On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your website for search engines and site visitors. While this is different from technical SEO, off-page SEO, and keyword research, the elements of each area overlap somewhat.

It’s important to get on-page SEO right to eliminate issues that negatively impact a site’s visibility. Knowing that organic search accounts for 45% of revenue across several industries, it’s clear that ignoring SEO and site health quite literally means leaving money on the table.

Focusing on improving your on-page SEO elements, including content, metadata (title tags, headings, descriptions, and URLs), and visual elements, plus ensuring your keyword strategy and the publishing, promotion, and analysis of your content is in place will go a long way in improving your site’s organic search performance.

Keyword Research

All SEO implementation should include keyword research as one of the first important steps. You want to identify relevant keywords that your target audience is searching for based on your industry, niche, and your content. Here’s a handful of free tools you can use to get started:

SEMRush | AnswerthePublic | Ahrefs | UberSuggest | Google Keyword Planner

You should also search for your desired keywords yourself to get an idea of what type of content is currently ranking, and how your competitors are showing up.

Keep in mind:

• each page should be optimized for a primary keyword of 3+ words

• aim for medium to high search volume and medium to low keyword difficulty when you’re starting out

• a longer term SEO strategy is typically required to rank for high difficulty keywords

• low or zero search volume keywords can be an opportunity to rank where your competitors aren’t yet

• focus on your most important pages (home, products and services, etc.) if you’re unable to optimize your whole site right away, and plan to tackle the rest as time and resources allow

• take advantage of additional keyword insights like search intent, SERP (search engine results page) features, and competitive analysis when possible

Did you know?

29% of keywords with over 10K+ monthly searches consist of 3+ words (source: Ahrefs)

45% of revenue across Retail & eCommerce, Media & Entertainment, B2B, Technology, Travel and Hospitality comes from organic search (source: BrightEdge)

67% of mobile users say they’re more likely to buy a company’s product or service if its website is mobile-friendly (source: WebFX)

Content Optimization

Title - All page titles should contain your main keyword.

1st paragraph - Your first paragraph of content should also contain your primary keyword. Your main keyword and semantic keywords (terms related to the main keyword) should also appear throughout your page naturally.

Internal and external linking - It is always recommended to link to your related internal pages using descriptive anchor text (use generic text like “learn more” and “click here” sparingly). This is helpful for user experience and helps search engines better understand your site pages and how they relate to each other. External links should also be used to provide value when it would be useful to your site visitors.

Content length - All pages should be a minimum of 300 words, however ideal website page length for most page types is up to 1,000 words. You will get various recommendations on page length depending on the source, but keep in mind that it’s more important to focus on providing comprehensive content that fully addresses your keyword(s) rather than getting hung up on an exact word count. It’s also a great idea to note average content length for pages ranking 1-3 for the keywords you’re optimizing toward and to be aware of content lengths that perform the best for you.

Call to action - A call to action should always be visible somewhere on the page, whether that’s in your site header or footer, or a button placed on the page where it makes sense contextually. You should always be leading visitors to a logical next step to move them further down the funnel.

Metadata

Metadata at a basic level is data that describes other data. In the SEO world, and specifically for on-page optimization, it covers title tags, meta descriptions, headings and URLs. Some metadata elements come with character limits that vary wildly depending on who you talked to, but what I’m recommending is what I’ve seen perform the best amongst the hundreds of websites I’ve optimized.

These elements describe to search engines (and site visitors) the content on your page:

Title tag - A title tag appears in search results and at the top of your browser window. It should contain your keyword and be 50-60 characters. It is also recommended to include your brand name at the end of your title tag after a dash or pipe (for example: Page Title Tag | Brand Name).

Headings - All pages should have one H1 heading tag and use H2-H6 tags according to your page content hierarchy. H tags not only make your site more indexable, they also visually break up your content, allowing visitors to more easily scan what the page is about, thus making them more likely to keep reading your content.

Meta description - Meta descriptions are the blurbs that appear just below the page title in SERPs. The goal here is to briefly describe your content while enticing users to click on YOUR page in a sea of other results. They should include your primary keyword and be 140-160 characters.

URL - While the technical URL limit for most browsers is around 2,000 characters, I recommend keeping them around 50-60 characters. They should briefly describe your page content using your most relevant keyword.

Visual Elements

Videos:

Videos can be a great way to rank for your desired keywords as they often appear in search results. Use these guidelines to ensure your on-page video optimization is the best it can be:

• like other content, create videos around popular search terms embed each video with one of the following elements: <video>, <embed>, <iframe>, or <object>

• provide metadata - you can use structured data, video sitemaps, or the Open Graph protocol (OGP)

• use a unique, eye-catching thumbnail

• ensure each video can be indexed (Google Search Console is your friend here)

• embed captions in each video for accessibility

Publishing, Promotion + Performance

Look before you publish! It’s always important to test pages before publishing. At a minimum, each page should be checked on desktop and mobile for usability, making sure all clickable elements work as expected, forms work, etc. Even if your audience primarily visits your site on desktop, Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning your site and all its pages better be mobile friendly or your visibility will suffer. You should also make sure new pages are indexed by Google once published, you can do this in Search Console.

Promotion - Have a promotion plan for the content your publishing. Having a solid SEO strategy will get you great results, but you also need to get your content in front of your audience where they live online. This could include social media, email marketing, larger overall marketing campaigns, etc.

Performance - A final step that often gets forgotten is having a plan in place to analyze overall website page and blog performance over time. It’s far better to update an existing page/post rather than creating something new that discusses nearly the same content. A few KPIs (key performance indicators) you may want to track include page views, impressions, clicks, click through rate (CTR), and average position of the keywords you are optimizing for. I personally track page and post metrics and analyze them at least monthly, paying attention to trends and identifying any pages that may need to be updated or optimized.

I hope you learned something new and take away actionable advice for improving your website TODAY :)

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