On-page SEO is the work carried out within a website that influences its ranking on search engines. This includes texts, descriptions, headings, keywords, loading speed of the site, mobile-friendliness, code management and other technical parameters.
On-page SEO (also known as On-site SEO) defines the activities that take place within a website and, if successful, determines how high a website will appear in the organic rankings of a search engine. Internal optimization consists of various texts, descriptions and headings. It is essential to choose and use the most relevant keywords that will make it easier to be visible in the search results. One common problem that hinders good rankings is insufficient text on a website. The pages must be filled with unique text, with a recommended length of between 300 and 400 hundred words, and ideally exceeding that of competitors' text. If the website has a short amount of text, it is necessary to supplement it by taking into account the competitors' content. Content must be unique and not copied, as copied content will not get a good position and will have a negative impact on the quality of the website. In addition, it is important to consider keywords that are relevant to the page and that will help to reach potential customers.
On-site SEOalso includes aspects such as loading page speed, mobile-friendliness, code clean-up and other technical parameters. Once the minimum and most important internal optimization work is done, the next stage of optimization is off-page SEO.
The key on-page SEO factors:
- Creating additionalinternal pages.
- Content is managed, created, edited, added.
- Structure of internal pages, linking.
- Editing of meta titles, meta descriptions, h1 texts.
- Photo and image optimization.
- Sitemap creationand customization.
- Other actions that take place on the site.
Information architecture audit
The navigation of a website must first and foremost be user-friendly for the end-user. Although the browser cannot see the architecture, it is not difficult to see the overall structure. In particular, it is easy to notice if the structure is not user-friendly or if it is difficult to find the desired pages. Therefore, the navigation of a website should be well planned and designed to allow the desired section or page to be reached with as few button clicks as possible.
Only a user-friendly and fast navigation can retain customers, satisfy their needs and overall user experience. It is important to have relevant links, a search feature and categorized pages. Taking care of these aspects will make it easier and faster for visitors to find what they are looking for. This is all due to an effective website architecture.
Content management and optimization
Content is the backbone of all websites and helps attract more traffic. The quality of the page content determines the attractiveness of a website to visitors and it is search engine ranking factor. Text optimization will guarantee the website's visibility in search engines.
In many cases, the same information can be presented in different ways, so it is important to take care of the relevant links both inside and outside the website. In addition, a well-written content may impress the customer, but this does not guarantee visibility on Google. Which is why it is important to include a sufficient number of specific keywords in the text.
Content optimization is not just about what a website visitor sees or observes with the naked eye. It is just as important what web crawlers see, as they are the ones who rank and ensure the visibility of the website, which directly influences the traffic.
Internal linking restructuring & optimization
Internal page linking can be beneficial for both better SEO results and website visitors themselves. These links allow visitors to easily access related and relevant information and gain a deeper understanding of a topic. Another benefit of linking pages internally is that when used effectively, they highlight the most relevant information on the page. Internal linking within a broader theme should be present on every page of a website to effectively achieve the desired results. However, if linking is not possible or the pages do not have a natural link, redundant links can quickly become apparent.
The most common and effective linking is applicable to a blog, as it can host many different pieces of content on a very broad range of topics. Besides, a blog helps users to discover more useful information related to a topic of their interest, which may be directly related to your products or services. This is why every website should pay enough attention to the use of internal links, especially in blogs and on different pages on the same topic.
Title Tags & Meta descriptions optimization
Title tags (or meta titles) can vary widely, but you should be aware that their success depends more than just on creativity. Since this short HTML code snippet also determines what web users see before they go to the page, page titles should be targeted at these users. Unfortunately, this cannot be done by guessing - it requires a detailed analysis.
Meta descriptions, as a part of on-page SEO, have a very similar function as meta titles - they briefly (within 160 characters) tell the customer what they can expect on that page and is a snippet of the most important information of that page.
Both page titles and meta descriptions are useful not only for your customers, but also for the Google search engine. In a nutshell, you could say that they are like the first and last pages of a book, which tell you what you are going to read about. The title titles and meta descriptions are used by the search engines to judge the content of the page and rank it accordingly, and by the users to decide whether they will find the information they are looking for.
Header Tags Optimization (H1)
Header tags are extremely important not only for the structured presentation of information on a page, but also for better SEO results. Search engine robots use these tags to analyze the structure of the content and subsequently index and rank it. A poorly crawled page may not be ranked at all if Google does not see enough value in the content of the page, which of course directly hurts the website's results in the organic search channel.
The H1 heading is one of the most important, as it contains the main keyword, which in turn allows search engines to categorize the content in the desired category. Other tags (H2, H3) should not be overlooked, as they help to present all the text and information in a structured way, making it more visible to both customers and search engine robots.
Image optimization
Image SEO is very important, as it is practically impossible to make it without visual content online. Therefore, even websites that are limited in text are often illustrated with images, graphs or any other visual content. Visual content is not only attractive to visitors, it is also useful for search engine optimization (SEO).
It is worth mentioning that several aspects should be taken into account to achieve better results. One of them would be the ALT attribute, which describes the image (or ALT text). Search engine robots understand the content of an illustration by its ALT description, so an effectively written description will allow the image to rank in Google Images searches. Even details such as the file name, file format and file size can affect the ranking of an image. Successfully optimized images can lead to more impressions and clicks on Google Images search, as well as influencing the position on Google Search.
XML sitemap creation & submission
It is not difficult to imagine what a sitemap is, even if you are not familiar with the field, as the name suggests a lot about the scheme itself. Basically, it shows and includes all the links that make up a website and can be found on it. The sitemap also has a significant impact on search engine optimization, as all these URLs are analysed and visible. It is worth noting that a search engine can find all the links in a single file. The creation of the schema itself is not too complex, but it will certainly require specific knowledge. However, schemas not only describe the structure of the page, but also use specific tags. These can be used to achieve better SEO results and thus ensure the visibility of the web page.
