On-Page SEO: How To Optimize Your Content

SEO is a combination of many things, most of which will confuse you as you start your journey to ranking websites on top of Google search.

So, to keep things simple, let’s start with the most fundamental and arguably the most important consideration for ranking in Google: on-page SEO.

This post covers the basics of building your site’s SEO foundations, what makes it different from other ranking factors, and the tactics you must implement to generate more traffic.

Let’s begin!

Understanding on-page SEO

On-page SEO refers to the variables that you have complete control over – the content on your page.

It is the bedrock of any website that successfully ranks on search engines for all its target keywords. We’ll delve deeper into these factors, but optimizing for them lays the foundation of your website’s SEO. 

You can also make changes on the fly to adapt to the latest Google algorithm updates. This way, the search engine won’t penalize your site, and you can immediately recover the traffic your website lost after the update.

This is unlike off-page SEO, which is more commonly known as link building. You should know by now that backlinks from relevant and authoritative websites will help your website rise to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). 

On the downside, there’s always the risk that the site owner may remove the link for no reason or that Google could devalue that once authoritative website. Both will hurt your site’s organic ranking, even if what happened to the site is not your fault.

To be clear, focusing on your site’s on- and off-page SEO enables you to maximize the traffic your site will get. However, emphasizing your site’s on-page SEO lets you generate consistent and sustainable organic traffic.

Once you’ve gotten the most out of your on-site SEO, build high-quality backlinks to amplify the traffic your site is getting, allowing you to attract and convert more visitors.

Key components of on-page SEO

Now that we’ve established what makes on-page SEO important, let’s discuss the different variables that comprise this component of search engine rankings.

Keywords: The foundation of on-page SEO

Optimizing your web pages for keywords is the first order of on-page SEO. It allows them to appear on top of SERPs for their target keywords–the higher they show up for the search query, the more clicks and traffic they’ll receive over time.

At the same time, targeting relevant keywords about your site’s topic lets you build topical authority. The more keywords you target and optimize on your site about the same subject, the more reason Google will view your website as a subject matter expert. As a result, Google will rank your pages higher on SERPs.

However, the devil of ranking for keywords is in the detail. You can’t just optimize your page for any keyword and expect it to rank the next day. You must identify the keywords that give you the highest chance of appearing on search results.

To do this, you need keyword research tools to identify the keyword’s search volume and keyword difficulty or competitiveness. There are plenty of tools available but we like SE Ranking for its balance of affordability and functionality.

This tool focuses on finding keywords with high search volume and low keyword difficulty (KD). For new sites, targeting keywords with a KD 5 or below and a search volume not higher than 250 is best. Established sites have more freedom to choose which keywords to target because they’re already attracting organic traffic.

We’re following the concept of SEO avalanche, in which a brand-new site must target keywords within its traffic tiers and can only move up a tier once it generates organic traffic from the published content.

Another thing to consider in your keyword research is intent. Not all keywords are the same–some search queries require you to create landing pages instead of a blog post or product page, and vice versa. Sometimes, the SERPs show a mix of content types for a specific keyword.

Generally, search engines will rank specific types of pages for a good reason. So, if you run a content-based site and results for the target keyword are populated 100% by ecommerce sites, you’d be best selecting a different keyword.

The three kings of on-page SEO

After researching keywords to optimize your site, you need to include them in the different elements of the page. 

In addition to the content body (which we’ll get into later), you must include your target keyword in the page’s URL, SEO or meta title, and H1 (of the page title).

These three are the first elements Google looks at from a page. When its search engine crawlers see the keyword here, it communicates what the page is about. From here, it’s just a matter of your content matching your keyword’s intent to help Google index it higher on SERPs.

Modifying these page elements is easy if you’re using WordPress. Its native feature lets you edit the URL slug before publishing the page. The same goes for the H1, which you can enter as the content’s title in the text editor.

For the SEO title, you will need to download an SEO plugin like SEOPress or RankMath that lets you create title tags and other elements like a meta description for all the pages you publish. This appears on SERPs once it starts ranking on Google search. You can use the H1 as your SEO title, but it’s best to make the latter more compelling than the H1 version to get more people to click on your page.

Content quality and relevance

Creating high-quality content is the next step in the on-page SEO process, 

Ensure that the content fulfills the target keyword’s intent, provides unique and helpful information about the topic, and is delivered in a compelling and easy-to-understand way to prevent people from leaving the page.

Also, refer to the top-ranking pages on SERPs and analyze their headlines. 

Use Detailed SEO Chrome Extension to copy and paste the headers of each page and cross-reference them with each other. Create an outline that comprehensively covers the information about the topic.

Once you have the outline, you can begin writing the content. This is where content optimization tools come in handy. Surfer SEO’s Content Editor feature lets you enter the keywords you want to optimize in your content. The tool scrapes the SERPs to find relevant words and phrases you must include in the content. 

They also tell the range of words, paragraphs, headers, and images to use in the article to help fashion your content to be similar to the ones ranking on the first page of Google search results.

On-page SEO tools like Surfer SEO take the guesswork out of your content research. You no longer have to constantly refer to your competitor pages and identify which topics they covered and what their content looks like. 

