On-Page SEO: A Step-by-Step Guide to Optimizing Your Site

Over the years, on-page SEO practices have, for the most part, remained the same.

But recent advances in natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) have helped Google better understand web content and user search intent.

As a result, on-page SEO has become an even more effective way to communicate quality signals and drive clicks from organic search, even for newer websites with less authority and ranking. reputation.

However, on-page SEO also takes longer. Google's crawlers no longer search for a single keyword on the page. Google can now understand if a web page is original, insightful, detailed and written by expert authors.

Effective on-page SEO requires more time and investment if you want to see ranking success. Here's a breakdown of optimizing on-page elements to produce the greatest impact on your website.

What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing web pages to rank for specific keywords on the search engine results page (SERP). This is one of the best SEO strategies for site owners because webmasters have complete control over the content on their site.

Why is on-page SEO important?

The main benefit of on-page SEO is that it helps Google see your content as relevant and of high quality and promotes it more often in the SERPs.

On-page SEO supports your overall digital marketing efforts, leading to:

Higher organic clicks More web pages crawled and indexed by search engines Improved conversion rates Better quality content Better user experience Long term value And more! Basics of On-Page SEO

Mastering the fundamentals is the right way for you to start earning organic impressions and clicks. On-page optimization focuses on the content of a page and the invisible metadata that Google's crawlers rely on to understand web content.

High quality content and E-A-T from Google

Google wants to provide users with original content of the highest quality.

But what makes a web page high quality?

Google's Quality Rating Guidelines define how its web crawlers approach quality. These guidelines imply Expertise, Authority and Trust, also known as "Google's E.A.T".

Although not an official ranking factor, E.A.T. looks more like a guiding principle.

Google ranks web pages that display E.A.T. by qualities such as: Original and relevant analysis Authorship and expert sourcing Relevant external links to other trustworthy websites Inlinks (or backlinks) from other high quality websites High quality page experience

You can think of E.A.T. as a North Star for all your SEO efforts. You want your website to show expertise on a topic or topic (on-page SEO), authority through backlinks (off-page SEO) and therefore communicate to web crawlers that it is a trusted resource worth promoting in the SERP.

Satisfactory research intent

To rank for the keywords your target audience uses to find products and services like yours, your web page content must also satisfy their search intent.

In the era of NLP, this is even more important as updates to algorithms like Hummingbird, RankBrain, BERT, and MUM have helped Google better understand search intent.

Search intent can be broken down into four main types: Browsing: Users looking for a specific website or webpage. Informational: Users looking for more information or answers to their questions. Transactional: Users wishing to make a purchase. Commercial: Visitors who may not be ready to buy, but are searching with the intent to make a purchase.

The type of content you create should match the search intent of the target keyword. For example, Google is more likely to rank how-to guides or resource pages for informative keywords. It is also more likely to rank the product or...