Search Engine Optimisation can typically be divided into on-page SEO, off-page SEO and Technical SEO. All three are equally important, although for many brands, optimising their on-page SEO can be one of the best ways to generate quick results in terms of Search Engine traffic and ranking improvements. In this guide, we will provide you with basic, actionable steps to follow and use to improve your on-page SEO strategy.
What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO refers to the optimisation of various elements on a website (both front-end and back-end) to improve its search engine rankings and attract more organic traffic. These optimisations are implemented directly on the website itself, as opposed to off-page SEO techniques like link building.
Typically, on-page SEO will be written and optimised for two audiences – the reader and the search engine. For the reader, it is important to provide helpful and interesting content. While for the search engine, it’s important to ensure the page can be understood easily so that your page can appear in the search engine results page (SERP) for relevant keywords.
Important On-page SEO Concepts for Web Pages
Various core concepts should be looked at when formulating a plan for optimising on-page SEO or creating new search-optimised pages for your website. Some of these ideas include:
- Search Intent
- Topical Coverage & Keyword Research
- Adding New Original Information
- Authorship
Search Intent
Search Intent or “user intent” represents what the user is trying to achieve from the search query they use. Intent can typically be simplified into four types, these are as follows:
- Informational Intent: Users are looking to research a topic. For example “How to make a smoothie” or “Guide to SEO”.
- Navigational Intent: To find a specific page or brand website. For example “ASOS login” or “Facebook privacy policy”.
- Commercial Intent: Refers to searches made by users looking to research a product or service before purchase. For example “best protein powders” or “cheapest gym in London”.
- Transactional Intent: When users want to do something specific. This is usually associated with a purchase e.g. “buy iPhone pro” or “Apple TV”. But can also be non-financial transactions e.g. “Ahrefs newsletter sign up” or “personality test”.
It is important that you find the search intent of your article idea before writing it. This means you can write in the intent style that search engines are looking for. For keywords where it is not obvious what the intent could be, you should analyse the top 5 or 10 articles in the search engine to see the most common intent.
Topical Coverage & Keyword Research
When you’ve picked the core keyword you want to rank for you’ll need to do further keyword research to find relevant variations. While also investigating all of the different topics and sub-topics you will need to cover.
Keyword Research
For this example, we will be using “vegan protein powder” as our main keyword. Next, we will want to investigate the relevant keywords associated to protein powder based on their search volume. For this, we can use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush.
Above you can see some of the initial findings include terms like “best vegan protein powder” “organic vegan protein powder” “vegan vanilla protein powder” etc. These are all examples of long-tail keywords that could be included in the article about vegan protein powder. Helping to provide the search engine with a wider variety of keywords, helping improve their likelihood of ranking higher in the SERP.
Topical Coverage
When producing one article or multiple articles that cover a topic it is important that you cover the topic in its entirety. This ensures the reader can find everything they need to know about the topic on your website.
The best way to do this is by opening up the top 5 or top 10 results in Google for your main keyword. Take note of all of the headings found in each and compile them together. This can help you outline all the different areas you will need to include in your article.
Adding New Original Information
The previous example of topical coverage relies on competitor research as a basis for structuring the contents of your article. There is however one drawback to this method – the fact you won’t be able to provide new information.
Authorship
In the age of AI, Google now values first-hand experience more than ever before.
Does content also demonstrate that it was produced with some degree of experience, such as with actual use of a product, having actually visited a place or communicating what a person experienced? There are some situations where really what you value most is content produced by someone who has first-hand, life experience on the topic at hand.
Google Quality Rater Guidelines
This highlights the importance of first person pronouns and real experience in the topic you are discussing. This is why it’s always important to ensure you’re well read on the topic you are discussing and can provide real expertise.
However, search engines aren’t mind readers! And they certainly aren’t doing detailed background checks to work out how knowledgeable you are on a certain topic. This is why it’s important to create Author Profiles that can be assigned to your articles.
Ensure you are using authentic profiles, with real people behind them. Include a detailed bio about the Authors expertise, qualifications, employment history, etc. Provide links to your author’s social media accounts and email. An example can be seen below.