These tools deliver the information to you in an easy-to-understand manner so you can focus on creating content that dominates search rankings.

Aside from Surfer SEO, other tools like Frase, Scalenut, and SE Ranking provide similar features but with varying user interfaces (UI). At this point, it doesn’t matter which tool you use–what matters is using a tool that helps you to create content that checks all the on-page SEO factors and allows you to move to the next phase.

Internal links

Part of optimizing your content is to link them to relevant pages within your site. This is where the concept of topical authority mentioned earlier rears its head again.

Internal links help Google and other search engines understand the relationship between your site pages. And the reason why you link one page to another is that the latter contains relevant information about the same topic that the former doesn’t. 

The information gap informs Google to link one to the other. And if you do this across all your pages, it enables you to build content hubs or silos, each of which covers a specific subtopic in your site—creating as many of these silos as you can further strengthen your topical authority.

There are tools that can help you find internal linking opportunities. This includes Link Whisper (WordPress plugin), Ahrefs (paid SEO tool), and various others.

But regardless of which solution you use to assist with internal links, I’d recommend that you avoid adding them automatically. It’ll take more time, but it’s worth the time to get right.

Pro tip: Make internal linking part of your content promotion checklist. By doing this, you’ll be able to add new internal links as you go. Both to your newly published content and previously published content. This is far easier to manage than having to add them in bulk.

External links

External links, or outbound links, are on the other side of the linking spectrum. These links point to third-party websites, so once visitors click on them on your site, they will be transported away from it.

Based on this description, you’d think that external links would do more harm than good to your website since the goal is always keeping them on your website for as long as possible.

At the same time, your goal is to provide value to users. If that means linking out to pages from other websites that cover topics your site hasn’t covered yet, by all means, link out to those pages!

Also, this is a way for search engines to understand your site better. 

For example, if your brand new site is about the keto diet, it’s not enough to keep linking to your site pages because search engines don’t have enough information to decide where to rank its pages. 

By linking to well-established keto diet sites online, those that Google and Bing are very familiar with, you allow these sites to connect your website’s topic and the content you publish.

There is no tool you can use to identify websites to link to. If your page has an information gap and doesn’t have a page on your site that covers the said gap, search Google for pages that supply the missing information. 

Just make sure you’re not linking to direct competitors–doing so is like giving them free backlinks, allowing them to rank higher than you on SERPs.

Responsive design

Moving away from content, you want to look at your site’s user interface. In particular, focus on how your site presents the content to visitors. 

A static website design makes viewing its content harder on other devices, causing visitors to leave your site. This is why you must invest in a responsive design that adjusts to your visitors’ screen size. 

Most site designs and themes nowadays are responsive by default. To be sure, check the site on your mobile device and see if the layout adapts to its screen size and optimally presents the content on mobile. 

If yes, then you’re in the clear. If not, replace the theme with a responsive one.

Site speed

Responsive design is just a single component of user interface and experience. How fast your site loads also determines whether visitors will learn on your and leave to visit your competitors instead.

Various factors affect your site or page speed. The first is web hosting. Some hosting providers offer better servers, improving your site’s performance. Knowing which one can help your site load the fastest requires technical knowledge. An easier way to approach this is to find web hosting reviews and see which provider resonates the most with you.

Another pertains to your site’s theme. There are WordPress themes loaded with features that seem useful to site owners at first. However, all these features slow down your site because they’re poorly coded, or you won’t need them.

In this case, replace them with minimalist and lean WordPress blog themes like Kadence, GeneratePress, Astra, or a similar light weight theme. These themes are also well-coded and possess the most basic features for running a professional website.

Finally, if you still need to, use a caching tool for your website. It allows your site to save files onto the visitor’s local drive, which makes your site load quicker when they revisit it. WP Rocket is what we use. But NitroPack is what we recommend for beginners because it optimizes your site automatically.

To know if your site has loading speed issues, use Google PageSpeed Insights to find its Core Web Vitals score and identify areas that need improvement so you can speed up your site.

Be sure to focus on the mobile version of your site. That’s the version of your site that Google crawls.

Visual content

Your content can’t all be text. You need to break down the written information with images and videos to help increase retention and effectively communicate your message in various ways.

Also, images can rank on SERPs, depending on the keyword’s intent. Some search results show an image carousel on the first page, which means Google thinks images provide more value for readers for this particular query

To create images, use tools like Visme or Canva to customize its selection of stock photos to match your site’s design and content. Most images ranking on organic search are infographics, so check the ranking pictures for the keyword and take inspiration from their design and content.

Videos are trickier since you may need to record them using professional equipment. It’s best to hire a professional to help you produce and record videos that will appear on Google and YouTube.

Going back to images, you must compress them to make their file sizes smaller without compromising quality so your site can load them faster. A plugin like ShortPixel should do the trick, as it compresses the image to your preferred settings immediately after uploading it to your site. It can also optimize your other pictures in the background without wasting resources.

Pro tip: If you use NitroPack, it’ll handle all of the image optimizations for you automatically. It’ll even display images in next-gen file formats.

