Gain Ranking with On-Page optimizing | SEO

Now that you know how your target market is searching, it’s time to dive into on-page SEO, the practice of crafting web pages that answer searchers’ questions.

What is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO (also called on-site SEO) is the practice of optimizing web pages to rank higher in search engines. It includes optimizations to visible content and the HTML source code.

Search Engines are ultimately looking for the most relevant search result for a query, so their algorithms also look for other relevant content on the page. If your page is about vegan snickers bars and you don’t mention different vegan recipes, Search Engines know there are probably more relevant results out there.

Why is On-Page so Important?

Whether you have a big or small business, it is important to optimize a website’s on-page SEO. SEO represents one of the most common digital marketing strategies, and it remains super popular because of its reliable return on investment. In fact, on-page SEO offers the best ROI out of nearly any digital marketing strategy with its relatively low-cost and long-term benefits that can help websites grow and bring in passive traffic for years.

As much as half of all website traffic comes from search engines like Google or Bing, this means that close to 40% of online revenue comes from search traffic as well. Here’s something else to think about: The top 1^st result on Google gets more than 32% of keyword traffic, and the first page of search results grab as much as 91.5% of traffic.

Here is a helpful checklist for on-site optimizations that can help curate your strategy.

Before you can begin to improve your on-page SEO, you must first understand how Google search works — specifically its algorithm. The search engine giant focuses on a few areas to determine the best content to serve to the user making a query:

• With the Core Web Vitals update, Google will be paying particularly closer attention to the first impression of the site, such as the site speed time and how quickly people can interact with the page.
• It wants to identify the content relevant to the query, which means it will examine the keywords and phrases used throughout the material.
• The search engine wants to see how people engage with the content. Do they click off right away? Do they spend time moving around the site? This helps to indicate if people landing on the page find it helpful.
• The search engine wants to see how people engage with the content. Do they click off right away? Do they spend time moving around the site? This helps to indicate if people landing on the page find it helpful.

The title tag provides users looking at the results page with information about the content of your page. These users look to the title tag to better determine if your content will meet their needs. Therefore, a strong title tag that contains important keywords will encourage more clicks and traffic.

H1 and H2 tags help draw the attention of search engine spiders to your page title and the hierarchy you’ve created in your content. It helps make the content outline clear for the algorithm so that it understands how you’ve organized your text. 

The header and subheadings also provide key hints about the material included in the paragraphs that follow the heading, making it easier for the search engine to register the important information about your material.

Linking internally to other pages on your website is useful to visitors and it is also useful to search engines. Linking provides you with the key to showing Google how your material relates to your site and the larger part of the digital ecosystem. Linking to external sources is known as outbound links.

When adding internal links, make sure to have relevant anchor text. Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink (usually indicated by blue font color and underline). To optimize your anchor text, make sure the selected word or phrase is relevant to the page you’re linking to. 

These links also provide Google with information about your site architecture. Google can see how the content on the site relates to each other and the depth of content on particular topics, which can further boost your authoritativeness.

The meta description or meta tag refers to the brief description found underneath the URL and title of the page on the SERP when your site appears in the search results. When keywords in your description also align well with the searches that this particular user makes, it demonstrates that your page contains relevant information for them.

Use these tips to write a compelling description fast:

1. Expand on your title tag. Include USPs that you couldn’t fit in the title.
2. Match search intent. Double down on what searchers are looking for. 
3. Use active voice. Address the searcher directly.
4. Be concise. Keep it around 120 characters or less.
5. Include your keyword. Google bolds words and phrases closely related to the query.

Focus on adding images that elevate your content, including any you can create yourself that reflect what you discuss on a specific page.

The images you select should also be optimized. This means:

• Making sure they load quickly by using strategies such as reducing the file size and implementing lazy loading.
• Creating excellent alt tags that tell the search engine what the image is so that Google can see it as a valuable piece of content on your site. The alt text also assists visually impaired people using the site, ensuring they can fully appreciate your content.
• Selecting titles and file names for your images that reflect the image and keywords you want to incorporate into the content.

Page Experiences

The ‘page experience signal’ will consist of Core Web Vitals, plus mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines. 

According to Google, “optimizing for these factors makes the web more delightful for users across all web browsers and surfaces, and helps sites evolve towards user expectations on mobile. We believe this will contribute to business success on the web as users grow more engaged and can transact with less friction.”

Let’s Wrap it Up

Follow the advice above, and your pages will likely be better optimized than the competition. Just remember that satisfying search intent is the most critical part. While the ‘technical’ things are also important, they’re more like the icing on the cake.