When we talk about On-page SEO, it involves techniques we apply within our web pages. Like, optimizing the content, titles, headings, and so on.
On-page SEO is the most important technique along with Technical and Off-page SEO.
The main purpose of optimizing your webpage is to help search engines and users have a better understanding of your content. And, hence search engines can rank your content for relevant searches.
If your webpage is not optimized properly, then search engines won’t have a better understanding of the content. Thus, they might consider your site of low quality.
So, on-pages SEO should be your primary focus.
Today, in this blog we will discuss the important On-page SEO checklist. We will have a quick overview of the major on-page factor.
So let’s get started.
1. High-Quality Content
There is no alternative to high-quality content. If your content is not valuable, then there is no chance you will rank.
So creating valuable and comprehensive content should be your focus.
Find out the process of creating rankable content on How to Create SEO Content?
2. Meta Titles and Descriptions
Google has confirmed that titles help in the ranking of your content. More specifically, it helps search engines understand your page.
It is good practice to use keywords that you are trying to rank for. But, it should be relevant to your content as well. Don’t just use keywords for the sake of optimizing only.
There is a mixed feeling about the meta description in the SEO community. This is because most of the time search engines ignore the meta description provided by you.
Based on the search query, search engines extract the description from the content. And, it keeps changing.
However, it doesn’t mean you should not provide the meta description. Google’s John Mueller has suggested to always provide the relevant description.
Here’s is how your title and description look on the search engine result page.
The rightly optimized title and description might encourage users to click on your site. So, many SEOs consider it one of the most important on-page SEO after content.
3. Headings and Subheadings
In old days, headings used to be the important ranking factors. This leads to the stuffing of keywords on headings and subheadings.
This is why they are not strong ranking factors today. However, they are still important when it comes to on-page optimization.
Headings and Subheadings are specified by HTML tags (H1, H2, …H6).
It has been found that Google checks the H1 tag to find what the content is about. Hence, people recommend using the heading of the content inside the H1 tag.
And, subsequent subheadings inside H2 or H3 tags.
A properly optimized heading and subheading will make your content scannable. And, users can quickly grasp information just using the heading and subheadings.
Hence, always use relevant and informative headings.
4. Image Optimization: Size, Title, Alt Text
There is no doubt that images help to make content more valuable and informative. And, in a way, it helps in ranking as well.
But just using images is not enough. The size of the images should be optimized. Otherwise, it will affect your page speed.
Besides, make sure the title and alternative text of the image is descriptive.
Alt text helps visually impaired people understand images. Also, in situations where images fail to load, the alternative text will be helpful to describe the image.
A good practice of using alt text is to describe what you see in the image.
5. URL Structure
Optimizing URLs might not be the direct ranking factor. But, it is definitely a strong ranking factor.
Just take these examples:
https://www.querynepal.com/onpage-seo-checklist
https://www.querynepal.com/post/1342
Which one will be better to read and understand?
You get the idea.
For optimization of URL
- keep is short and easy to remember
- use keywords in URL
6. User Experience
Search engines nowadays are improved a lot. They are focused a lot more on satisfying the user’s needs.
This makes the user experience a major SEO factor in recent times.
If your website is not providing a good experience to the people, then that will definitely affect your ranking.
When we talk about experience, it involves
- right fonts
- colors
- placement of sidebars, ads
- popups ads
- sign up options, and many more
Make sure to focus on providing the best experience to users. Search engines will appreciate it.
7. Site Structure
An optimized site structure will keep users on your site for a longer period of time. And, the longer people stay, the better it is.
The site structure is more focused on the accessibility of the site.
If people are leaving your site without traversing on other pages, then you should definitely consider improving the structure.
You should reduce the effort for navigating your site. This will encourage people to traverse your site more often.
So make sure you have organized your site content under proper categories and subcategories. This way all of your content will be findable easily and organized under.
The silo structure is one of the most popular structures for many businesses. Here is an example of a silo structure.
8. Breadcrumbs
If you don’t know, the breadcrumb is a navigation text that appears on the top of a page. For example,
It gives an idea of which page users are on the website. And, how can they get back to the home page and other pages?
Breadcrumbs also help in figuring out the structure of the site. This makes it easier to access different parts of the site. Thus helps in enhancing the user experience.
9. Schema Markups
Schema markups are used to help search engines have a better understanding of your site. Like if you use Review Schema, then search engines will include reviews for your webpage in the SERP.
Besides, schema markups will encourage people to click your website on the result page.
10. Internal and External Links
It is nearly impossible to provide all the information in a single post. So, you should always provide links to other resources that are relevant to the post.
The link can be internal and external.
Internal links help search engines discover other pages in the website. Also, you can pass link juice from one page to another page using internal links.
In the case of external links, make sure you always link to the high-quality content. The page you are linking to should provide some value to the user.
Otherwise, it will be treated as spammy links by search engines.
Conclusions
These are the basic on-page factor that can help you boost the ranking of your webpage.
It’s true that some of them are more important than others. But it doesn’t mean you should focus only on them.
Each one of them carry some sort of value. So make sure you optimize all of them.