Important On-page Elements to Optimise
There are also specific page elements that need to be optimised for search performance. These are individual items found on the page that can be easily updated, as opposed to some of the broader conceptual ideas found in the previous section. Some of the on-page elements you will need to optimise include:
- SEO Titles
- Heading Structure
- Optimised URLs
- Internal Links
- External Links
- Optimised Images
SEO Titles
SEO Titles or “Title Tags” refer to the line of text that is shown on the search engine results page. Although this is not exclusive to search engines like google, it will also be dictate what is shown in browser tabs and social media posts.
They can strongly influence the CTR (click through rate) on your page. An example of a well-optimised SEO Title can be seen below.
When creating the perfect SEO Title Tag, you should consider the following:
- Use Keywords: Be clear and concise, using your target keywords helps search engines and users establish what the page is about.
- Short & Sweet: Use between 50 and 60 characters for the Title tag. This prevents google automatically shortening the title and cutting off part of the title.
- Unique: It is important that everything we do avoids any duplicate content flags.
Heading Structure
Following a proper heading hierarchy for your content is critical. Making it easy for both users and search engines to skim through your content.
Each page should only have 1 H1 tag, this should be your page’s title. Followed by a H2 Tag for your first heading. From then on you can continue using H2 tags or introduce H3, H4, H5 and H6 for sub-headings within the original H2 tag.
This can be a little tricky to conceptualise, so the image provided below can help you picture it in simpler terms. Alternatively, you can examine the heading structure used in this article, which features H1, H2, H3 and H4.
Furthermore, headings provide an important opportunity to include your target keywords. This helps highlight them to the search engine, making it easier for it to understand if your content aligns with the users search query.
However, ensure you are using a wide variety of associated keywords and variations of the keyword. This helps you rank for more different, closely related terms and avoids keyword stuffing.
Optimised URLs
Google specifically recommends the use of descriptive and simple URLs. As it helps both the search engine and the user understand what to expect from the page.
A good URL should be short and include words that are useful to understand the purpose of the page. For example: https://www.domain.com/fitness/best-protein-powder.
Alternatively, unoptimised, less helpful URLs often provide limited context, unnecessary fluff or are simply made from random identifiers. For example: https://www.domain.com/folder/2024/04/blog-page-43134234234.html.
Internal Links
Internal links are hyperlinks that point to different pages on the same website, hence they are “internal”. They provide value to the website visitor and the search engine.
Here are some of the main reasons why internal linking structure is important:
- It Allows search engines to understand how web pages are related to each other and helps the crawler understand the website’s structure.
- They send a signal of importance to the search engine, that the page linked provides valuable content. It also helps to pass link juice, although this is an off-page SEO term that we will avoid for now.
- They help users find relevant and useful content to better understand the main topic. Which improves user engagement stats like time on site, event count, page views, etc.
- Descriptive anchor text for internal links helps provide context for search engines visiting the page. Meaning they can be better positioned to rank you for desired keywords.
External Links
External Links are the opposite of Internal Links. They are hyperlinks that point to a page found on a different website. Many publishers avoid this as they believe it diverts traffic away from their website. While this can be true in some instances, adding external links can improve user experience and build trust.
However, when integrating external links into your website, it is important to ensure the sites are trustworthy and have authority in the niche they are talking about.
Optimised Images
Optimising the images found on your website or introducing new ones can have multiple benefits for SEO.
Firstly, it can have an impact on the overall user experience and add further value beyond what text alone can offer. Which could result in the page they are found on performing better organically.
Moreover, the addition of unique images offers the opportunity to claim rankings in google images, which can be a valuable source of traffic for websites. Although, in doing this a few optimisations will be needed, including:
- SEO optimised Alt Text: keep it concise and include keywords to provide context.
- Descriptive file names with keywords included to help the search engine understand the image.
- Compress Image files for fastest load times.
Additional Learning Materials
On-page SEO is an enormous topic and something that is constantly changing and evolving. As such, there may be some factors or smaller considerations that slipped through the cracks in this article. You can learn more about on-page SEO with the following resources: