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The key elements of on-page SEO
Search marketing is essential for any business. Through search, you can drive substantial traffic volumes to your website to kickstart customer experiences and start a better chance of attracting new leads. However, this only works if you can get your business seen on the search engines in a prominent position.
Many factors are used as part of Google’s algorithm to determine how your website should rank in the search engine results page for a specific query.
Some of these factors can be described as ‘on-page SEO’, which refers to the optimisation of on-page elements to maximise results.
By nailing your on-page technique as part of a broader SEO strategy, you will secure the top result on the relevant search engine result pages (SERPs) and obtain favourable metrics.
This guide explores the key elements of on-page SEO in detail, including the best practice.
What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO is a term used to describe the various elements that can be seen in your website content, including images, text and meta tags, as well as page speed. Another definition is that it encompasses anything you can control within the web content editor.
It is distinct from off-page SEO, which refers to external methods. Typically, this relates to your link building efforts, such as liaising with other businesses to get them to link to your website.
Why is on-page SEO important?
On-page SEO will comprise many factors Google uses to understand and categorise your website. It indicates what your website is about, what topics you relate to and what you can offer customers.
With this knowledge, Google will rank your website for the appropriate search queries related to your content. 68% of online experiences start with a search engine – so you need to appear.
It’s vital to remember that Google’s priority is serving the searcher with valuable results. You need to offer helpful information to secure the highest spots – and your on-page content will be used to decipher this.
57% of marketing executives say that on-page content development was the most effective SEO tactic, so it could prove crucial to how successful your strategy is.
By enabling Google to understand your website intrinsically, you will appear in all the right places, allowing you to attract warm leads to your business who stand a better chance of converting into customers.
The key elements of on-page SEO
Several elements make up on-page SEO. We’ve listed them below.
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Keywords
The most critical part of SEO is selecting the right keywords. These should relate to your products and services and reflect what your customers will search on to find your business.
Using keywords across your content helps Google understand the intention and meaning behind your web pages. As you develop your website with content that falls into similar categories and covers topics in detail, the search engine will begin to build a better picture of your business and the value you offer searchers.
Using appropriate and carefully selected keywords will lead to Google ranking your website for the relevant search terms. Not only will this help more people to come across your business through higher SERP positions, but it will also ensure that the leads you receive are warm and more likely to convert.
To ensure you are selecting the correct terms, spend time conducting keyword research, using strong practices that enable you to uncover competitive keywords for your business.
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Title tag
The title tag is the title of your content or webpage. It should indicate what the following text is about while whetting your readers’ appetite. There will be a designated title field in most website editors to input your title.
It’s best to use your keyword, or a variation of, in your title tag. You should also ensure your title is relatively short in length (around 50-70 characters). Any longer than this could result in it getting cut off in the SERP.
You should also seek to make it unique, with an interesting angle that piques attention and draws in traffic. The title is prominently featured on the SERP – likely one of the first things a searcher sees when scrolling through results – so make it effective!
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URL
The URL leads directly to your website and appears in the address bar of your web browser. Typically, it will follow a structure like https://yourwebsitename.com/name-of-web-page.
It’s another factor that Google uses to decipher the meaning of your web pages, so the end part of your URL should reflect the content housed on that page. You should avoid generic wording or numbers.
A good practice is to incorporate your title (and the keywords you are targeting!) into the URL. However, it should be short – at least under 2000 characters in total to work in most browsers.
Let’s say we’ve written a blog entitled ‘The best vegan snacks in your local supermarket in 2022’. An excellent example of an URL would be https://yourwebsitename.com/best-vegan-snacks-supermarket-2022. It reflects the content on the webpage in a concise way.
It also reflects the hierarchy of your website. For example, if you are an e-commerce site, you might have a specific product section where you list your products. Your product page URLs will have a structure such as https://yourwebsitename.com/products/product-type/product-name. By including the hierarchy in your URL, Google can better understand the type of webpage being offered and serve it for the right searches.
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Meta-description
The meta-description is your opportunity to demonstrate further what your page is about. It summarises what someone can expect to find out by clicking your page.