You’ll also want to make sure that you resize images to an appropriate aspect ratio prior to upload. Nobody reading your content will need to see huge images. Use the width of your content as a guide.

Also, make sure to add the image alt text for each photo. Include related keywords of the page where the image is featured, but also ensure that the alt text is descriptive and helps people with difficulty viewing images understand what they are about.

Advanced on-page SEO tactics

The above factors are the essential elements of on-page optimization that beginner SEOs should carry out across all web pages.

This time, we’ll introduce factors and methods to help fortify your on-page efforts, increase your search rankings, and generate more website clicks.

Schema markup

Some pages show additional information about a page that appears on SERPS.

Adding the appropriate schema markup code spurred the structured data to show up. Every page type has a schema markup code, but the ones that benefit the most are product pages, recipes, and reviews. Aside from just text, they show images, star ratings, availability, and business details that could increase its click-through rate

To add these to your page, go to Technical SEO’s Schema Markup Generator, create the right type of code for the page, and fill out the necessary information.

Copy and paste the generated text into the page’s <head> section.

But, if you use WordPress, things are a lot easier and you won’t need to tinker with any code. There are a bunch of great schema plugins you can use. We use Schema Pro.

SERP features

Going beyond structured data, you want to know what the SERPs show users for your keyword. Depending on the search query, you may see rich snippets, knowledge graphs, People also Ask (PAA) sections, image carousels, and others at the top of Google search.

These let you know which specific features you should optimize your content with. As mentioned, if the keyword shows images on the first page of Google, you need to create the same type of image ranking for it. 

The same goes for rich snippets–you want to write a much better one than the one featured on SERPs in the hopes of replacing it.

A quick Google search should immediately show these to you. 

Social signals

Client testimonials, customer reviews, and star ratings issued by old clients won’t magically drive your website to the top of SERPs soon. However, it is likely that E-E-A-T will be more important in the future.

While we can’t say for sure whether it is part of Google’s algo, we do know that Google hires people (Search Quality Raters) to refine its algorithm. And their guidance includes E-E-A-T specific questions.

So, regardless, it’s worth working on it now.

Social signals like the ones above help express Google about your business’s legitimacy. Positive signals, in particular, can build brand awareness and increase click-through and conversion rates, which could impact your site’s ranking in the long run,

Monitoring and maintaining on-page SEO

Over time, you must check how your site pages have performed. Google Search Console is perfect for this.

Get started by adding your site. You’ll need to verify it. Google has some resources to walk you through the process.

Once that’s sorted, click on Performance on the left sidebar to see the clicks and impressions your site pages received in the past few days. 

Then click the Pages tabs to see which pages generated the most clicks and impressions. 

You can even compare dates to see which pages increased or lost traffic over time.

For pages that lost traffic, review the various on-page SEO elements again to see if you can recover their keyword rankings. For new posts that haven’t generated organic traffic or even impressions, request Google to index your page (if it hasn’t yet).

Pro tip: Google may be king of search but Bing’s market share is still significant. Bing has their own version of Search Console. It’s called Webmaster Tools. It’s worth making use of as well.

Implementing on-page SEO: A step-by-step guide

Use the on-page SEO checklist below to help improve your workflow for optimizing new pages and reoptimizing old ones for their SEO strategy. 

It covers everything you can do to ensure that your site pages are aligned with your target keywords, among other things.

Preliminary research & analysis

• Research and identify primary and long-tail keywords for new and existing content.
• Analyze current rankings for existing pages to identify opportunities for improvement.
• Research keywords that trigger rich snippets, image carousels, and other SERP features relevant to your content.

Critical on-page elements

• Craft compelling, keyword-rich page titles that reflect the content’s value.
• Make your URLs shorter and include the primary keyword.
• Use descriptive alt text for all images and include target keywords where appropriate.

Content optimization

• Write meta descriptions that summarize the content and encourage click-throughs, incorporating the primary keyword.
• Ensure your content directly answers questions related to your target keywords.
• Update existing content to improve the reader’s clarity, depth, and value.
• Structure headings and subheadings to include targeted keywords and question-based formats.
• Provide concise paragraph answers (40-50 words) for potential paragraph snippet capture.
• Internally link to related content within your site using relevant anchor text.
• Link to third-party, non-competing site pages if they provide your readers with additional value.
• Implement schema markup for articles, FAQs, and products to help search engines understand your content better.

Engagement and user experience

• Ensure mobile-friendliness across all pages to cater to mobile users.
• Optimize page loading speed through image compression, minimizing CSS/JS, and leveraging browser caching.
• To improve user engagement, incorporate multimedia elements like images, videos, and infographics.

Performance monitoring and content updates

• Regularly monitor your content’s performance through Google Analytics and Search Console for insights on traffic and rankings.
• Use rank tracking tools to monitor the keyword rankings of all your site pages.
• Continuously update content to keep it current and relevant to maintain or improve SERP positions.

Conclusion

As you can see, on-page SEO is about more than pleasing search engines. It’s also about providing real-world value to your target audience through the content you produce and how you deliver it. 

Striking the right balance between the two will help increase your site’s organic ranking and traffic over time. And by following this guide and checklist to a tee, you’re a few steps away from achieving exactly that.