Tips and Techniques for On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is one of three important segments of SEO: On-page, off-page, and technical SEO. For this article, we are going to break down the components of on-page SEO and help you optimise your website to drive more organic traffic to your site, grow your customer base, and increase your profits.
What is On-Page SEO?
Before we explore how to optimise your on-page SEO, let’s look at what it is and how it differs from the other segments of SEO. On-page SEO refers to everything on your website (quite literally on your page) that you can optimise to increase your rankings on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). In contrast, off-page SEO refers to what you can do outside of your website to increase your ranking, whilst technical SEO is more about site maintenance such as optimising site speediness, fixing 404 error pages, and coding.
Why is On-Page SEO Important?
Most entrepreneurs who don’t have a background in marketing think on-page SEO is simply just dotting a few keywords here and there throughout their website. Although keywords, their density, and their location are crucial elements of on-page SEO, it is not the be-all and end-all of on-page SEO. Google has a plethora of intelligent algorithms to decide which websites will generate the most clicks. Not only does your website have to be visually appealing and easy to navigate from a customer perspective but must also jump through the hoops for the search engine bots at Google.
On-Page SEO Tips
On-page SEO is something you have total control over – it’s your keywords, your content, your headers, and your titles. Therefore, it’s vital you do it right to truly optimise your webpage content, so let’s explore some key elements of on-page SEO.
High-Quality Content
First and foremost, the actual content on your website needs to be relevant, useful, trustworthy, and showcase your expertise and authority on the subject. Google wants to ensure that sites with high-quality content are rewarded with better rankings than sites with poor quality, irrelevant content. Along with good writing and relevant information, you need to be careful not to duplicate your writing across multiple pages. So, even if you love the high-quality content you wrote on your home page, please don’t just copy and paste a section of it onto, for example, your product page – even if it’s relevant. Always reword, rephrase, and restructure, content that you must need on multiple pages no matter how much effort it seems. You can’t just change a word or two here and there and hope Google’s algorithms won’t notice.
Title Tag
Your title tag is an element of HTML located in the head section of each webpage. The purpose of a title tag is to give users a preview of what the page is about. Not only is the title tag on your website, but it also features in the search engine results page normally as a clickable link. Make sure your title tag is well written, relevant, and not duplicated across pages. Ensure you put your topical keyword in the title tag naturally without keyword-stuffing
Headers
Another aspect of HTML, header tags are displayed as <h1>, <h2>, etc., when editing the site. These header tags organise content and help search engines distinguish what section of your content would be relevant and useful to what the user has searched for. Don’t duplicate your keywords from your title tag to your headers. Use your main keywords in your <h1> and <h2> headers as that’s where it’s most important.
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are short descriptions about a page that are often displayed in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). Ensure your meta descriptions are a compelling and articulative sentence or two that includes your entire keyword or keyword phrase and don’t use symbols like ‘&’, ‘+’, ‘-’. This screenshot shows an example title tag in larger purple font and the meta description below it as it would appear on Google after typing ‘acupuncture Sheffield’ in the search bar.