What is On-Page SEO and What Are the Top 20 On-Page SEO Techniques?

While you may already be aware of what SEO is, we are here to discuss one of the sorts of SEO, which is On-Page SEO. On-page SEO is a critical aspect in ranking your domain higher in search engines. This essay will explain what On-Page SEO is, the importance of On-Page SEO, and On-Page SEO techniques.

What is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is a technique for optimizing your web pages in accordance with Google criteria in order to achieve higher search engine rankings. This, in turn, will attract more quality web traffic your way and help you reach the conversion you want, whether it’s informing people about your business/brand, getting them to sign up for email updates, tempting them to buy your products/services, and so on. For the greatest, longest-lasting results, on-page SEO approaches must be used in conjunction with technical SEO and off-page SEO tactics. URLs, internal linking, title and meta tags, and content updation are some well-known On-Page SEO methods. Let us look at some additional points that can help you rank higher on Google SERPs in 2021.

Why On-page SEO is Important

People use the internet to fulfill a variety of personal demands, such as finding specific, topical information, communicating with loved ones, shopping, and so on, and if your website fails to meet their expectations, you will quickly lose your top search ranking spot on Google SERP (search engine results page). This means that directing visitors to your website from Google’s search results page will be futile if they are dissatisfied with the experience they have on your website. While solid content is the cornerstone of any successful business, on-page SEO is an essential component of content marketing. You cannot afford to disregard on-page SEO if you are in it for the long haul and want to develop a strong online reputation for yourself.

Top On-Page SEO Factors That Affect Webpage Ranking

Certain on-page SEO factors are critical when it comes to providing a seamless and memorable experience to users on your site. The following list will assist you in staying on top of your on-page SEO game:

• Site Speed

We live in an age of quick gratification, and websites are no exception. According to recent studies, even a one-second delay in loading a webpage can result in a 7% drop in conversions. You can use the extremely useful Google PageSpeed Insights tool to assess your website’s performance in terms of speed. If you fall short, you can do a variety of things to speed up your site, such as using fast hosting, a strong CDN (content delivery network), and image compression tools, minifying JavaScript, HTML, and CSS resources, and so on. Here’s a video from Google’s Matt Cutts stating that site speed/Page Score is an important on-page SEO criterion to attain a higher ranking on Google SERPs.

• Crawlability

If search engines cannot find, crawl, and index your website, it will be of no benefit to you or potential users. To guarantee that there are no crawl issues, browse through your robots.txt file and see if any vital pages have been mistakenly blocked from being crawled by the Google bot. The Google Webmasters tool will assist you in monitoring the health of your site and avoiding such issues. Furthermore, using structured data mark-up can help web crawlers better understand your material and may possibly get you a rich search result. If you receive a lot of backlinks to a 404 page, make sure to conduct a 301 redirect to a connected, relevant page to keep visitors’ interest and avoid losing any goodwill. To learn more about website crawling, watch this video from Google’s Matt Cutts.

• Mobile Responsiveness

The majority of individuals access the internet via a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet. As a result, it is critical to creating a website that is optimized for both desktop and mobile, especially in light of Google’s 2018 mobile-first indexing policy. While it is critical to ensure that both versions of your site contain exactly the same content, it is also critical to pay attention to other minute details such as not having intrusive pop-ups, links that are clustered close together, or small font that is difficult to read on the mobile version, and so on. To determine how mobile-responsive your site design is, simply utilize the Google Mobile-Friendly Test tool. More information on such technical SEO issues can be found in our blog post.

• Content Tags

Because it is the first thing consumers see in Google’s search results, your webpage’s title tag is vital to its success. Make sure to include your core search term as close to the beginning of the title tag as possible without making it appear forced. The meta description is equally important and should include a good scattering of relevant keywords. Keep your title tags and meta descriptions brief, clear, relevant, and well-written. While title tags must be 60 characters long, meta descriptions can be up to 160 characters long; if they are any longer, Google will chop them off and the user will not be able to see them in their entirety.

In addition to the previously suggested on-page SEO tactics, make sure that your posts’ headings and sub-headings use the H1 and H2 HTML tags so that search engines understand what your webpage content is about. Many CMS (content management systems) such as WordPress have this feature integrated into their code, although heavier themes can occasionally prevent it from occurring. As a result, double-check your site code to confirm that your post/page has only one H1 element and that it contains your primary keyword.