Robots.txt optimization
One of the simplest, but also one of the most important, is the robots.txt file. In fact, the entire success of your internal SEO can depend on the optimization of the robots.txt file. The function of the file is simple enough - it tells the search engine which parts of the website it can go to and what content it should analyze. In this way, it is very easy to control and decide what will be seen and what will be overlooked. However, even a small error in this document can make things much more difficult. It can be easily fixed, as it is always possible to create a new file as well as to edit and review an existing one. Changes can be made to virtually any website under administration.
Setup of website schema
Setting up a web schema is a way of adding HTML code to a web page to increase its readability for search engines. It's easy enough to do and there are a wide range of different markup options. Site schema is used to highlight a wide range of elements, from products to events or even recipes.
Thus, the use of such markup and schemas is very broad - page data can be categorized, and within categories, data properties can be defined. As an example, let's take the data "Book", which we will assign to the category "Creative works" - a category can have defined properties such as author, publisher, etc. In this case, although the user only sees the book when he opens the page, the search engine will see a much larger amount of data when reading the code, which will direct the user to your website.
Schema Implementation (JSON-LD)
Schema markup is important enough to achieve better SEO results. The data and information on each web page is different and at the same time quite chaotic. At least for search engines it really is. Only structured data can be more visible and easier to analyze. For this purpose, JSON-LD is used, which can be generally described as a kind of tool that helps to structure all the information according to a common vocabulary created by search engines.
Multidimensional matrices are used for this purpose. The tool is used to create attribute pairs and to use key tags that allow the extraction of specific key information. In addition, some of the data can be grouped into categories and, consequently, sub-categories. All this grouping is done with one aim in mind: to display the website's data properly to the search engine.
Duplicate content analysis
Duplicate content is defined as any content that appears in more than one place on the internet. One location is treated very simply by Google, i.e. one unique website address (URL). Duplicate content will therefore be content that can be found on more than one web site. However, there is a fair amount of such information on the internet. And it won't always cause problems, but it will certainly affect SEO results. This is because the search engine will have to decide between the different website addresses and will choose the one that is more relevant to the user. Therefore, some one of them will automatically be less visible. The same reason also leads to a decrease in the importance of links and rankings. This makes websites less visible and it receives less traffic.
Canonical tag optimization
Canonical tags are the simplest way for search engines to indicate that a particular URL is the master copy of a page. This avoids many of the problems that arise from identical or overlapping content appearing in different URLs. Essentially, Canonical URLs tell search engines which URL should be displayed. This way, duplicate content is controlled, while also achieving the best SEO results and avoiding problems such as missing unique content, too many duplicates or choosing the wrong URL. There are three main things to look out for in an audit: whether the page has the tag at all, whether it redirects to the right URL, and whether the page is indexed.
Link redirect audit
No one would enjoy visiting a website that does not exist or is not working. Link redirects, which are commonly used when content is moved, the page itself is deleted, or even the domain is changed, help to avoid this. Link redirects not only benefit internet users, but also search engine robots.
Search engine robots visit websites just as much as users do, and are just as dismissive of inaccessible pages. We should also not forget all the backlinks that naturally lead to the page. In this case, if the backlinks lead to a broken page, they lose their function and their usefulness. Backlinks are important even when a page is moved temporarily as part of a change
Custom 404 error page setup and optimization
A 404 error is displayed when the server is unable to find the page or file requested by the user. Almost all of us have encountered this problem at least once. It is certainly not pleasant to receive an error when accessing the page you want, as it is like a dead end and you either have to leave the page altogether or go back.
A 404 page can be made more useful and thus retain the attention of visitors, as almost any content can be included instead of the usual error message. Such content would allow visitors to continue to navigate the site successfully, to search for specific information or to be redirected to another relevant page. Since the usual error message is not really pleasant and often leads to an instant exit, it is essential to provide an explanation or a relevant link that allows the visitor to continue browsing and retains their engagement.
Pages optimized
On-page SEO is one of the most basic and important steps in making a page visible in organic search. Visibility in search will, of course, help to attract user traffic. The first place to start with search engine optimization is keyword research, which is one of the most important tasks here. Keywords can be generated both from personal experience, taking into account links to the topic of the page, and by using special marketing tools.
The number of pages optimized can vary greatly, but in all cases they must have sufficient content, because search engine robots analyze all websites on the Internet by reading the content posted. The title tag and the meta description, which are like a summary of all the content, should not be forgotten either. These two aspects are what potential visitors look for when deciding which page they want to visit.
Technical Website Analysis & Opportunity Report
The visibility and ranking of a page depends on many aspects. It is therefore natural that even the smallest details can sometimes have a significant impact. These details are the ones that an SEO audit will help identify, allowing you to analyze the entire website and to evaluate the aspects most important to the search engine. In addition, a thorough analysis immediately provides SEO recommendations that will help you achieve the desired results.
Often, the analysis is needed to solve problems such as optimizing the speed of the website or inappropriate and overused links. Naturally, nowadays many users are browsing on mobile devices, so it's important to make good use of mobile-friendly website design (a part of technical SEO). Also, such analysis helps to detect duplicate content, cluttered page architecture and other important issues that are evaluated by search engine robots.
F.A.Q
What is On-page SEO?
Why do I need to optimize my website content?
The optimization of website content is crucial to increase the visibility of the website in search engines, attract more traffic, provide a user-friendly experience and enhance the quality of the website for both users and search engines.
What is the most important On-page SEO checklist?
On-page SEO starts with improving the structure and navigation of the website along with keyword research. Equally important are content optimization, meta tags and headings, site loading speed and the use of Schema.org markup.