SEO On-Page Optimization Tutorial | The Complete Guide

What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO, or on-site SEO, is that the method of optimizing varied front-end and back-end parts of your web site so it ranks in search engines and brings in new traffic. On-page SEO parts embrace content components, website design components, and hypertext mark-up language components.

Google’s algorithmic rule ranks your web site on 3 main factors: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO:

We’ll cowl on-page SEO components below.

Off-page SEO refers to social sharing, external linking, and more.

Technical SEO refers to all or any the SEO components not enclosed in on-page and off-page practices, like structured information, site speed, and mobile readiness — the additional technical components of SEO.

Note: This SEO “trilogy” isn’t divided into 3 clean sections; a number of these SEO components can overlap. you will see however and why throughout this piece.

Why is on-page SEO important?

On-page SEO is vital as a result of it tells Google all concerning your web site and the way you give worth to guests and customers. It helps your website be optimized for each human eyes and computer program bots.

Merely making and commercial enterprise your web site is not enough — you need to optimize it for Google and different search engines so as to rank and attract new traffic.

On-page SEO is named “on-page” as a result of the tweaks and changes you create to optimize your web site may be seen by guests on your page (whereas off-page and technical SEO components are not invariably visible).

Every a part of on-page SEO is totally up to you; that is why it is vital that you simply love properly. Now, let’s discuss the weather of on-page SEO.

• On-Page SEO components
• High-Quality Page Content
• Page Titles
• Headers
• Meta Descriptions
• Image Alt-text
• Structured Markup
• Page URLs
• Internal Linking
• Mobile Responsiveness
• Site Speed

All on-page SEO components comprise 3 main categories:

Content components

HTML components

Site design components

You’ll see these components divided into sections below.

Content components:

Content components discuss with the weather among your website copy and content. during this section, we’ll focus totally on crafting high-quality page content that edges your guests and tells Google that your web site provides worth.

1. High-Quality Page Content

Page content is that the heart of on-page SEO. It tells each search engines and readers what your web site and business square measure all concerning.

The first step to making high-quality content is selecting relevant keywords and topics. Conduct keyword analysis by looking out Google for terms and seeing what surfaces for competitors and different websites. you’ll be able to conjointly use tools like Ahrefs, AnswerthePublic, and UberSuggest.

Also, scan our Beginner’s orient a way to Do Keyword analysis for SEO.

Next, take into account however your page content falls into the buyer’s journey and visitors’ search intent. These can impact

however you’ll use your keywords and what kinds of content you’ll create:

Now, it is time to put in writing your page content or clean it up if you are presently auditing your on-page SEO.

Here square measure many best practices for writing high-quality page content (we’ll bit on a number of these in additional detail below, in our Checklist):

Incorporate short and long-tail keywords naturally.

Add partaking and relevant visual content.

Write for your specific purchaser persona(s).

Actively solve your audience’s drawback.

Develop content individuals can share and wish to link to.

Optimize for conversions with CTAs to offers and merchandise pages.

Page content is your chance to speak worth to Google and your website visitors; it is the heart of the on-page SEO method. All different on-page SEO components stem from high-quality page content, thus invest ample resources to develop and optimize it.

HTML components:

HTML components discuss with the weather in your ASCII text file.

Note: to examine the ASCII text file for any page in your browser, click read > Developer > read supply within the prime menu.

2. Page Titles

Your web site page titles (also called title tags) square measure one in all the foremost vital SEO components.

On page seo examples: page title tag

Titles tell each guests and search engines what they’ll realize on the corresponding pages.

To ensure your website pages rank for the right intent, make sure to incorporate the main target keyword for every page within the title. Incorporate your keyword as naturally as potential.

Here square measure some best practices for once developing a page title:

Keep it beneath sixty characters (per Google’s update) to confirm that your titles show properly. though Google does not have a particular character limit, its show titles reach at 600 pixels. Keeping your titles at sixty characters or less ensures the title will not be discontinue in search results.

Don’t stuff the title with keywords. Not solely will keyword-stuffing gift a spammy and tacky reading expertise, however trendy search engines square measure smarter than ever — they have been designed to specifically monitor for (and penalize!) content that is by artificial means filled with keywords.

Make it relevant to the page.

Don’t use all caps.

Include your whole within the title, i.e. “The final Guide to On-Page SEO in 2022 — HubSpot Blog”.

Check out our free data-driven guide to writing effective page titles.

3. Headers

Headers, conjointly called body tags, discuss with the hypertext mark-up language component, and so on.

These tags facilitate organize your content for readers and facilitate search engines distinguish what a part of your content is most significant and relevant, reckoning on search intent.

Incorporate vital keywords in your headers, however select totally different ones than what is in your page title. place your most significant keywords in your and headers.

4. Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions square measure the short page descriptions that seem beneath the title in search results. though it is not a political candidate ranking issue for search engines, it will influence whether or not or not your page is clicked on — so, it’s even as vital once doing on-page SEO.

