On-page SEO: A Complete Guide for SEO Beginners

This post was most recently updated on September 24, 2020

The only way this on-page SEO guide can help you learn search engine optimization (SEO) is by taking action and executing the steps yourself. I have created this guide to talk about all the major aspects of on-page SEO- from finding correct keywords to ensuring your SEO efforts add value to your website by bringing genuine organic traffic. 

I am sure you know meta title and description tags are an important part of the whole SEO process. Mostly when it comes to on-page SEO, people think these two things are all it is to on-page SEO though. Contrary, there’s so much more than that. 

It’s all about optimizing your website page or landing page in a way that will show you a positive impact on SEO.

Today, I am sharing some practical on-page SEO tactics that will boost your website SEO. 

Let’s get started with this detailed on-page SEO Guide.

What is On-Page SEO?

On-Page SEO involves a series of optimization measures on your website to ensure that the search engines can crawl your website, understand what it is about and enable you to attract organic website traffic.

On-page SEO is a sub-component of SEO. It is called on-page SEO because any optimization activities you do is on your webpage.

If you don’t like to read, watch this video.

Why is on-page SEO important?

On-page SEO is important because you can give a number of signals to search engines to help them understand your content topic.

Search engines look for keywords on your website page. So, through on-page SEO you can guide search engine spiders as to which keywords you want your website page to rank.

11 On-Page SEO Techniques for Higher Rankings

Know your Target Audience

Before we delve into the tactics of on-site SEO, we first need to identify your target audience. Determining your target market is the foundation of any marketing strategy including SEO. 

As the name suggests, your target market is the precise group of people that are most likely to buy your product or services/ indulge in your message. Almost all of your marketing tactics will be tailored around them. 

You can define your target audience by common characteristics like age, gender, demographics and more. The more detailed you have about your audience, the easier it will be for you to understand them and reach them. 

Start with broad categories, but as you get more data about your audience, make your target persona as detailed as possible. Include details like the location, age demographics and more. The more detailed you are, the higher the conversion rates. 

However, one thing to keep in mind is that your target audience should be created based on audience research, not a gut feeling. Keep learning and adapting as you get more data. Focus on people who want to buy from you, even if they are different than your original target audience. 

Now that you know who are you targeting, let’s get started with the On-Page SEO Guide.

Find and use relevant Keywords

On-page Search Engine Optimization is incomplete without in-depth keyword research. Use your target audience research and come up with the few keywords. Once you have keywords, use tools like Ubersuggest, SemRush to find out keywords.

If you are a newbie to SEO, check out the Step by Step Guide to Keyword Research.

Next is using the keywords in the right place.

Add your targeted keyword in meta title and description

Using your target keyword in the Meta Title and Meta Description of your web page heavily impacts on SEO.

As the name suggests, Meta Title is the headline of your web page or blog. It is even visible on the search engine results. Try to add your keyword at the beginning of your title tag. It’s OK if you can’t, keep it as close to the beginning as possible. 

The small content blurbs that appear on your Google search results are known as the meta description. Give a brief description of the web page here to attract more visitors. Don’t forget to either add the same keyword as the title tag in the description tag or you can use other related keywords. Make sure you don’t extend the limit of 155 characters, or else your message will be cut off in the middle. 

Add your targeted keyword in H1 tag and first 100 words content

Other places where you must use your focus keyword are in H1 Tag, Subheadings and the content itself. 

Use your focus keyword at least once in the first 100 words of your content and at least in H1 tag of your web page. 

Additionally, use the focus/related keyword on at least one of the subheadings. Don’t let the word sub fool you, subtitles are equally crucial for your SEO as they help in structuring the content for easy readability.

Use targeted keyword in your page URL

Another must-have keyword place is the page URL. It is the first thing that Google, as well as People, read about your page. It is also one of the ranking signal. Integrating your keywords helps you increase your visibility. 

