SEO or Search Engine Optimization in general means optimizing your website to make it responsive and accessible to everyone along with Google bots. To make sure your website ranks for search queries that are relevant to your business.
Google and other search engines often change their ranking algorithms and SEOs. For tweaking their websites to align with that algorithm to make sure that their websites are still ranking.
But there are major on-page optimization factors that are still relevant today. In this blog post, we will be discussing these factors in detail below.
What is On-Page SEO?
On-page SEO, which is also called on-site SEO, is the process of changing a webpage’s content, tags, and links. To improve its visibility in search engines and increase traffic in return.
Why is On-Page SEO Important?
On-Page SEO is also how a search engine understands your content. It also helps your audience with skimming and analyzing your content. On-Page SEO is a major factor to bring the audience to your website from the search engine results page. As it increases the Click-Through-Rate (CTR) and guides your audience from a query to its solution.
10 Essential On-Page Factors
On-Page SEO is broadly divided into three categories: content, HTML, and website architecture. Let’s take a look at the factors and which category they fall. So you can assign your UI/UX, Web Developer and Content Creator accordingly.
E-E-A-T
Google weighs your website and its content on the basis of E-E-A-T. E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. E-E-A-T falls under the Content category.
Google often fights disinformation with the help of E-E-A-T and makes sure that content which is published on the web. Either comes from experience, expertise, authority or someone who is trusted.
Keywords
Keywords are the epitome of SEO as they play the key factor in bringing traffic to your website. And you also optimize your webpages based on the keywords being searched by the user.
Webpages that feature the keywords used by the user, in the body, headings, or both, are more likely to be relevant for the user, and also search engines.
To optimize the keywords, you need to understand what your target audience are searching for and create content based on those researched keywords. Keywords fall under Content Category and are managed by SEO along with Content Creators.
Visual Content
Most of the webpages only include Content. But with the recent rise of video content, brands and businesses are leveraging video content also with infographics and images to promote their products and services.
Visual content also gives you opportunities to boost your optimization and increase traffic. Alike, E-E-A-T and Keywords, Visual Content falls under Content Category.
Title Tags
Title tags are one of the most important areas to focus on for On-Page SEO. They fall under the HTML category.
It is the first thing a user sees in search engine result pages (SERPs) before clicking in it and getting in your website, thus it is the most important factor to optimize when doing an On-Page SEO for your website.
Meta Description
While meta description is not a direct ranking factor, meta descriptions help increase CTR in your website. Meta description falls under the HTML category.
As title tag, meta description is the second thing a user sees in SERPs and it helps in increasing CTR through the content written there. Meta description can help Google understand what your webpage is about, and persuade users to click the link.
Image Optimization
Once you start publishing visual content to your website, you need to make sure that it is optimized for the search engines and also does not hamper your website speed.
You can include SEO-friendly keywords and ALT tags in your images. You can upload the images in WEBP format for it to load faster and with less file size. Image optimization falls under the HTML category.
Website Speed
When you’ve optimized everything but still if your site loads slow, that can lead to decline in traffic. Website speed falls under the website architecture category.
You need to optimize your website by enabling images and code compression, reducing redirects and leveraging Content Delivery Networks (CDN) for browser caches.
Responsive Design
Mobile search volume is surpassing desktop every year, according to Google. And, since most of your users are coming from Mobile, your website needs to be responsive for Mobile devices.
Responsive websites also help users with their experience in the website, with intuitive navigation and user-friendly interface. Responsive design falls under the website architecture category.
URL Structure
SEOs need to make sure that the URL structure is SEO-friendly and also needs to include the main keyword in the URL itself. URL structure falls under the website architecture category.
Since there will be multiple pages on your website, it will be easier for users and also you to manage your content in the website.
Links
As we have already mentioned E-E-A-T before, the best ways to establish experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are through links from other authority websites.
While the outbound links that you get from other websites are good for SEO, internal linking with your own content is also good for your website, since users will be able to get more information from your website through links.
On-Page SEO Process
Since Google and other search engines often change their algorithms, On-Page SEO along with other aspects of SEO like Off-Page SEO and Technical SEO, is an ongoing process.
You always need to be prepared for the algorithm changes and understand the ranking factors and optimize your website accordingly to make sure the website still ranks for your desired keyword.
