Welcome to the on-page SEO crash course, made for beginners!
Quick definition: On-page SEO is all about optimizing everything on your website—like your content, titles, and images—to help search engines understand and rank your page better. It’s the foundation of getting seen online.
On-Page SEO: Key Takeaways
- SEO Basics: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps search engines understand your webpage, improving rankings and click-throughs.
- On-Page SEO Importance: On-page SEO forms the foundation of your site’s SEO strategy, affecting your page’s readability by search engines like Google.
- Keyword Research: Identify keywords your audience searches for. Use tools like Semrush, Wordstream, and Google Trends for free research.
- Page Titles & Meta Descriptions: Use keywords in page titles (40-60 characters) and meta descriptions (140-156 characters) to help both search engines and users understand the content.
- Heading Tags (H1, H2, etc.): Use a hierarchical structure for headings, include relevant keywords, and ensure only one H1 tag per page.
- Text Content: Keep the text simple, incorporate keywords naturally, and aim for readability.
- Images: Optimize images by resizing, converting them to WebP, and adding alt text with keywords.
- Schema: Consider using schema to help search engines better understand your site and improve your search result appearance.
If you know nothing about SEO or are building your website for the first time, this article is for you. I promise to keep things as simple as possible so that even a third grader can understand how to optimize their web pages.
Let’s get into it.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – What is it?
SEO is pretty simple. You’re making your web page easy for search engines to understand.
Search Engine: Google, Bing, Edge, Explorer, Firefox, etc.
In theory, the easier it is for search engines to read your page, the higher it’ll rank. The higher you rank, the more clicks you get.
These days, the algorithm is much more complicated than getting search engines to understand your page.
FOR EXAMPLE, Google has over 200 ranking factors. Not all of them have to do with on-page structure.
However, you’re dead in the water if Google can’t read your page. You’ll have more luck riding a bull than ranking on the first page.
That’s why on-page SEO is at the bottom of the SEO pyramid. If your foundation is off, your whole pyramid is shaky.
But before you start building your page, you have to do some research. This is where keywords come in.
Keyword Research 101
Before you make your page, you have to know what people want. Specifically: What keywords are people searching in the search bar?
This is pretty simple.
- If you run a coffee shop, you can bet people are searching “coffee x city”
- If you want to start a protein powder brand, people are searching for “protein powder”
- If you run a landscaping company, people are searching “landscaping company x city”
You get the point.
Some industries are a bit more complicated and require more research. If you’d like to do some research (which you should), here are some free resources:
- https://www.semrush.com/ (THE BEST, but you only get 10 searches/day)
- https://www.wordstream.com/keywords?camplink=mainnavbar&campname=KWT&cid=Web_Any_MegaMenu_Keywords_KWTool_KWTool
- https://trends.google.com/trends/
Keywords are important because you’re going to use them on your website. If Google understands that a page is about a coffee shop (because the page has coffee shop keywords all over it) it’s a lot more likely to rank when someone searches “coffee shop”
Action Step: If you have a website or a business, take 30 minutes to do some brainstorming.
- What are YOUR clients searching for?
- What keywords should you put on your website?
- What questions are people asking about your service or product?
IMPORTANT NOTE: Keywords are measured in 2 ways: difficulty and search volume.
Keyword Difficulty: An estimate of how difficult it would be to rank for a specific keyword, graded from 0-100. 0 is easy, 100 is impossible.
FOR EXAMPLE: ranking for “protein powder” would be very difficult (58). You’d be competing with huge, national brands with all the money. It would take a TON of effort to rank for this term. Pick something more specific. The more specific, the easier it gets.
Search Volume: Estimated monthly searches. The more searches is better (duh). But usually, the more searches the harder it is to rank for (duh).
Optimally, find keywords with low difficulty and high search volume. This is the golden zone.
Once you have your keywords, you’re ready to start building your web page.
Page Titles and Meta Descriptions For On-Page SEO
I’m assuming you have the keywords for your business. If not, it’s all good. I’m not mad, just disappointed.
JK.
Let’s get into page titles.
Page Titles
“Landscaping Jefferson City MO” is the page title.
Parameters: Keep the length between 40-60 characters.