It’s also used as a preview text in the SERPs, as per below, giving the searcher more context. You must make it sound helpful and enticing to get the click. Some websites will put content directly from their page into the meta-description to show the information that can be read in full.
Again, you should seek to utilise your keywords in the meta-description to improve your chances of ranking. The optimum length is around 160 characters – so aim to keep it short and snappy.
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Heading tags
Header tags are another integral part of on-page SEO. They should be used throughout your page to break up content, give focus and further help Google understand the semantics related to your website.
The first header tag you will use is your title, which should be your only H1 tag and featured at the top of the page. You can then drill into sub-heading for the different sections of your content, which should be H2 tags. This can go onto sub-sub-headings and beyond, with H3 and H4 headings.
By using heading tags effectively, you can incorporate the various sections that make up your piece and likely end up using related, more niche keywords in the meantime. It’ll also make your content more readable – a win-win!
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Content
Google endeavours to deliver valuable content to the person searching. You need to ensure your content fits the bill.
Start by matching the intent your searcher has. During your keyword research, you should verify intent to understand what your audience is looking to find out from their query.
E-A-T is vital here. It stands for expertise, authority and trust: three characteristics every piece of good content should embody. When incorporating E-A-T, you must ensure your content is well-written, researched and reliable, with accurate and substantiated claims.
If you do not create quality content, Google will penalise you, negatively impacting your performance.
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Images
Images are a significant part of your content, making a webpage engaging and providing visual cues. It can include infographics, which are a great way to make information more digestible and generate backlinks from other websites looking to use them.
Google will crawl your images when deciding how to categorise your website. You should ensure every image on the page has a title that connects to your content (rather than just jibberish, as people often do when saving images!). It should also have alt-text that describes the image in detail, as this is a must for anyone with a visual impairment.
When appropriate, aim to utilise your keywords in image titles and alt-text to improve your ranking.
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Internal and external links
When creating content, it’s good to link to other relevant pages on your website. This gives more of your content exposure and enables users to prolong their website journey and find more information to satisfy their needs.
Linking your content also helps Google build associations between your content to better understand your website.
Linking to external websites is also recommended to back up claims you make and further develop meaning. It can even promote your off-page link building efforts if you can get links to your website in return.
When adding links, remember to use descriptive anchor text that demonstrates what the reader can expect to find if they click it. This is much better than using generic wording like ‘click here’, as it highlights the semantics and why you have used that link – which will boost your SEO!
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Page speed
Another crucial factor in SEO, and the quality of the user experience, is website speed. Many factors will affect the speed of your pages, including any security features, image sizes, redirects, optimised code, add-ons and so forth.
Your aim should be to make your website load as fast as possible. If it doesn’t, you risk users dropping off due to frustration, which will affect your traffic metrics and likely send leads to your competitors.
70% of customers say site speed affects their purchasing decisions – so being quick can win sales.
Spend time testing your site speed and, if there’s room for improvement, determine what you can change.
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Mobile optimisation
Half of all website traffic happens on mobile – including searches. Many users will want to find and view your website on their smartphones.
In 2022, your website must be mobile optimised if you want to capture this traffic. Google will prioritise websites that are.
There are many things you should do to improve mobile friendliness, including:
- Have a responsive layout that can be resized for mobile and tablet screens
- Using easily digestible content – such as short text, paragraphs, headings and visuals
- Improving site speed
- Removing pop-ups
- Spacing out website elements to avoid a ‘cluttered’ look
- Regularly conducting mobile testing
By ensuring you have a responsive website that works as well for mobile as it does desktop, your search rankings and traffic levels will rocket.
Conclusion
On-page SEO is an integral part of search marketing. It’s crucial to understand what Google is looking for in these elements if you want to reach those elusive top spots on the SERPs.
By conducting effective keyword research that feeds into your content (including your URL, headings and images) and providing high-quality and trustworthy information on a speedy and responsive website, you will be in pole position. When combined with effective off-page link building, the rewards can be ten-fold.
If you effectively nail SEO, you will soon access the benefits of increased website traffic, more interested leads, higher conversion rates and rising sales. It’s what every business could ever want – and it’s all in your control.