Additionally, keep the URL short, concise and to the point. They are not only easier to remember but also give a boost to your SEO.

Add proper Alt tag for images

Google Search Engines, don’t understand images and rely on the Alt Tag to understand the image. While optimizing your website for SEO, you should also add your selected keywords in the alt tag on one or two of the images on your website. This way even your image can rank higher on the Search Engine Results.

Learn Best Practices for SEO optimizing images

Use Internal and External Links

Another important on-page SEO factor is the presence of internal and external links. Using links allows search engines to determine the topic of the web page. Additionally, having high-quality external links adds trust and authoritative value to the page. 

External links will enable the search engine to understand what the topic of your web page while the interlinking displays the overall idea about the topic of your website.

Use Schema Markup

Schema Markups help you create the rich snippets that grab your attention when you’re scrolling through the search results. They are the ones with the fancy star ratings, FAQs or reviews, and more. Schema markup makes it easier for the search engines and as well as the searches to understand the context and structure of your website. 

It can also help your content to show up in Google’s Knowledge Graph (the coveted position of those automated summaries at the top of some search results) and it adds a site search box below your listing and more. If you have a WordPress site, you can easily install the Schema Pro plugin to integrate the Schema Markup to your site. 

Use this FAQ Schema Generator for generating schema.

Add all related (LSI) keywords in your content

LSI Keyword stands for Latent Semantic Indexing. LSI is also called Related keywords as they are the most relevant ones to the actual keywords. Google search engine recognizes these synonyms and often returns to you with the related search query when you put any search query.

Using these related keywords in the content as well as the Meta Description along with the focus keyword can positively impact your search engine rankings. 

Improve your website speed

Google is famous for its fantastic user-experience, and they take it rather seriously if the user’s browsing experience is hampered because your website is loading very slowly. If your website is taking longer than 3 seconds then this slow-loading website can also result in a higher bounce rate. 

You can use tools like Google Page Speed or Webpagetest.org to check your website performance. You can make changes on your website based on the insights given to you by these tools. 

Additionally, use tools like lazyload script which will optimize the images on your site and minimize loading time. 

Moreover, you can use Content Delivery Networks (CDN) to save on loading time. CDN saves your website on multiple servers at multiple locations and loads the site from the area where your visitor is viewing. 

Improve your website’s mobile experience

If you think you can do without a mobile-friendly website, Think Again.

Google rolled out a new update, giving an extra boost to mobile-friendly websites. Offering a mobile responsive is no brainer and is quite simple too.

Most of the WordPress themes are mobile-friendly if not, you can install a plugin for that as well. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an excellent tool provided by Google to optimize the speed of the mobile site by allowing you to create mobile-friendly websites.

Here’s how you can improve your website speed.

Don’t forget to test your website for mobile-friendliness. In case your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you can implement the suggestions offered by the Google tool.

On-Page SEO Checklist

I am sharing the complete on-page SEO checklist that you can use it while performing an on-page SEO.

• Make sure that you understand the audience.
• Perform in-depth keyword research.
• Make sure that your content is quality and useful to your audience.
• Create your meta title and meta description with targeted keyword and power words to hook your audience.
• Keep your targeted keyword in the first 100 words of your content.
• Find LSI and related keywords and use them in your content.
• Keep only one H1 tag. And use proper heading tags structure(H1 > H2 > H3) on your webpage.
• Keep a short paragraph in your content to make it readable.
• Make sure you have a short and keyword research URL.
• Add internal and external links to your content.
• Make sure your website page loads in less than 3 seconds.
• Make sure you have a mobile-friendly website.

Conclusion

On-Page SEO(Search Engine Optimization) doesn’t take a lot of effort. It’s a compilation of small dos and don’ts that help you enhance your online presence.

Further, take a look at my 29 points SEO checklist, it will surely help you boost your overall SEO efforts.

Let us know in the comments, how this On-Page SEO guide has helped you and share any other useful insights that I might have missed.