YOU DON’T NEED YOUR BUSINESS NAME IN THE PAGE TITLE. Your website should already be named whatever your business is. Page titles exist to tell Google (and the users) what pages are about.
Use your page titles for keywords.
For example, if you’re a coffee shop in Columbia, MO, your title should look something like:
Coffee Shop | Columbia, MO – Acola Coffee
- “Coffee Shop | Columbia, MO” is the page title
- “Acola Coffee” is the site title
OR
Landscape Construction Company | Columbia, MO – Liberty Landscape
- “Landscape Construction Company | Columbia, MO” is the page title
- “Liberty Landscape” is the site title
Include the keyword you want to rank for FIRST THING in your title.
Google gives more weight to the keywords that appear first. Now for metas.
Meta Descriptions
“We offer a comprehensive list…” is the meta description.
Meta descriptions tell both Google and users what the page is about.
Parameters: Keep it between 140-156 characters.
Give a description of the page and include whatever keyphrase you want to rank for. Simple enough. Make sure it’s interesting enough to click on, meta descriptions play a hand in CRO (conversion rate optimization).
That’s it. You’re ready to move on to headings.
Heading Tags For On-Page SEO
Heading tags are an HTML element of a web page. It looks like <h1> or <h2> or <h3> etc. Considering that Google reads HTML, it’s important to have these on point. Google puts more weight on headings than on text. There are really only a few basic things to know:
- Headings should have a hierarchical structure
- Headings should include any important keywords
- If you’re a local business, include your city in your headings
Hierarchical Structure
Make sure when you build your page, the headings follow a numerical order. Also, each page should ONLY HAVE ONE H1 heading. Google puts a lot of weight on the H1, so if you have more than one, it’s confusing.
Example of hierarchical structure:
Have an H1, then the H2s describe the H1, the H3s describe their H2, etc. Frankly, this isn’t a BIG ranking factor, but it’s part of having clean on-page SEO.
Put Keywords in Your Headings
This is self-explanatory. If you have a coffee shop, your headings should have coffee shop related keywords.
COFFEE SHOP EXAMPLE:
<h1> Columbia’s Coffee Shop</h1>
<h2>The Best Place to Drink Coffee in Columbia</h2>
<h2>Types of Coffee We Serve</h2>
<h3>Espresso</h3>
<h3>Latte</h3>
<h2>Our Coffee Shop Locations in Columbia, MO</h2>
You get the point. No hate on The Grind, but here’s what your headings shouldn’t look like:
The structure isn’t hierarchical and the page has THREE H1 tags. That’s outrageous. But they’re still ranking very well for “coffee shop columbia mo” so other factors are holding up the page.
Here’s a slightly better example:
As you can see, the headings follow a hierarchical structure, but they are missing keywords in the headings. They don’t even have the business name. That’s an area they could improve.
Local Business
If you’re a local business, put your city in your headings.
Do your best to signal to Google WHERE YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU DO.
For example, Ryan Lawn ranks #1 for “landscaping company kansas city mo” and here is a picture of their heading structure:
As you can see, their structure isn’t hierarchical but they do a good job incorporating the “Kansas City” keyphrase and other landscaping keywords.
Here’s an example of a page I built trying to rank for the same keyword:
Much more hierarchical with naturally incorporated keywords. This page is missing backlinks (which is why it isn’t ranking very well) but the on-page is on point.
Pro tip: don’t stuff keywords into your headings. If it’s weird to read, you’re overdoing it. Incorporate keywords as naturally as you can. But I’ve seen some keyword-stuffed pages performing well.
RULE OF SEO: It depends.
Up next are text and images.
Text and Images For On-Page SEO
Text <p>
The text is pretty simple. Keep it easy to read (3rd grade reading level – good for the user) and incorporate your keywords throughout the text (good for Google).
Google puts more weight on headings (when it comes to keywords) so you don’t have to overdo it in the text (that’s because bots absolutely suck at comprehending text, which is why it scans the headings).
Important Note: Google uses NLP (Natural Language Processing) to read pages. An explanation would make it way more complicated than it needs to be. All this means is that if Google sees a page about “Nike Shoes” it’ll expect a certain number of keyphrase variations like “Nike Sneakers” or “Nike Running Shoes.”