• Multimedia

On the internet, there are many various sorts of information seekers or readers, such as those who prefer in-depth, long-tail material that delivers a wealth of useful information on a specific issue, infographics fans, and so on. Whatever your business or brand’s specialization, it’s critical to incorporate a range of multimedia in your content, such as high-resolution movies and photographs. This will enable you to cater to a diverse range of site visitors and keep them interested. However, you must ensure that such multimedia is optimized for Google SERP rankings and online traffic needs, such as using web fonts instead of embedding text within images, incorporating relevant keywords in video descriptions/transcripts and image alt text, and so on.

• Keyword Research and Usage

Keyword research is an important step toward achieving unpaid search ranking success in Google’s SERPs. You may use Google Keyword Planner to undertake extensive research on the most popular search queries in your domain. Make a point of ranking for long-tail keywords, which are more particular and less competitive. LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords, or search terms that are closely connected to your principal keyword(s), should also be included in your list of search words and phrases to rank for. Simply enter your primary keywords into the Google search bar and scroll down to the bottom of the SERP – the ‘searches related to…’ area will provide you with significant LSI keyword suggestions. Aside from these, you can find more keyword ideas by looking at the paid ads that appear at the top of the SERP. Examine the top-ranking SERP material that is already accessible for a specific term and attempt to create new, fresh content that is even better than it.

• Use of Quality Content

Good content is the main draw for any user. Even if it is loaded with a lot of SEO components, bad content will not survive in the long run. As a result, one of the most significant on-page SEO tactics is creating high-quality content. But what exactly constitutes high-quality content? Let us investigate:

• Originality – Keep your material fully unique so that visitors to your website have a new experience each time they visit.
• Thoroughly Studied Content – Ensure that the content on your website has been thoroughly researched so that it can provide users with accurate and relevant information.
• Search Intent Fulfillment – Define the aim of your content and make certain that it gives users with the solution they seek.

• Content Length

Google despises websites that have scant material that offers no function and is irrelevant to users. It is best to keep your articles or blogs between 1500 and 2000 words lengthy at a minimum. While the adage “length is strength” applies in this circumstance, don’t sacrifice content relevancy, distinctiveness, or reader engagement in the pursuit of superlong material. It is vital to note that extensive content allows you to automatically integrate LSI and long-tail keywords, providing your website an advantage in organic search rankings. According to a recent study, content length is an essential element in Google ranking criteria.

• Content Freshness

What is the significance of posting high-quality content? By doing so, we are meeting a massive need for relevant knowledge while simultaneously establishing ourselves as an authority on a given issue. You must reread past blogs and include any new material, data, or statistics that you deem important in order to stay current. Remember that different types of content require varying amounts of freshness, therefore it is critical that you give this component of on-page SEO careful consideration. Although publishing every day would be ideal, if you are short on time, attempt to post at least twice a week. While Google prioritizes content that is breaking news, it is critical that there is no duplicate content on your website. Here’s what Google’s Matt Cutts says about content freshness.

• Use of Internal Linking

Internal linking, one of the most important aspects of on-page SEO, determines how accessible your Web pages are. Internal linking that is well-executed notifies search engines about your other Web pages and makes it easy for users to access those pages for more information. This allows users to spend more time on your website, increasing the likelihood of conversion.

• Use of Schema When Necessary

Schema Markup is essential in assisting search engines in understanding what your website has to offer. A search engine result page (SERP) featuring photographs, reviews, or ratings, for example, is far more appealing than a standard search result. It boosts the website’s click ability. However, you should not employ schema on every Web page. Only utilize it for Web pages that you wish to drive more traffic to or that have enough relevant material to appear in the search results.

• Use of Simple and Readable Content

Making high-quality content complicated is one of the mistakes many firms make. It negates the aim of garnering more viewers. Keeping the information legible and straightforward for any layperson can be a very useful technique in generating traffic to the website. If you’re asking what role on-page SEO can play in this, the answer is that it keeps the material available to viewers. For example, if you have internally connected one of your Web sites in the content, it is useful in building a buildup to the hyperlinked portion. This gives the visitor an indication of what to expect from the content of the linked link.

• Use of Alt Tags

Alt tags are critical in aiding the visually handicapped or those with slower Internet connections. Providing a description for the photos on your Web page will help not just this demographic of users, but also search engines determine the intent of the image. This can also help to improve your website’s ranking.

Furthermore, Google Photos indexes images based on their alt tag descriptions. That is why you should employ alt tags to improve organic traffic to your websites.

