How to Optimize Your Web Page for On-Page SEO
Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2024 7:20 am
On-page SEO helps increase the visibility of web pages on search engines, bringing more organic traffic to the site.
How to make web pages easier to navigate and read, thanks to good on-page optimization;
How to increase the authority of your web pages in your industry by using on-page SEO correctly.
Optimizing a web page means practicing on-page SEO. This activity refers to the optimizations that can be done directly on the pages of a website in order to improve its positioning on search engines.
On-page SEO consists of 6 steps:
Keyword research
Optimizing Page Titles
High quality content
Content structure
Using Image Tags
Site Speed
Keyword Research, the first step of on-page SEO
The basis of good on-page optimization begins with the search for keywords relevant to the topic of the article (or content), that interest your customers, also digging into why they search for them and how they search for them. Today, this type of research is called semantic web .
In fact, it must be taken into account that already in 2013, Google introduced the Hummingbird algorithm that focuses on search intent and context rather than specific keywords.
Thus, interest has shifted from keywords to search queries expressed in natural language (e.g. “job ads for computer expert”, “white basketball sneakers”, etc.) and defined as long tail keywords.
In the text The Art of SEO, written by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer and Jesse C. Sricchiola we read:
“From an SEO perspective, this means that the exact query a user is using may be less important than the intent behind it . While keyword research is still critical, creating pages that are optimized for specific keywords is less important than creating high-quality content that stands out. That’s because content addresses the need or question behind the query. [...] The majority of your keyword research should focus on the real meaning behind a query and why a user is searching for those terms in particular.”
On-Page SEO: Keywords and Related Words in the Snippet
It is essential to strategically insert keywords (and related terms) into the page starting from the snippet , composed of the metatitle, defined by Google title link , metadescription and url. These three elements appear in the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) and must be unique, that is, they are not replicated identically for each page of the site.
These are the first SEO elements that appear in the SERP, or the page that search engines return as a response to a query.
Typically a metatitle is between 60 and 70 characters long, including spaces, the main keyword is placed at the beginning of the title and the brand name is placed at the end, as in the example shown here.
Image containing text, screen, Character, line Description automatically generated
It should be noted that Google may also choose not to display the proposed title link, as well as the meta description which, according to a study, is rewritten by Google in at least 70% of cases , since it will use phrases contained in the text that are best suited to represent what it considers the best answers to the reader's query.
The meta description is an SEO element that appears in the snippet below the meta title and summarizes the content of the page in 140-160 characters including spaces. At least that's what Google reads. Bing, for example, reads 200 characters including spaces, while Yahoo stops at 165 characters. The URL must also include the keyword and must be "speaking" i.e. descriptive.
Role of Keywords in Headline and Text in On-Page SEO
The main keyword and related ones also appear in the headline, that is, the title in H1 format that appears at the top of the text. In this space, the content of the article is openly declared.
The subtitle, which appears below the headline, has the function of summarizing the main points of the content. Generally, related keywords are used.
The text is divided into paragraphs and each paragraph has an H2 title and, possibly, a subparagraph in H3. It can also be useful to use H4 headings to divide the text, if it serves to make the content more readable and to help search engines understand the structure of the article.
Internal Links and External Links: Role in On-Page SEO
The content of a web page is technically defined as hypertext , a definition that indicates the fact that the content is connected, thanks to a click, to other objects (texts, images, videos, audio) that represent other pages.
Internal links, that is, hyperlinks to internal pages of the same estonia whatsapp number data 5 million website, have a dual function:
indicate to the reader further information already present in the website archive;
increase the relevance of the page and all linked pages, which can be:
link from new article to well-placed old article;
link from a well-placed old article to the new article;
link from an article to a product service page;
link from an article to an expert's page;
External links, on the other hand, have the aim of indicating useful and valuable resources that may be of interest to readers, such as:
Anchor text, better if readable
A fundamental element of on-page SEO in the construction of internal link architecture is the anchor text , that is, the sequence of words that opens the link to the object that we intend to show to the reader.