Just write like a human and you’ll be fine. If you’re using AI, prompt the AI to sound more human. Use GPT 4. Don’t use that crappy free version. I can smell that from a mile away, and so can most people.
Also, don’t stress about your page length. Longer pages tend to perform better, but the variation is negligible. I’ve seen short pages ranking well and long pages ranking well. And vice versa. Convey what you need to convey, make the user happy, and you’ll be fine.
Images – The Big Kahuna
How fast your page loads has a big impact on both SEO and conversions. Faster is better. The biggest problem I’ve encountered with slow websites is unoptimized images. This problem is easy to avoid if you start off on the right foot.
Rule 1: Properly size images. You don’t need a 1200 x 900 pixel image for a thumbnail of a person. Cut the size down here: https://imageresizer.com/
Rule 2: Make sure your images are WebP. Most images on the internet are PNG, JPG, or JPEG. These old formats take longer to load. Convert your images to WebP here: https://cloudconvert.com/
Rule 3: Add Image Alt Text: Google sucks at understanding things, and literally can’t SEE your website. That’s why you have to add an image alt text. It’s a description of the image for Google. Feel free to add your keywords to these (but don’t overdo it). Most website builders will give you an option to add image alt text, just look for it when you add an image.
Pro Tip: Many website builders have plugins that automatically optimize images. On WordPress I use TinyPNG. I love it. If you don’t use WordPress, you’ll have to do some digging.
Now you’re ready for schema.
Schema (if you’re feeling fancy)
Schema is just what search engines read to quickly understand what your site is about. There’s debate in the SEO community about the impact that schema has on rankings, but you should include it (why not?).
Here’s a visual example of schema:
Here’s a really helpful article that describes it much better than I can: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-use-schema-for-local-seo-a-complete-guide/294973/
The Yoast SEO plugin on WordPress has an automatic schema generator, and there are a bunch of schema generator plugins you can install.
If you have schema set up on your website, it makes your search result appearance much more detailed. Example:
Fundamentally, the more Google understands your website, the more it can present to the user. Google understands schema. If you have a ton of information in your schema, Google will have a ton of information to present. This leads to higher rankings. Usually. Like I said, there’s an ongoing debate in the SEO community.
Wrapping Up
on-page SEO is the foundation of a successful website. It might seem a little overwhelming at first, but once you get the basics down, it’s just about sticking to a few key rules.
Focus on your keywords, structure your content properly, and make sure your site is easy for search engines (and people) to read. If you follow the steps in this guide, you’ll be setting your website up for success.
Keep things simple, stay consistent, and remember—it’s all about making Google’s job as easy as possible. Now, go start optimizing!
On-Page SEO Frequently Asked Questions
What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO refers to optimizing elements directly on your website (like titles, content, and images) to make it easier for search engines to understand and rank.
What is off-page SEO vs on-page SEO?
On-page SEO focuses on the content and structure of your site. Off-page SEO deals with external factors, like backlinks and social media signals, that affect your rankings.
How do I do an on-page SEO analysis?
Start by reviewing key elements: keywords, titles, meta descriptions, headings, content, and images. Make sure everything is optimized for search engines and aligned with your target keywords.
What is on-page SEO keyword optimization?
Keyword optimization involves strategically placing relevant keywords throughout your content, headings, titles, and meta descriptions so that search engines can understand what your page is about.
What are the three components of on-page SEO?
The main components are:
- Content – relevant, well-structured, and keyword-optimized.
- HTML – titles, meta descriptions, and headings.
- Technical SEO – page speed, mobile-friendliness, and site structure.
How do I optimize on-page SEO?
Follow best practices: use relevant keywords, structure your headings properly, optimize images, and ensure your site is fast and mobile-friendly.
Which tool is used for on-page SEO?
Tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Google Search Console help analyze and optimize on-page SEO elements.
What are the 3 C’s of SEO?
The 3 C’s are:
- Content – Create valuable and relevant content.
- Code – Ensure clean and efficient website code.
- Credibility – Build trust with backlinks and user engagement.
Which is not an example of on-page SEO?
Backlinks are not part of on-page SEO. They’re an example of off-page SEO, which involves getting links from other websites to yours.