Search engine optimization, the improvement of organic search engine rankings, is basically divided into two branches: what you can do to increase the authority of the portal with mentions and inbound hyperlinks, and changes on the website. This is on-page SEO.
Off-page SEO encompasses activities related to acquiring backlinks through link building and digital PR. With on-page operations, on the other hand, we can work on several fronts: here are a number of substantial elements you can work on to do a good job of optimization on the Internet domain.
What is on-page SEO
On-page SEO is the set of techniques for optimizing the resources under your domain. It applies to both web pages and blog articles as well as to the entire internet portal structure such as:
- E-commerce.
- Web portals.
- Personal and corporate sites.
- Corporate blogs.
- Personal blogs.
- Forums and communities.
This work can be done on all projects that need visibility on Google by improving the ranking of the most important web pages according to the intended goals.
The activities in this branch of search engine optimization range from preliminary analysis to code improvement, and several professionals may be needed to implement a complete on-page SEO path. The basis of good on-page SEO optimization work is always a clear planning of what you want to achieve and an appropriate investment.
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Main tools for on-page SEO
To meet this challenge, it is useful to have a number of useful tools at your disposal both for analyzing competitor performance and for studying keywords. Among the main tools for doing on-page SEO we have Semrush, Seozoom, Majestic, Moz and Ahref. Not forgetting Screaming Frog, an essential utility for creating comprehensive SEO audits and discovering problems and opportunities for site improvement.
How to do on-page SEO
Many people simply optimize title tags, meta descriptions and other elements on the web page. This is an important starting point; it is part of the good work of improving the publication from an SEO perspective. But we need to add fundamental aspects to achieve good results in organic search and website ranking on Google. But also on Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines.
Do keyword research
The first step in doing an excellent job of optimizing web pages: start from a solid base. A base that can only be obtained by thorough keyword research. That is, the analysis of the keywords searched by the audience you want to reach on the different search engines (mainly Google).
This activity-which you can manage through professional tools and SEO tools such as Majestic, Semrush, and Seozoom-is critical to understanding what to publish and, more generally, how to manage website structure. For example? What exactly is this strategic step used for in the SEO perspective?
Thanks to keyword research you can find out how many landing pages you create for your services, how many categories and subcategories to manage for an e-commerce, and whether you need to launch a company blog to intercept informative searches. In short, you don’t start on-page SEO without keyword research.
Design an appropriate structure
Once keyword research is done, you can study the architecture of the website, which must be logical, simple, and linear. The goal is not to create an extremely complex tree but one that can adapt to the needs of users, always respecting the logic of UX and navigability.
Starting with keyword research to create the tree is a practice that is often made to fall under a macro category known as on-site SEO. Often this term is used as a synonym for on-page SEO, in other cases it indicates optimization work on the entire portal and not on the individual page.
In any case, this is the summary: one must use a logical and clean structure, avoiding unnecessary URLs but also leaving potential content gaps that could be decisive for conversions.
Internal links in the web page
The presence of internal links is part of the whole on-page SEO optimization project, especially if we work well with who anchor text that must be indicative of the landing resource. Also included in this balance are breadcrumbs, navigation links that indicate the user’s path.
Create quality content
Certainly, copywriting is a key aspect of on-page SEO because it allows you to create the main content that is read and interpreted by Google to understand whether your work adheres to the query.
The key aspect is about understanding and adhering to the search intent, what people want from that search. The key objective is to understand whether we are talking about informational searches to learn more about something – numerous but often not leading to direct conversions – or transactional. That is, those that are about action and have a high conversion rate.
Different search intent leads to different content such as landing pages, product sheets, categories, blog articles. In addition to knowing how to write, or having SEO copywriting support by one’s side, the search engine optimization expert must always have a strategic vision.
Optimize the snippet
Everything that is part of good search engine result optimization must be the focus. Also because some elements are decisive for ranking. For example.
- Title tag: the title of the web page.
- Meta description: the description below the SEO headline.
- Rich snippet: additional information.
The title tag remains one of the key elements of on-page SEO, it still represents a key point to communicate to Google the topic of the resource and increase the chances of ranking.
Limit to be respected: about 60 characters, otherwise it is truncated. Same goes for the meta description only we go up to 145 characters. Google can rewrite titles and descriptions as needed.
Improve the page URL.
One of the elements of on-page SEO: create URLs that are easy to read and communicate. Both to Google and users. the rule is simple: aim for simple permalinks, without special characters or unnecessary words.
No keyword stuffing. Also, you can optimize the improve the URL by removing the date from the first WordPress publications by going to the slug structure section and pointing to the post title solution.
Pay attention to headings
Web pages are organized with a system of headings, headings that define the content hierarchy. One of the tips for good on-page SEO optimization is to create a resource structure that starts with the main title, the H1 tag, and then divides the content into H2, H3, etc.
Clearly, heading tags can indicate hierarchical levels of information, that several H3 headers are sub-topics of the previous H2. That’s not a ranking factor issue. It’s proper organization of a web document.
SEARCH ENGINE JOURNAL
Mind you, Google spokesmen have repeatedly stressed that these elements are not that important for SEO optimization. But in any case it is worth paying attention to how you organize your content also to give good readability to the text. Not to forget that with a table of content you can turn headers into internal anchors that turn into sitelinks in the snippet.
Upload sitemap
Did you know that Search Console is one of the most important tools for doing on-page SEO? Not only for discovering any 404 errors that need to be corrected and for evaluating the trend of searches, rankings and placements: you can associate the sitemap.xml and communicate information about updates to Google.
This useful step of sending the sitemap to Google is not always essential for small sites, but for large portals and blogs it becomes a step of on-page SEO optimization.
Optimize videos and photos
One point of on-page SEO optimization: images and videos. They must be quick to load, thought out within a content marketing strategy and useful to the user. The weight of the web page, thus the loading time, depends largely on this content, so you have to compress and optimize it. How?
- Insert a descriptive alt (alternative text) tag.
- Upload the file with an indicative, talking name.
- Use an appropriate file format (WebP is best).
- Add, if necessary, a caption.
- Use original images if possible.
Google can bring traffic through images that can also find themselves in the official serp without forgetting the visits that come from photo search. The same goes for videos.
The audience’s searches are often multimedia, if you have the possibility realize independently what the target audience needs to get more information. Google, as always, loves useful content.
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Aim for Core Web Vitals
Often included in the list of useful elements for doing on-page SEO is the focus on loading speed, which is a ranking factor. Actually, today we work in terms of Core Web Vitals.
That means working on the UX, the goodness of the publication. Also including reaction time of interactive elements and stability of design as the page comes to the audience.
