The Fundamentals of On-Page SEO +How-To Checklists and Templates

The H1 tag is usually the most visible content on a page and should not be used more than once per page or blog content. Most modern Content Management Systems such as WordPress and Wix, create the blog article title using the H1 tag. Some SEO professionals agree that the target keyword (and variations thereof) should be used no more than once per 200 words of blog copy.

• John Mueller also confirmed that Google uses the anchor texts to “provide a bit of additional context”.
• High-quality, relevant content is more likely to earn backlinks, which are vital for SEO.
• Despite the fact that they are not a ranking factor, meta descriptions should still be given importance because Google often displays them as part of the search results.
• They are also important when keeping your site hierarchy consistent as you create subpages, blog posts, and other types of internal pages.
• Page segmentation becomes significantly more important as we move toward mobile devices, which often hide portions of the page.

On-page SEO

Each page on your site should include text content that discusses the page’s topic. SEO Anomaly More important, optimize your page to match the search intent behind the keywords. Examples of on-site SEO efforts are creating and optimizing content according to search intent and streamlining your site navigation. Meanwhile, off-page SEO efforts include earning backlinks from other reputable websites.

This means that you should never hide text in the HTML code of your website that a normal visitor can’t see. Known for its robust backlink analysis, Ahrefs also provides keyword tracking, content analysis, and competitive insights, supporting both on-page and off-page SEO strategies. The goal of your homepage is to explain what your entire website is about, and thus you’ll need a few keywords to do that. Another exception is overview pages like services and product pages, which outline what all of your products and services may be. Think of your target keyword as the designated topic for a particular page.

In SEO, the terms users type into the search bar when making queries are called keywords. The first step is to conduct keyword research to determine applicable keywords for your business. Structured Data markup is a form of metadata that helps search engines understand what the page is about. You can describe many types of content with structured data, such as articles, recipes, events, products, reviews, videos, etc. Some rich snippet types are only available to pages that use this markup. Image alt text helps search engines understand and index images properly.

It’s the gateway to getting your content in front of users, growing your brand, and maintaining a loyal customer base. Lastly, click-through rate (CTR) measures how many users click on your link in search results, signaling to search engines whether your page appears relevant to search queries. To optimize these metrics, you can improve LCP by using faster hosting, optimizing and compressing images, and minimizing render-blocking resources like JavaScript and CSS. For FID, focus on reducing JavaScript execution time, leveraging browser caching, and deferring non-critical scripts. Core Web Vitals matter because they are now part of Google’s ranking factors under the Page Experience Update. Pages that perform well on these metrics not only rank better but also offer a more satisfying experience to users, leading to lower bounce rates and higher engagement.

How to Fix Old/Out-of-Stock Product Pages

Additionally, links help users find related content on your site. Naturally, when a new post is published, it’s an orphan page to start with. If your page is targeting a specific term or phrase, make sure to include it in the URL. However, don’t go overboard by trying to stuff in multiple keywords for purely SEO purposes.

Optimization Checklists:

This helps Google discover images they may have otherwise missed. The importance of internal linking is well established, but there can be confusion over how this looks in practice. There are also sub-headings that go from H2 to H6 tags, although using all of these on a page is not required. The hierarchy of header tags goes from H1 to H6 in descending order of importance. A similar tactic for local businesses was to create multiple pages of content for each city or region from which they wanted clients.

Ahrefs, which we mentioned earlier, is an all-in-one SEO tool for keyword research, competitor gap analysis, website SEO audit, and much more. You can also monitor your website for internal linking issues or page errors, see which content is ranking highest in your industry, and analyze your competitors’ content. The most effective internal links are links to related content—with descriptive anchor text. Readers are more likely to click on them, and search engines will be able to decipher them easily too. Another under-appreciated on-page SEO best practice is internal linking. This refers to linking to other pieces of content on your site.

Specifically, I published an ultimate guide to mobile optimization. But sometimes you’re better off with content that’s completely different. If you see sites with a high number of common keywords, then you can consider them your competitors. The “Common Keywords” section is useful as it shows you the total number of keywords you share with each site. Their tool makes the process super easy and can save you a lot of time. So if you wanted to cover that topic on your site, you’d want to note that the first page results are made up mostly of list posts.