Meta descriptions can even be derived over to social media once your content is shared (by exploitation structured markup, that we tend to cite below), thus it will encourage click-throughs from there, too.

5. Image Alt-text

Image alt-text is like SEO for your pictures. It tells Google and different search engines what your pictures are concerning that is vital as a result of Google currently delivers virtually as several image-based results as they are doing text-based results.

That means shoppers is also discovering your web site through your pictures. so as for them to try to this, though, you’ve got to feature alt-text to your pictures.

Here’s what to stay in mind once adding image alt-text:

Make it descriptive and specific.

Make it contextually relevant to the broader page content.

Keep it shorter than one hundred twenty five characters.

Use keywords meagerly, and do not keyword stuff.

6. Structured Markup

Structured markup, or structured knowledge, is that the method of “marking up” your web site ASCII text file to create it easier for Google to seek out and perceive totally different components of your content.

Structured markup is that the key behind those featured snippets, data panels, and different content options you see once you hunt for one thing on Google. it is also however your specific page data shows up thus showing neatness once somebody shares your content on social media.

Note: Structured knowledge is taken into account technical SEO, however i am together with it here as a result of optimizing it creates a higher on-page expertise for guests.

Site design components visit the weather that conjure your {website|web web site} and site pages. However, you structure your web site will facilitate Google and different search engines simply crawl the pages and page content.

7. Page URLs

Your page URLs ought to be easy to digest for each readers and search engines. they’re conjointly vital once keeping your web site hierarchy consistent as you produce subpages, blog posts, and different styles of internal pages.

For example, within the higher than URL, “blog” is that the sub-domain, “hubspot.com” is that the domain, “sales” is that the directory for the HubSpot Sales web log, and “startups” indicates the particular path to it web log post.

Here are a couple of recommendations on the way to write SEO-friendly URLs:

Remove the additional, supernumerary words.

Use just one or 2 keywords.

Use HTTPS if doable, as Google currently uses that as a positive ranking issue.

8. Internal Linking

Internal linking is that the method of hyperlinking to different useful pages on your web site. (See however the words “internal linking” ar joined Associate in Nursingother|to a different} HubSpot web log post within the sentence above? that is an example.)

Internal linking is vital for on-page SEO as a result of internal links send readers to different pages on your web site, keeping them around longer and therefore telling Google your web site is effective and useful.

Also, the longer guests are on your web site, the longer Google needs to crawl and index your web site pages. This ultimately helps Google absorb additional data concerning your web site and probably rank it higher on the computer program results pages.

9. Mobile Responsiveness

Google started affirmative sites that are optimized for quicker mobile speeds — even for desktop searches.

It’s critical to decide on a web site hosting service, web site style and theme, and content layout that is decipherable and passable on mobile devices. If you are not certain concerning your own site’s mobile readiness, use Google’s Mobile-Friendly take a look at tool.

10. Site Speed

Whether viewed on a mobile device or desktop, your web site should be able to load quickly. once it involves on-page SEO, page speed counts big-time.

Google cares concerning user expertise 1st and foremost. If your web site masses slowly or haphazardly, it’s seemingly your guests are not planning to stick around — and Google is aware of that. Moreover, web site speed will impact conversions and ROI.

Check your website’s speed anytime mistreatment Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. If your web site is movin’ slow, examine five simple ways that to assist cut back Your Website’s Page Loading Speed.

Note: Mobile responsiveness and web site speed are thought-about technical SEO, however I am together with them here as a result of optimizing them creates a higher on-page expertise for guests. Now that you just perceive the various on-page SEO components, let’s speak through the steps of auditing and up your on-page SEO.

Crawl your web site.

Get an outline of all of your web site pages that search engines have indexed. For HubSpot customers, our Page Performance tool (under Reports) can permit you to try to this. If you are not mistreatment HubSpot, you’ll attempt employing a free tool like

Xenu’s link crawler.

After creeping your web site and commercialism the results into an surpass (or .csv) file, there’ll be 3 key columns of information that you just ought to focus on:

The web address (a.k.a. URL)

The page title

The page meta description

Copy and paste these 3 columns into your guide.

The URL ought to be glued into column B, the page title into column C, and therefore the description into column E.

Conduct AN SEO audit and outline your web site design.

Now that you just have a basic index of your web site within the guide, you will need to prepare and rate your websites. begin by process wherever inside your web site design your existing pages presently sit.

Do this in column A. Note whether or not a page is your homepage (ideally you will only have one in all those), a page in your primary (or secondary) navigation menu, an inside page, and so on.

Update URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions.

Review your current URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions to check if they have change.

Put Your On-Page SEO to Work

Once you finalize your SEO plans, implement these changes on your website or pass them along to someone to implement for you. This will take time to complete, so aim to work on 5 to 10 pages per week.