An anchor text must be readable (so avoid the classic: click here) so it is better to prefer groups of words that make sense.
How to make web pages easier to navigate and read, thanks to good on-page optimization;
How to increase the authority of your web pages in your industry by using on-page SEO correctly.
Optimizing a web page means practicing on-page SEO. This activity refers to the optimizations that can be done directly on the pages of a website in order to improve its positioning on search engines.
On-page SEO consists of 6 steps:
Keyword research
Optimizing Page Titles
High quality content
Content structure
Using Image Tags
Site Speed
Keyword Research, the first step of on-page SEO
The basis of good on-page optimization begins with the search for keywords relevant to the topic of the article (or content), that interest your customers, also digging into why they search for them and how they search for them. Today, this type of research is called semantic web .
In fact, it must be taken into account that already in 2013, Google introduced the Hummingbird algorithm that focuses on search intent and context rather than specific keywords.
Thus, interest has shifted from keywords to search queries expressed in natural language (e.g. “job ads for computer expert”, “white basketball sneakers”, etc.) and defined as long tail keywords.
In the text The Art of SEO, written by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer and Jesse C. Sricchiola we read:
“From an SEO perspective, this means that the exact query a user is using may be less important than the intent behind it . While keyword research is still critical, creating pages that are optimized for specific keywords is less important than creating high-quality content that stands out. That’s because content addresses the need or question behind the query. [...] The majority of your keyword research should focus on the real meaning behind a query and why a user is searching for those terms in particular.”
On-Page SEO: Keywords and Related Words in the Snippet
It is essential to strategically insert keywords (and related terms) into the page starting from the snippet , composed of the metatitle, defined by Google title link , metadescription and url. These three elements appear in the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) and must be unique, that is, they are not replicated identically for each page of the site.
These are the first SEO elements that appear in the SERP, or the page that search engines return as a response to a query.
Typically a metatitle is between 60 and 70 characters long, including spaces, the main keyword is placed at the beginning of the title and the brand name is placed at the end, as in the example shown here.
Image containing text, screen, Character, line Description automatically generated
It should be noted that Google may also choose not to display the proposed title link, as well as the meta description which, according to a study, is rewritten by Google in at least 70% of cases , since it will use phrases contained in the text that are best suited to represent what it considers the best answers to the reader's query.
The meta description is an SEO element that appears in the snippet below the meta title and summarizes the content of the page in 140-160 characters including spaces. At least that's what Google reads. Bing, for example, reads 200 characters including spaces, while Yahoo stops at 165 characters. The URL must also include the keyword and must be "speaking" i.e. descriptive.
Role of Keywords in Headline and Text in On-Page SEO
The main keyword and related ones also appear in the headline, that is, the title in H1 format that appears at the top of the text. In this space, the content of the article is openly declared.
The subtitle, which appears below the headline, has the function of summarizing the main points of the content. Generally, related keywords are used.
The text is divided into paragraphs and each paragraph has an H2 title and, possibly, a subparagraph in H3. It can also be useful to use H4 headings to divide the text, if it serves to make the content more readable and to help search engines understand the structure of the article.
Internal Links and External Links: Role in On-Page SEO
The content of a web page is technically defined as hypertext , a definition that indicates the fact that the content is connected, thanks to a click, to other objects (texts, images, videos, audio) that represent other pages.
Internal links, that is, hyperlinks to internal pages of the same estonia whatsapp number data 5 million website, have a dual function:
indicate to the reader further information already present in the website archive;
increase the relevance of the page and all linked pages, which can be:
link from new article to well-placed old article;
link from a well-placed old article to the new article;
link from an article to a product service page;
link from an article to an expert's page;
External links, on the other hand, have the aim of indicating useful and valuable resources that may be of interest to readers, such as:
Anchor text, better if readable
A fundamental element of on-page SEO in the construction of internal link architecture is the anchor text , that is, the sequence of words that opens the link to the object that we intend to show to the reader.
An anchor text must be readable (so avoid the classic: click here) so it is better to prefer groups of words that make sense.