On-Page SEO

Learn the difference between on-page and off-page SEO and how the changes you make to the various elements of your website pages could make all the difference when striving to meet SEO goals.

On-Page SEO Contents

1. What is On-Page SEO?
2. What is the Difference Between On-Page and Off-Page SEO?
3. Laying the Foundations for SEO With Good Site Architecture
4. Types of On-Page SEO
   • Content
   • Blogging
   • Page titles, H1s and Meta Descriptions
   • Images
5. How to Measure and Report on the Success of Your On-Page SEO
6. Conclusion

What is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO refers to anything you do on a webpage to improve the SEO of that page. There are three pillars to SEO - architecture, content and links. For the most part, on-page SEO focuses on content, but site architecture and a good link building strategy also tap into your on-page content.

What is the Difference Between On-Page and Off-Page SEO?

The difference between on-page and off-page SEO is fairly straightforward - if on-page SEO is anything you do on the webpage itself to improve it, then off-page SEO is - you guessed it - all the things you do away from the page to help it to rank.

Off-page SEO includes on-SERP SEO - this is your presence on Google’s search results pages. The rise in zero-click searches means it’s important to take up as much SERP real estate as possible. You can do this by working on areas such as local SEO and featured snippets.

But here we’re going to focus on on-page SEO, which covers main body content, blogging, page titles, H1 tags, meta descriptions, images, image alt tags and more.

Laying the Foundations for SEO with Good Site Architecture

It would be remiss of us to begin talking about on-page SEO without first giving a nod to site architecture. While this is more on the web development side than in the hands of day-to-day marketers, good site architecture is the foundation on which to build all other marketing activities.

The structure of a website, the navigation, speed, and other technical aspects all come under the umbrella of site architecture. Although marketers may not necessarily need to know all the nuts and bolts of web development, it's good to have a rough understanding of how things work, why these elements are important for SEO, and when they may need to be improved. Here are some elements of technical architecture and resources for learning more about them:

• Page speed: The time your page takes to load carries a lot of weight with Google in terms of how highly your website will be ranked on SERPs. Here’s a refresher on the importance of page speed. You can speed up your website with the help of lazy loading and increase page speed on mobile with AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages).
• Robots.txt files: These tell search bots which pages to crawl and which to avoid, so it’s useful to know how robots.txt files work.
• Good website structure: Your website needs to be easy for both humans and bots to navigate. Yoast explains why this is so important for SEO.
• Mobile-first design: Google’s mobile-first indexing means it’s more important than ever to have a mobile-friendly website.
• Site maps: Site maps are another way to help Google to crawl and index your website and help improve your rankings. Find out how to use site maps with Search Engine Journal.
• Structured data: Also known as Schema markup, structured data helps Google to identify important information on your page, and while this can help with on-SERP SEO, it does so by pulling through content on your website to display in search results - so really this falls into both on-page and off-page SEO. This article from Moz explains further.

What are the Different Types of On-Page SEO?

Let’s take a closer look at the different ways you can improve your on-page SEO.

Content

Content is a huge part of SEO, and there are so many things you can do to improve your website content, climb up those rankings, get more visitors and reach your goals.

Firstly, any content improvements you make - whether to your core pages, product pages, blog posts or anywhere else on your website - will all hinge on your keyword research. See this comprehensive guide from ahrefs for how to get started with keyword research.

For those new to SEO content, Yoast offers a complete guide to SEO copywriting and WordStream offers this beginner’s guide.

If you’re an online retailer, your product pages are some of the most important pages on your website, and having good SEO content here is crucial for delivering conversions from organic visits. See our article SEO Best Practices for Retail Product Pages to find out how to optimise your product pages.

Don’t forget to consider what your visitors are looking for when they use certain search terms, and optimise your pages appropriately.  For example, a visitor asking a question might be better served by a blog page, while those using language that suggests they are ready to buy should land on product pages, and you’ll need to focus on the relevant keywords for each page. Read our blog post to discover How to Align Your SEO Content with User Intent.

Another important practice is to keep your content updated and regularly add new content to your website. This handy guide from Moz explains how Google’s algorithm evaluates fresh content and why new content is so important for SEO. For tips on keeping it fresh, see our blog post How To Improve Your SEO With Fresh Website Content.

Blogging

This talk of fresh website content leads us on to blogging - the ultimate way to provide your visitors with informative and engaging information and increase the amount of rich content on your website. Blogging on a regular basis is a great way to target more keywords and get more internal links on your website - both of which can help with your SEO efforts.

We recommend taking a look at Hubspot for all things blogging, so here is a comprehensive article from them on blogging for SEO.

But we also have many resources of our own to offer. First, here are 12 Ways To Make Your Blog Posts More SEO Friendly. To connect the dots for online retailers, since we have already mentioned the importance of optimising your product pages, here’s how to improve your blog posts - because yes, retailers need great blogs, too. And for every website with a blog, there is an opportunity to optimise your old blog posts, which shouldn’t stop serving a purpose after that first social media share. The age of your older blog posts can help with their SEO rankings, and it can pay to keep them updated and bring them out from the archives once in a while.

If you have trouble writing blog posts quickly, here are some tips for spending less time writing, without compromising on quality.

Page titles, H1s and Meta Descriptions

Moz offers some useful articles on writing page titles, meta descriptions, and H1s (links to each of these are on the left of the linked page). These are all elements that should contain the keywords you are targeting, so referring back to your keyword research is essential here.

Images

Images on your website can help or hinder your SEO, depending on your practices. Large images can slow down your website and impact your rankings, so we recommend using webp images to improve loading times. Optimising your image alt tags will also help you to appear in image searches.

How to Measure and Report on the Success of Your On-Page SEO

If you’re spending time and effort on improving your on-page SEO, you’ll want to know whether it’s all paying off. You’ll first need to know what you actually want to achieve with your SEO, and once you’ve identified some goals you’ll be able to measure how close you are to reaching them.

You may use several different tools to measure SEO performance, depending on whether you are measuring sessions, conversions, click-through rate or something else. Moz offers a course on using its tools, and there are also helpful articles on using Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

Conclusion: On-Page SEO is Essential for Meeting Your SEO Goals

Whether your website is for ecommerce or lead generation, it’s important to put the time and effort into making your on-page SEO content the best it can possibly be. On-page SEO includes everything you do on the page to increase traffic and conversions, from body content to page titles, and even the smallest change can make a world of difference and help towards meeting your goals.

Read our latest articles to find out more about On-page SEO