each, add 3-5 related keywords.

Title tags

A title tag refers to the clickable headline in the search results. These are some of the fastest search elements to change your rank when altered.

How to optimize:

  1. Analyze top search results: Study the structure, length and tone for the best search results.
  2. Use creativity to your advantage: Write 10-15 different title tags to pick from.
  3. Choose a title tag that is keyword relevant: Pick one that is 60 characters or less, aligns with the tone of the top results, and is as different as possible from them.

Meta descriptions

Meta descriptions are your opportunity to provide users with a brief summary of your page before they see it. It appears below the page title in a search result.

How to optimize:

  • Look at successful examples: This will help you understand how to write descriptions that are successful at closing the content gap.
  • Provide several options: Each draft must be less than 150 characters and contain the target keyword.
  • Pick and improve: Choose the draft that best aligns with the search intent. Descriptions that don’t align will be rewritten by the search engine.

Content

The content of a page is everything a user will interact with on the site. This includes all of the text and images.

How to optimize:

  1. Understand search intent. Better understand the search results to find the content gap you can fill.
  2. Have a clear purpose and a structure to your writing. Use your target keyword in headings. Prioritize usefulness to your audience, keep paragraphs brief and easy to read.
  3. Use media to support your content. Information can be easier to understand when accompanied by images, videos, or other media.
  4. Use proper grammar. Publishing content that is factually correct and informative but contains spelling or grammar issues will degrade trust in your content.
  5. Pre publish everything. Ensure all aspects of your page including the title and meta description have been added before you publish the page.

Keyword placement

Keyword placement demonstrates content relevance, however, overuse of keywords, or “keyword stuffing”, will harm your ranking.

How to optimize:

Here are four helpful ways to utilize and incorporate your keywords:

  1. Use the keyword in the title: Your H1 title should always be the keyword, as opposed to the subheadings.
  2. Include it in the first 100 words: The keyword should be in the first 100 words.
  3. Use variations of the keyword: Use different variations of the terminology in the body.
  4. Avoid unnatural sentences: If something sounds unnatural, then it probably is.

Internal Links

Internal links are links that connect different pages within a site, and they serve as a resource for readers and make it easier for search engines to index the site.
  1. Make your navigation and footer count: Your main pages should be in your navigation and footer, since they are the most linked pages on the site.
  2. Put internal links in the body: The body of each page should contain 3-5 internal links, and they should be contextual.
  3. Be descriptive in your links: Anchor text should give a brief description of the page and should contain its keyword.

Images

Images provide the reader a visual resource and can be used to break up larger portions of text.
  1. Use images you create: Original images can be a screenshot or a custom graphic.
  2. Use Alt text: Put a brief description of the image in the Alt text.
  3. Page speed: Use image compression for your pagespeed score.

User experience

User experience encompasses evaluating a site for ease of use and comfort level over time. It has significant impact on visitation and click activity.

How to optimize:

  1. Testing across devices — ensure proper functionality and display on all devices. This includes phones, tablets, and desktops.
  2. Adjust designs for behaviors — eliminate layouts and designs that cause poor contrasts based on visitor recording and/or behavior heat-maps.
  3. Switch to HTTPS — this benefits rankings and is a basic trust principle for visitors entering private information.

Page speed

Page speed measures the time it take for a site to become usable, and the time is one of the most weighted ranking factors in the technical realm.

How to optimize:

  1. Compress images — regularly do this or implement a compression plugin if using a CMS like WordPress.
  2. Minify code — partner with a developer to eliminate unnecessary JavaScript, CSS, and/or HTML.
  3. Optimize code base — frequently assess site speed and simplify back end code.

Master on-page SEO Basics with SEO India

The building blocks of on-page SEO have been outlined and understood. The next step is to implement the building blocks. This can be done at a singular point across a site. SEO India can help you accomplish this. Whether a competitive audit has been requested or support for ongoing optimization is needed, all options are available.

Reach out to learn more about SEO India’s on-page SEO offerings.