• URL Structure

When it comes to best practices for on-page SEO, short URLs are your best chance. Because Google prioritizes the first three to five words in a URL, it makes sense to put the primary keyword towards the beginning of the URL. The URLs must be well-structured, with lowercase letters and hyphens instead of underscores in between words. Although codes and ID numbers are regular components of URLs, they should be avoided. Using descriptive terms to tell both search engines and users what the page is about is a better option. Aside from this, appropriate interlinking inside a website is an often-overlooked strategy of increasing web traffic while also signaling to Google about the creativity and aim of your page content. Simply remember to employ keyword-rich links and to include at least two to five of them in each post. Here is a video from Google’s Matt Cutts, who argues that while having keywords in your URLs is beneficial, the position of keywords in URLs is not a huge influence.

• Social Media Sharing

A greater click-through rate for your web pages simply signifies that a big number of users find your material interesting enough to read. This, together with dwell time or the number of time visitors stay on your page, are strong indicators of the relevance and usefulness of your site to Google. If you consistently publish on-trend, share-worthy material that receives a lot of traffic on social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and so on, your chances of someone referring to you from their high-authority site grow. This may result in an improvement in organic search ranks. As a result, make sure to put visible social sharing icons alongside every significant content you publish on your website.

• Titles and Meta Descriptions

Title tags inform readers about the possible contents of a Web page. These are included in the “header part” of each Web page and are prominently shown on search engine result pages (SERPs). Google needs to know exactly what your Web page is about; thus, it is critical that Title tags are always optimised with relevant keywords for crawlers to grasp.

Meta descriptions take this a step further by offering an overview of the Web page. It gives viewers a snapshot of the content on your website via the SERP.

• E-A-T

E-A-T Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — These three factors are utilized by Google raters to evaluate websites, individual Web pages, and even material as a whole. Google gives high ranks to websites that create high-quality content. As a result, you must develop an EAT SEO plan for your content strategy to ensure that Google consistently identifies the content on your website as high-quality.

Your article should demonstrate Expertise in its presentation of the subject matter. It contributes to the readers’ trust. To achieve maximum takeaway value, it should be authoritative in its recommendations to the readers. Finally, it should be trustworthy, with known sources as backlinks to ensure that viewers are unlikely to suspect the information on your website.

• Keyword Cannibalization

One of the most common mistakes a website may make is to become its own competition. If your website has numerous pages that have been ranked for the same keyword, it suggests that your Web pages are competing for higher rankings, which is not a good indicator for your SEO. This is known as keyword cannibalization.

Avoiding keyword cannibalization should be at the top of your on-page SEO priority list. Competing for the same keyword or phrase can confuse Google’s crawlers about the objective of your Web page. This can substantially reduce your Web page’s rating.

• Content Audit

While developing new content is always a priority for websites, it is equally critical to ensure that old content is audited on a regular basis. A content audit checklist must be prepared, which includes items such as keyword intensity, updating the information to the most recent periods, determining whether the content is generating organic traffic, and so on.

Content audits are essential for websites to maintain a streamlined SEO strategy execution, as outdated Web pages with bad content can dramatically reduce a website’s overall traffic. Regular content audits assist websites in determining exactly what type of ROI their content is creating so that future on-page SEO efforts may be developed in a much more concentrated and refined manner.

• User Engagement

All of your efforts will be for naught if users do not interact with your website. The basic goal of any SEO strategy is to keep consumers on your website and interacting with your content. It all comes down to the quality and relevance of the content offered to users.

User engagement also comprises user retention, which may be achieved by on-page SEO tactics such as content optimization, internal and external linking, and site speed optimization.

How to check your on-page SEO optimization?

The on-page SEO optimization checklist includes numerous factors. Here are some important variables to consider:

• Site Speed

The speed with which your website loads influences whether or not the user stays on your website. You can improve your site’s loading speed by using strategies such as picture optimization, optimizing the HTML code of the Web page, and reducing redirects.

• Internal Linking

Ensure that your website is rich in internal linking, as this allows crawlers to effortlessly navigate your website, discover new information, and rank it on the SERPs. Furthermore, it makes it easier for users to access the breadth and depth of information on your website.

• Image optimization

This is one of the most significant on-page SEO tactics. Compressing the size of photos on the website guarantees that it loads faster. Furthermore, you should include alt text to the photos so that crawlers can determine the context of the images and index them to increase your website’s rankings.

Summing Up On-page SEO

On-page SEO assists you in developing a devoted reader/customer/site visitor base with multiple return visits. Not only will news of your unique UX offering spread, but you will also be able to rise to the top of Google’s SERPs for critical search phrases and stay there. If you want to stay up to date on the newest in the world of digital marketing, check back frequently. Still, having trouble ranking your website higher in Google SERPs? Don’t worry, we’ll help you rank higher on Google SERPs with our SEO Services.