What Is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is one of the most important factors in search engine optimization. On-page SEO (also referred to as onsite SEO) is the practice of optimising web pages to improve your website's search engine rankings and earn organic traffic. In addition to publishing relevant, high-quality content, on-page SEO includes optimising your headlines, tags (title, meta and header), and images.

How to Optimize Page Titles and Meta Descriptions

Use Distinct Title Tags for Each Page of Your Website

The title tag is the most important component of your site's web page, as it's what people see when they search for something on Google. It’s also used by browsers to determine if the page you want them to see is relevant or not. If you have more than one version of the same exact content across different pages, then make sure that each page has a unique title tag.

Title Tags Are An Important Aspect of Search Engine Optimization

Title tags are an important aspect of search engine optimization. They are the first thing that people see when they search for something, and they're also used by search engines to determine what content is relevant for a given query.

In order to rank highly in SERPs (search engine results pages), you must have both a compelling title tag and a compelling description tag that effectively communicates what your website or product is about.

Use Search Intent To Optimize Your Titles

The first step in optimizing your title tag is to use search intent to help you determine what keyword(s) you should use. Search intent refers to the type of action that a user takes before they perform a search on Google or another search engine, and it can be broken down into 3 categories:

• Informational: Users are looking for information on a specific topic or product.

• Navigational: Users are looking for specific pages within your website.

• Transactional: Users looking to complete an online transaction with your business (e.g., buying something)

Using Intent Keywords for Searchers

When people are searching for something, they already know what they want. They may not be able to verbalize it, but their brains are primed to look for certain keywords in order to find what they need. That means that you have to take into consideration searcher intent while writing both titles and descriptions.

• Use the right keywords: Make sure that your title tag contains keywords that people would use when searching for your content, but don't overdo it! You don't want to add hundreds of different keywords in an attempt to rank higher on search results pages (SERPs), because Google will penalize you by ranking lower than other sites with more relevant content.

• Use them correctly: Keywords should comprise about 50% of both titles and descriptions—so make sure there isn't anything else distracting from those key terms! If someone's looking for information about airplanes, then make sure you're using "airplanes" as much as possible in both areas where it makes sense (i.e., not every single word). This tip might seem obvious, but many SEO experts overlook this point because they're too focused on making sure everything else looks great before worrying about whether there are enough terms present throughout each piece of text.

SEO Content Optimization

Describe The Content Of The Page Accurately

The description tag should be short and concise but still describe the content of your page accurately and in a way that makes sense to a reader. It’s also important to use keywords in the description tag, but not too many—you don't want your Google search listing to look like spam because you're just jamming keywords everywhere. This is vital for on-page SEO.

For e-commerce websites, it's useful to include dynamic options for large sites with many products (like Amazon). The Amazon search engine will automatically pull from this field when someone searches for a specific product on their site.

Use Your Target Keyword in content

Use at least 100 words' worth of text before using your target keyword again. Headings (H1 tags), subheadings, and other header tags should be optimized. Headlines are the most important parts of your page. They're what people see when they visit your site and what Google uses to determine what your page is about. That's why it's important to use keywords and phrases that are relevant to your content without making them hard to read.

Keyword Density

The keyword density is the percentage of the total number of words on a page that are relevant to your topic. If you include too many keywords in your content, it can look unnatural and appear forced. It's best to keep keyword density between 3-5% (1 in every 30–50 words).

Avoid using exact phrases as they're not likely to be discovered by search engines, which means they won't be indexed. Instead, use variations including synonyms and long-tail keywords instead.

However, don't overdo it: You don't want the first paragraph of your article to just be "target keywords" repeated over and over again! This will make it look suspiciously unnatural and give readers a negative impression of your website's quality.

Optimize Your URLs for SEO

You’re probably aware that URLs are the most important part of your website. But did you know that they’re also the most likely to be clicked on in search engines? That’s right, not only do they need to be optimized for SEO, they also need to be optimized for user experience.

Here are a few tips:

• Use keywords in your URL. This will help search engines understand what your page is about and make it easier for humans to find it as well. However, make sure not to overdo it—you don't want users to get confused or frustrated by all those keywords!

• Avoid using too many keywords. Also, avoid using numbers or special characters in your URLs; this makes them difficult for both bots and humans!

Use External (Outbound) links

External links, or "outbound" links, are links that point to other websites. They are used to help your website get ranked on Google and also help you get traffic from other sites. They can also help you build relationships with other sites by linking back to them and sharing their content on social media channels. This is important because Google gives more weight to high-quality sites when determining how it ranks pages within a search result page (SERP).

Use Internal Links for Conversions

• Use internal links for conversions Internal links are links that point to a page on your own website. Internal links are especially important for conversion rates because they help users find their way around your site and convert more easily.

• Keep the number of links per page to a reasonable amount.

• Incorporate an organic mix of internal, external, and inbound links.This can help increase the PageRank of your site.

How To Boost Your On-Page SEO With E-A-T

Your Content Has To Provide Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness

The expert, authority and trustworthiness (E-A-T) factor is a guideline that Google uses to determine the quality of your content. It is important to have a strong understanding of the target audience and their pain points. You can then create content that provides value and solves their problems. This will help build trust with customers, so they are willing to do business with you.

If you can build trust with your audience by providing them with great content and responding quickly to their questions or concerns, you'll create an invaluable asset for yourself. By adding value to your audience, you build a strong reputation.

Featured Snippets & Rich Snippets

Featured snippets are a way for Google to display search results in a special box at the top of the search results page. This box has more information about your business and can be used to help people find content from you that is more relevant to them.

Rich snippets are similar to featured snippets except they appear in regular search results below the map result or above the "Local" heading (depending on whether it’s local or not). Rich snippets can contain anything that appears in your listing details, including location, phone number, and hours of operation.

In essence, on-page SEO means that your content needs to actively be helpful to Google and searchers. It needs to answer questions rather than lead with keywords. It needs to be read by humans but can also be easily crawled by Google. If you do those two things well, then your content will be seen as valuable by Google and it will rank higher in search results.

This article was first published at https://topclick.co.za/a-detailed-guide-to-on-page-seo/